Shakespeare's Monarchies : Ruler and Subject in The Romances

by Jordan, Constance

• ISBN13: 9780801486296
• ISBN10: 0801486297
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-10-01
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr

Summary

Constance Jordan looks at how Shakespeare's romances contributed to the cultural debates over the nature of monarchy in Jacobean England. Stressing the differences between absolutist and constitutional principles of rule, Jordan reveals Shakespeare's investment in the idea that a head of state should be responsive to law, and not be governed by his unbridled will. Conflicts within royal courts which occur in the romances show wives, daughters, and servants resisting tyrannical husbands, fathers, masters, and monarchs by relying on the authority of conscience. These loyal subjects demonstrated to diverse audiences Shakespeare's view that the vitality of the body politic, its dynastic future, and its material productivity depended a cooperative union of ruler and subject.

Author Biography

Constance Jordan is Professor of English at Claremont Graduate School.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Shakespeare's Romances and Jacobean Political Thought	p. 1
Pericles	p. 35
Cymbeline	p. 69
The Winter's Tale	p. 107
The Tempest, i	p. 147
The Tempest, ii	p. 175
Afterword	p. 211
Index	p. 219
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