scholarly journals Deconstruction of the Construction: Derridean Study of Selected Shakespeare’s Comedies

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 90-120
Author(s):  
Seyyedeh Zahra Nozen ◽  
Pegah Sheikhalipour
Keyword(s):  
William Shakespeare ◽  
The Other ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Merchant Of Venice ◽  
Twelfth Night ◽  
The Merchant Of Venice ◽  
As You Like It ◽  
Historical Figure ◽  
The One

Since it was first introduced by Jacques Derrida in the late 1960s, deconstruction, as a method of reading, has been applied to literary texts by critics to reveal the hidden messages of texts and provide opportunities to rethink textual and cultural norms and conventions. While the western tradition has always prioritized tragedy over comedy due to its elegance and graveness, this research tends to focus on comedy as an entity in itself. Tragedy, especially in the Shakespearean sense of the word, has been considered by critics as a “construction” that is well-wrought and perfect in nature. Comedy, on the other hand, is notable for laughing at the laughable and mocking the unfit. Put differently, there has always been a latent, freewheeling “deconstruction” within comedy, especially the Shakespearean. There is, thus, an attempt here to prove, on the one hand, how comedy can be put forth not as an inferior genre but as a supplement to tragedy and, on the other, how comedy moves toward deconstruction and how it tends to subvert or deconstruct the constructions. Investigating a selection of Shakespeare’s comedies including As You Like It, The Merchant of Venice, and Twelfth Night, this study compares and contrasts Shakespearean comedy in light of some Derridean concepts. Along with it, Shakespearean ideas and concepts which are interconnected with those of Derrida are introduced and are buttressed through some meticulously chosen excerpts. Bearing in mind that Derrida is in a habit of deconstructing the so-called established creeds, Shakespeare’s texts are exposed to a deconstructive reading to examine how deceptively simple ideas are dealt with in his selected comedies. Also, as numerous enigmas have for years revolved around the personality of William Shakespeare, this study also aims to take up certain critical idioms of the Derridean canon, elaborate on them and then relate them to the selected plays from the Shakespearean oeuvre in order to disclose some personal aspects of Shakespeare’s personality as a historical figure.

scholarly journals Religion and violence: Shutup Shylock!

2018 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaco Beyers
Keyword(s):  
William Shakespeare ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Response ◽  
Merchant Of Venice ◽  
The Merchant Of Venice ◽  
Unique Identity ◽  
Religious Differences

Violence is not only because of religious differences. Violence is part of human nature. While expressing and living a unique identity, people may experience animosity from ‘the other’ in society. The natural human response upon infliction is retaliation. To this effect, the play of William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, is taken as an example of conflict in society because of social, financial and religious differences. From the plot in the play, it is deduced that violent actions beget violent responses. The Dutch philosopher, Hans Achterhuis, provides valuable information so as to provide perspectives on violence in society. Achterhuis suggests that instead of seeking the absence of violence in society, one should rather seek how to differ responsible and peaceful from one another. Violence cannot be ignored or eradicated. Violence can however be tamed by fighting with one another peacefully. Society is in need of volunteers who will act as powerful buffers between conflicting societies, thus preventing differences becoming reasons for violence.

scholarly journals Identity in Shakespeare

2012 ◽  
pp. 33
Author(s):  
Jay L. Halio
Keyword(s):  
King Lear ◽  
Merchant Of Venice ◽  
Romeo And Juliet ◽  
Twelfth Night ◽  
Her Family ◽  
The Merchant Of Venice ◽  
As You Like It ◽  
Course Of Action ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Antic Disposition

This paper surveys the problems of identity in a number of Shakespeare’s plays, such as The Taming of the Shrew, The Comedy of Errors, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Othello. In these plays as in many others, Shakespeare explores the complexity of identity, not only through the use of disguise, as in the major comedies, but also through the problems of self-knowledge. The latter issue is prominent and explicit in King Lear when, for example, Lear asks “Who is it that can tell me who I am?” The opening words of Hamlet, “Who’s there?” introduce the problem from the outset, and much of the play is given over to characters trying to discover who the others in the play really are. Is the Ghost an honest ghost, or “a goblin damned?” Is Hamlet really mad or just putting on an “antic disposition” as he struggles to discover his proper course of action as his father’s avenger? Is Kate really a shrew, or just made to act like one by her family and others?

Gender and Genre

2018 ◽  
pp. 327-341
Author(s):  
Michelle M. Dowd
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Merchant Of Venice ◽  
Female Agency ◽  
Twelfth Night ◽  
The Merchant Of Venice ◽  
As You Like It ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Material Conditions ◽  
Historical Moment

This chapter addresses the prevalence of strong female characters in Shakespeare’s comedies, situating them within recent scholarship on the multidimensional status, agency, and lived experience of Englishwomen of different social classes. In particular, the chapter considers female agency in the comedies through the lens of new materialist approaches to Shakespeare and gender. Attending to such materialist concerns as inheritance, property ownership, and domestic management helps illuminate the specific forms of female authority that are enabled and disabled in the comedies. Analysing selected comedies, notably Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona, this chapter argues that the perceived ‘strength’ of many of Shakespeare’s comic heroines is complexly interwoven with the material conditions of their historical moment.

