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A Fury in the Words: Love and Embarrassment in Shakespeare's Venice
Contributor(s): Berger, Harry (Author)

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ISBN: 0823241947     ISBN-13: 9780823241941
Publisher: Fordham University Press
OUR PRICE: $80.75  

Binding Type: Hardcover - See All Available Formats & Editions
Published: November 2012
Qty:
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Literary Criticism | English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh
- Literary Criticism | Shakespeare
- Drama | Shakespeare
Dewey: 822.33
LCCN: 2012029531
Physical Information: 0.7" H x 6" W x 9" L (0.95 lbs) 240 pages
Themes:
- Cultural Region - British Isles
Features: Bibliography, Table of Contents
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
Shakespeare's two Venetian plays are dominated by the discourse of embarrassment. The Merchant of Venice is a comedy of embarrassment, and Othello is a tragedy of embarrassment. This nomenclature is admittedly anachronistic, because the term "embarrassment" didn't enter the language until the late seventeenth century.

To embarrass is to make someone feel awkward or uncomfortable, humiliated or ashamed. Such feelings may respond to specific acts of criticism, blame, or accusation. "To embarrass" is literally to "embar": to put up a barrier or deny access. The bar of embarrassment may be raised by unpleasant experiences. It may also be raised when people are denied access to things, persons, and states of being they desire or to which they feel entitled.

The Venetian plays represent embarrassment not merely as a condition but as a weapon and as the wound the weapon inflicts. Characters in The Merchant of Venice and Othello devote their energies to embarrassing one another. But even when the weapon is sheathed, it makes its presence felt, as when Desdemona means to praise Othello and express her love for him: "I saw Othello's visage in his mind" (1.3.253). This suggests, among other things, that she didn't see it in his face.


Contributor Bio(s): Berger, Harry: -

Harry Berger, Jr., is Professor Emeritus of Literature and Art History at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His most recent books include Figures of a Changing World: Metaphor and the Emergence of Modern Culture and A Fury in the Words: Love and Embarrassment in Shakespeare's Venice (both Fordham).

Harry Berger, Jr., is Professor Emeritus of Literature and Art History and a Fellow of Cowell College at the University of California, Santa Barbara. A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he is the author of fourteen books, most recently Harrying: Skills of Offense in Shakespeare's Henriad (Fordham, 2016).


 
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