Shakespeare and the economic imperative : "What's aught but a 'tis valued?"

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Title:

Author:

Grav, Peter F.

ISBN:

9780415963169

9780203927915

Personal Author:

Grav, Peter F.

Publication Information:

New York [u.a.] : Routledge, 2008.

Physical Description:

VII, 207 S. ; 24 cm.

Series:

Studies in major literary authors

Contents:

The merchants of Ephesus and how money never really mattered -- Shakespeare's England : The merry wives of Windsor's bourgeois cash values -- My purse, my person : conflating the economic and the personal in The merchant of Venice -- The exchange economy of Measure for measure : you will needs buy and sell men and women like beasts -- Reconciling the two Timons : Shakespeare's philanthropist and Middleton's prodigal.

Subject Term:

Value in literature.

Capitalism in literature.

Ethics in literature.

Money -- Social aspects.

Interpersonal relations -- Economic aspects.

Copies:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Item Barcode	Shelf Number	Copy	Status
Searching... 1:IIEMSA	1:GEN-BOOK	33168025515392	822.33 G779S 2008	1	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Despite the volume of work Shakespeare produced, surprisingly few of his plays directly concern money and the economic mindset. Shakespeare and the Economic Imperative examines the five plays that do address monetary issues (The Comedy of Errors, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure and Timon of Athens), plays in which Shakespeare's view of how economic determinants shape interpersonal relationships progressively darkens. In short, what thematically starts out in farce ends in nihilistic tragedy. Working within the critical stream of new economic criticism, this book uses formal analysis to interrogate how words are used -- how words and metaphoric patterns from the quantifiable dealings of commerce transform into signifiers of qualitative values and how the endemic employment of discursive tropes based on mercantile principles debases human relationships. This examination is complemented by historical socio-economic contextualization, as it seems evident that the societies depicted in these plays reflect the changing world in which Shakespeare lived and wrote.