Shakespeare's Violated Bodies: Stage and Screen Performance

by Pascale Aebischer

• ISBN13: 9780521829359
• ISBN10: 0521829356
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-06-14
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This timely study looks at the violation of bodies in Shakespeare's tragedies, especially as revealed (or concealed) in performance on stage and screen. Pascale Aebischer discusses stage and screen performances of Titus Andronicus, Hamlet, Othello and King Lear with a view to showing how bodies which are virtually absent from both playtexts and critical discourse (due to silence, disability, marginalisation, racial otherness or death) can be prominent in performance, where their representation reflects the cultural and political climate of the production. Aebischer focuses on post-1980 Royal Shakespeare Company and Royal National Theatre productions but also covers film adaptations and landmark productions from the nineteenth century onwards. Her book will interest scholars and students of Shakespeare, gender, performance and cultural studies.

Author Biography

Pascale Aebischer is Lecturer in Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature in the Department of English, University of Leicester.

Table of Contents

Prologue: The Gravedigger's daughter - a story of loss

Introduction: filling the empty space

1. Titus Andronicus: spectacular obscenities

2. 'Not dead? not yet quite dead?': Hamlet's unruly corpses

3. Murderous male moors: gazing at race in Titus Andronicus and Othello

4. En-gendering violence and suffering in King Lear

Epilogue: Polly goes to Hollywood - a success story

Appendix: Table of main productions cited.