Shakespeare, Machiavelli, and Montaigne Power and Subjectivity from Richard II to Hamlet

by Grady, Hugh

• ISBN13: 9780199257607
• ISBN10: 0199257604
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-02-13
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The four plays of Shakespeare's Henriad and the slightly later Hamlet brilliantly explore interconnections between political power and interior subjectivity as productions of the newly emerging constellation we call modernity. Hugh Grady argues that for Shakespeare subjectivity was a critical, negative mode of resistance to power--not, as many recent critics have asserted, its abettor.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Historicism and the Cultural Present in Shakespeare Studies: Subjectivity in Early and Late Modernity	1	(25)
A Shakespearian `Machiavellian Moment', 1595--1600: An Overview	26	(32)
The Discourse of Princes in Richard II: From Machiavelli to Montaigne	58	(51)
The Machiavellian World of Richard II	58	(24)
Modern Subjectivity in Richard II	82	(27)
Montaigne, Shakespeare, and the Construction of Modern Subjectivity	109	(17)
The Resistance to Power in 1 Henry IV: Subjectivity in the World	126	(54)
From Richard and Bolingbroke to Hal and Falstaff	126	(17)
Subjectivity, Carnival, and the Aesthetic: Falstaff in 1 Henry IV	143	(19)
The Prince's Self: Between Machiavelli and Montaigne	162	(12)
Audience, Ideology, and the Utopian in 1 Henry IV	174	(6)
The Reified Worlds of 2 Henry IV and Henry V	180	(63)
The Commodification of Subjectivity in 2 Henry IV	180	(24)
Dissonance and Dissidence in Henry V	204	(39)
Conclusion: Hamlet and the Tragedy of the Subject	243	(23)
Bibliography	266	(17)
Index	283