The Economic and Social Effect of the Usury Laws in the Eighteenth Century

1933 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 197-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sybil Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Merchant Of Venice ◽  
Social Effect ◽  
The Merchant Of Venice ◽  
English Stage ◽  
The One

I have just been reading “Three lectures by the late Sir Israel Gollancz,” printed for private circulation and kindly lent to me by Dr. Hubert Hall, in which the following passage occurs: “Long before Shakespeare thought of dealing with the theme, when Shakespeare was still young—a school-boy—the story of the Jew with reference to the same story that we have in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice had been enacted on the English stage. As early as 1579 we have a reference to it, but the play was lost; we know it only from Gosson's reference.” The author goes on to explain that” in 1579 we have already two elements that make up The Merchant of Venice; the Pound of Flesh motive on the one hand and, on the other, the Choice of the Caskets, combined into one play, The Jew, ‘representing the greedinesse of worldly chusers, and the bloody minds of usurers.’

scholarly journals Reading Shakespeare's mind

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Sohmer
Keyword(s):  
William Shakespeare ◽  
Merchant Of Venice ◽  
Twelfth Night ◽  
The Merchant Of Venice ◽  
Inns Of Court

This book will come as a revelation to Shakespeare scholars everywhere. It reveals the identity of the playwright and Shakespeare’s colleague behind the mask of Jaques in As You Like It. It pinpoints the true first night of Twelfth Night and reveals why the play’s performance at the Inns of Court was a momentous occasion for Shakespeare. It also the identities Quinapalus, the Vapians, Pigrogromitus and Feste, as well as the ‘Dark Lady’ of the Sonnets and the inspiration for Jessica in The Merchant of Venice. And it solves Shakespeare’s greatest riddle: the meaning of M.O.A.I. in Twelfth Night. In sum, this book reveals William Shakespeare as a far more personal writer than we have ever imagined.

scholarly journals "The Bard and ‘the Other’: A Post-colonial Re-reading of Sir Thomas More, The Merchant of Venice and The Tempest"

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Damir Kahrić ◽  
Nađa Muhić
Keyword(s):  
William Shakespeare ◽  
The Other ◽  
Merchant Of Venice ◽  
Thomas More ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The Merchant Of Venice ◽  
The Tempest ◽  
Sir Thomas More ◽  
Binary Division ◽  
Shed Light

The purpose of this article is to shed light on the representation of ‘the Other’ in three Shakespearean dramas: Sir Thomas More, The Merchant of Venice and The Tempest. The article describes several Shakespearean characters through the prism of post-colonialism and, therefore, the paper is structured as the postcolonial re-reading of the aforementioned dramatic texts. William Shakespeare portrayed the sad fate of immigrants in Sir Thomas More, but the Bard also tackled the refugee issue which remains relevant for the contemporary period. Additionally, Shakespeare dramatized the position of the Jewish community in Venice through the portrayal of Shylock. The re-reading of The Tempest focuses on the process of colonisation and the Manichaean division within the conquered world. In conclusion, the article portrays experiences of those dramatic individuals stigmatised and subjugated by the colonial forces, thus allowing the readers to better understand the binary division within colonial systems.

Portia’s Pauline Perversion: The Merchant of Venice and Romans 1

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Will Stockton
Keyword(s):  
Married Couple ◽  
The Other ◽  
Merchant Of Venice ◽  
The Merchant Of Venice ◽  
The One

Paul’s sexed exception of Christ from the Christian prohibition against male bodily penetration vexes Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, a comedy about the power of marriage to simultaneously masculinize and Christianize. Dressed as a boy, Jessica elopes with Lorenzo, and later argues that she has thereby become a Christian. Also cross-dressed, Portia saves her husband’s friend Antonio from Shylock’s emasculating excision of flesh. Responding to Janet Adelman’s argument that the play shores up a Pauline ideology of Christian masculinity through Portia’s courtroom defeat of Shylock, this chapter juxtaposes contemporary queer biblical and Renaissance Protestant readings of Romans 1 to argue that the play instead perverts this ideology through its presentation of Christ as a penetrable eunuch in the character of Balthasar. As Portia/Balthasar’s ring trick opens the dyad of the married couple to the triad of married couple and friend, the “Pauline” distinction between monogamous, marital, Christian sexuality on the one hand, and sodomitical Jewish sexuality on the other, begins to erode.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document