Romance and Reformation: The Erasmian Spirit of Shakespeare's Measure for MeasureIt examines an assumption central to Shakespeare's inherited humanist tradition: that literature, and particularly drama, is capable of promoting a better society and it finds Shakespeare interrogating this assumption, asking whether drama that has been fashioned according to reformist principles of the great humanist educator Erasmus can, after all, achieve the remediating effects it seeks. |
Contents
The Logos in the Humanist Rhetorical Tradition | 24 |
Measure for Measure as Comic Romance | 55 |
Fornication and Calumny The Conceptual Structure of Measure for Measure | 69 |
Factionalism and Social Reform The Dilemma of Humanist Drama | 88 |
The Rhetoric of the Logos in Measure for Measure | 102 |
Redemption and Damnation Measure for Measure and Othello as Contrasting Paired Visions | 150 |
Notes | 157 |
Works Cited | 176 |
Index | 185 |
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Common terms and phrases
Act Five action Angelo and Isabella audience authority bed-trick calumny Cambridge characters Christ Christian humanism Christian humanist classical Claudio comedy comic romance context D. H. Lawrence death Desiderius Erasmus disguise divine Dollimore drama Duke Vincentio Duke's dynamic Edited Elizabethan eloquence enforcement English Erasmian Erasmus Erasmus's Escalus fiction fornication Friar Friar Lodowick gelo grace Heraclitean Heraclitus Hooker human humanist rhetoric Iago Isabella James Jesus John judgment justice and mercy Lady Folly language LB IV literal literary Logos London Lucio Mariana means Measure for Measure mediating method Midsummer Night's Dream mind mirror moral Moria natural law Othello paradox person persuasion philosophical play play's playwright principle Puritan reciprocity redemption Renaissance role Saint scene Scripture sense sexual Shakespeare Survey Sileni slander society soul speak spirit Studies syphilis theatre things Thomas tion tradition truth University Press Vienna virtue vision words York