Book Daniel Swift - Shakespeare's Common Prayers : The Book of Common Prayer and the Elizabethan Age in MOBI, FB2, TXT
9780199838561 English 0199838569 A fascinating and highly orginal exploration of Shakespeare's great overlooked source, the Book of Common Prayer, Shakespeare's Common Prayersrevolves around Shakespeare's great overlooked source: the Book of Common Prayer, first published in 1549, whose appearance established Protestantism as the compulsory belief of the day. Written in a simple vernacular and incorporating familiar Catholic rituals, the book laid out the proper performance of church rites and services. And yet it was also highly disputed and constantly in flux; as Daniel Swift shows, the prayer book's history is one of passionately contested revision and of manic sensitivity to a verb or a turn of phrase. In the book's ambiguities and fierce contestations, Swift argues, William Shakespeare found the ready elements of drama: dispute over words and their practical consequences, hope for sanctification tempered by fear of simple meaninglessness, and the demand for improvised performance as a compensation for the failure of language to do what it appears to promise. Swift offers a study of Shakespeare at work: of his imagination at play upon a set of literary materials from which he both borrowed and learned, of his manipulation of the explosive chemistry of word and action that comprised early modern liturgy. Swift argues that the Book of Common Prayer mediates between the secular and the devotional, producing a tension that helps make Shakespeare's plays so powerful and exceptional. Tracing the prayer book's lines and motions throughAs You Like It, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, Othello, and particularlyMacbeth, Swift redirects scholarly attention to the religious heart of Shakespeare's work and time., Societies and entire nations draw their identities from certain founding documents, whether charters, declarations, or manifestos. TheBook of Common Prayerfigures as one of the most crucial in the history of the English-speaking peoples. First published in 1549 to make accessible the devotional language of the late Henry the VIII's new church, the prayer book was a work of monumental religious, political, and cultural importance. Within its rituals, prescriptions, proscriptions, and expressions were fought the religious wars of the age of Shakespeare. This diminutive book--continuously reformed and revised--was how that age defined itself. InShakespeare's Common Prayers, Daniel Swift makes dazzling and original use of this foundational text, employing it as an entry-point into the works of England's most celebrated writer. Though commonly neglected as a source for Shakespeare's work, Swift persuasively and conclusively argues that theBook of Common Prayerwas absolutely essential to the playwright. It was in theBook'sambiguities and its fierce contestations that Shakespeare found the ready elements of drama: dispute over words and their practical consequences, hope for sanctification tempered by fear of simple meaninglessness, and the demand for improvised performance as compensation for the failure of language to fulfill its promises. What emerges is nothing less than a portrait of Shakespeare at work: absorbing, manipulating, reforming, and struggling with the explosive chemistry of word and action that comprised early modern liturgy. Swift argues that theBook of Common Prayermediates between the secular and the devotional, producing a tension that makes Shakespeare's plays so powerful and exceptional. Tracing the prayer book's lines and motions throughAs You Like It, Hamlet, Twelfth Night,Measure for Measure, Othello, and particularlyMacbeth, Swift reveals how the greatest writer of the age--of perhaps any age--was influenced and guided by its most important book.
9780199838561 English 0199838569 A fascinating and highly orginal exploration of Shakespeare's great overlooked source, the Book of Common Prayer, Shakespeare's Common Prayersrevolves around Shakespeare's great overlooked source: the Book of Common Prayer, first published in 1549, whose appearance established Protestantism as the compulsory belief of the day. Written in a simple vernacular and incorporating familiar Catholic rituals, the book laid out the proper performance of church rites and services. And yet it was also highly disputed and constantly in flux; as Daniel Swift shows, the prayer book's history is one of passionately contested revision and of manic sensitivity to a verb or a turn of phrase. In the book's ambiguities and fierce contestations, Swift argues, William Shakespeare found the ready elements of drama: dispute over words and their practical consequences, hope for sanctification tempered by fear of simple meaninglessness, and the demand for improvised performance as a compensation for the failure of language to do what it appears to promise. Swift offers a study of Shakespeare at work: of his imagination at play upon a set of literary materials from which he both borrowed and learned, of his manipulation of the explosive chemistry of word and action that comprised early modern liturgy. Swift argues that the Book of Common Prayer mediates between the secular and the devotional, producing a tension that helps make Shakespeare's plays so powerful and exceptional. Tracing the prayer book's lines and motions throughAs You Like It, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, Othello, and particularlyMacbeth, Swift redirects scholarly attention to the religious heart of Shakespeare's work and time., Societies and entire nations draw their identities from certain founding documents, whether charters, declarations, or manifestos. TheBook of Common Prayerfigures as one of the most crucial in the history of the English-speaking peoples. First published in 1549 to make accessible the devotional language of the late Henry the VIII's new church, the prayer book was a work of monumental religious, political, and cultural importance. Within its rituals, prescriptions, proscriptions, and expressions were fought the religious wars of the age of Shakespeare. This diminutive book--continuously reformed and revised--was how that age defined itself. InShakespeare's Common Prayers, Daniel Swift makes dazzling and original use of this foundational text, employing it as an entry-point into the works of England's most celebrated writer. Though commonly neglected as a source for Shakespeare's work, Swift persuasively and conclusively argues that theBook of Common Prayerwas absolutely essential to the playwright. It was in theBook'sambiguities and its fierce contestations that Shakespeare found the ready elements of drama: dispute over words and their practical consequences, hope for sanctification tempered by fear of simple meaninglessness, and the demand for improvised performance as compensation for the failure of language to fulfill its promises. What emerges is nothing less than a portrait of Shakespeare at work: absorbing, manipulating, reforming, and struggling with the explosive chemistry of word and action that comprised early modern liturgy. Swift argues that theBook of Common Prayermediates between the secular and the devotional, producing a tension that makes Shakespeare's plays so powerful and exceptional. Tracing the prayer book's lines and motions throughAs You Like It, Hamlet, Twelfth Night,Measure for Measure, Othello, and particularlyMacbeth, Swift reveals how the greatest writer of the age--of perhaps any age--was influenced and guided by its most important book.