Russian Essays on Shakespeare and His Contemporaries

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Aleksandr Tikhonovich Parfenov, Joseph G. Price
University of Delaware Press, 1998 - Drama - 209 pages
In explaining the plays of Shakespeare to the audiences and readers of the former Soviet Union, the editors chose essays they thought were significant, in light of the historical and cultural perspectives they contained. These perspectives are felt necessary for a complete understanding of Shakespeare's plays by the modern reader. The outward-directed essays help explain the origins of Shakespeare's importance to Russian theater and literature in the nineteenth century, as well as his pervasive influence through decades of communism.

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Contents

The Synthesis of Genres in Shakespeares Plays
19
The Tragic in Shakespeares Works
38
NineteenthCentury Attitudes
78
Three Shakespearean Stories in Nineteenth Century Russia
97
Shakespeare and the Advent of Modern Prose
113
On the Typology of Contemporary Shakespearean Production
127
Metamorphoses Theatricality
133
A New Dating for Shakespeares The Phoenix and the Turtle and the Identification of Its Protagonists
146
The Pastoral in Marlowe Raleigh Shakespeare and Donne
185
List of Contributors
201
Index
204
Copyright

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Page 69 - O now, for ever, Farewell the tranquil mind ! Farewell content ! Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars, That make ambition virtue ! O, farewell ! Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump, The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife, The royal banner ; and all quality. Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war ! And O, you mortal engines, whose rude throats The immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit, Farewell ! Othello's occupation's gone ! lago.
Page 35 - The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils : The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus. Let no such man be trusted.
Page 120 - I have of late— but wherefore I know not— lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
Page 97 - He was the least of an egotist that it was possible to be. He was nothing in himself, but he was all that others were, or that they could become.
Page 36 - When that I was and a little tiny boy, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain; A foolish thing was but a toy, For the rain it raineth every day.
Page 35 - Ha, ha ! keep time. — How sour sweet music is When time is broke and no proportion kept ! So is it in the music of men's lives...
Page 188 - IF all the world and love were young, And truth in every shepherd's tongue, These pretty pleasures might me move To live with thee and be thy love.
Page 117 - Merciful Heaven, Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak Than the soft myrtle: but man, proud man, Drest in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he's most assured, His glassy essence, like an angry ape, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens, Would all themselves laugh mortal.
Page 188 - The shepherd swains shall dance and sing For thy delight each May morning: If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me and be my love.
Page 26 - If I do prove her haggard, Though that her jesses were my dear heart-strings, I'd whistle her off, and let her down the wind, To prey at fortune.

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