The subjects of this book are the subjects whose subjects are
themselves.
Narcissus so himself himself forsook,
And died to kiss his shadow in the brook.
In accusing the introspective Adonis of narcissistic
self-absorption, Shakespeare's Venus employs a geminative
construction - 'himself himself' - that provides a keynote for this
study of Renaissance reflexive subjectivity. Through close analysis
of a number of Shakespearean texts - including Venusand Adonis,
Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, and Othello - his book
illustrates how radical self-reflection is expressed on the
Renaissance page and stage, and how representations of the two
seemingly extreme figures of the narcissist and self-slaughterer
are indicative of early-modern attitudes to introspection.
Encompassing a broad range of philosophical, theological, poetic,
and dramatic texts, this study examines period descriptions of the
early-modern subject characterized by the rhetoric of reciprocation
and reflection. The narcissist and the self-slaughter provide
models of dialogic but self-destructive identity where private
interiority is articulated in terms of self-response, but where
this geminative isolation is understood as self-defeating, both
selfish and suicidal. The study includes work on Renaissance
revisions of Ovid, classical attitudes to suicide, the rhetoric of
friendship literature, discussion of early-modern optic theory, and
an extended discussion of narcissism in the epyllia tradition.
Sustained textual analysis offers new readings of major
Shakespearean texts, allowing familiar works of literature to be
seen from the unusual and anti-social perspectives of their
narcissistic and suicidal protagonists.
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