This engaging book provides in-depth discussion of the various influences that an audience in 1607 would have brought to interpreting ‘Antony and Cleopatra’. How did people think about the world, about God, about sin, about kings, about civilized conduct? Learn about the social hierarchy, gender relationships, court corruption, class tensions, the literary profile of the time, the concept of tragedy – and all the subversions, transgressions, and oppositions that made the play an unsettling picture of a disintegrating world lost through passion and machination.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Introduction; Prologue; 1. The Historical Context; 2. The Elizabethan World Order: From Divinity to Dust; 3. Sin, Death and the Prince of Darkness; 4. The Seven Cardinal Virtues; 5. Kingship; 6. Patriarchy, Family and Gender Relationships; 7. Man in His Place; 8. Images of Disorder: The Religious Context ; 9. The Context of Tragedy; 10. ‘O’erflowing the Measure’: Restraint and Excess; 11. Infinite Variety: Isis or Strumpet?; 12. Rome versus Egypt: Gendering the State; 13. Literary Context; 14. Political Context; Notes; Bibliography; Index