When the Theater Turns to Itself: The Aesthetic Metaphor in Shakespeare

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Bucknell University Press, 1981 - 238 pages
A metadramatic study of nine of Shakespeare's plays, focusing on aesthetic metaphors created by the union of the playwright, actor-character, and audience.

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Contents

Preface
9
Acknowledgments
27
Language for the Stage
54
A Midsummer Nights Dream
79
Art Perverted
104
As You Like
121
The Double Edge of Aesthetics
152
Love and the Imagination in Antony and Cleopatra
177
Release from the Theater
192
Copyright

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Page 59 - He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical fantasms, such insociable and point-devise companions ; such rackers of orthography, as to speak dout...
Page 178 - tis most certain, Iras. Saucy lictors Will catch at us, like strumpets ; and scald rhymers Ballad us out o' tune : the quick comedians Extemporally will stage us, and present Our Alexandrian revels : Antony Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness I
Page 89 - Yet nature is made better by no mean But nature makes that mean : so, over that art Which you say adds to nature, is an art That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry A gentler scion to the wildest stock, And make conceive a bark of baser kind By bud of nobler race : this is an art Which does mend nature, change it rather, but The art itself is nature.
Page 86 - ... stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand — How few ! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep — while I weep ! O God ! can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp ? O God ! can I not save One from the pitiless wave ? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream ? DREAM-LAND.
Page 101 - If we shadows have offended. Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber'd here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream...
Page 49 - tis the mind that makes the body rich ; And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds, So honour peereth in the meanest habit. What, is the jay more precious than the lark, Because his feathers are more beautiful ? Or is the adder better than the eel, Because his painted skin contents the eye ? O, no, good Kate ; neither art thou the worse For this poor furniture, and mean array.
Page 185 - O my love! my wife! Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath, Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty: Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks, And death's pale flag is not advanced there.
Page 161 - And let me speak to the yet unknowing world How these things came about: so shall you hear Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts, Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters; Of deaths put on by cunning and forc'd cause, And, in this upshot, purposes mistook Fall'n on the inventors' heads; all this can I Truly deliver.
Page 17 - But don't you see that the whole trouble lies here. In words, words. Each one of us has within him a whole world of things, each man of us his own special world. And how can we ever come to an understanding if I put in the words I utter the sense and value of things as I see them; while you who listen to me must inevitably translate them according to the conception of things each one of you has within himself. We think we understand each other, but we never really do.
Page 111 - Excellent wretch ! Perdition catch my soul, But I do love thee ! and when I love thee not Chaos is come again.

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