Shakespeare's Roman Trilogy - The Twilight of the Ancient World (Paperback)

Paul A. Cantor first probed Shakespeare's Roman plays Coriolanus, Julius Caeser, and Antony and Cleopatra in his landmark Shakespeare's Rome (1976). With Shakespeare's Roman Trilogy, he now argues that these plays form an integrated trilogy that portrays the tragedy not simply of their protagonists but of an entire political community. Cantor analyzes the way Shakespeare chronicles the rise and fall of the Roman Republic and the emergence of the Roman Empire. The transformation of the ancient city into a cosmopolitan empire marks the end of the era of civic virtue in antiquity, but it also opens up new spiritual possibilities that Shakespeare correlates with the rise of Christianity and thus the first stirrings of the medieval and the modern worlds. More broadly, Cantor places Shakespeare's plays in a long tradition of philosophical speculation about Rome, with special emphasis on Machiavelli and Nietzsche, two thinkers who provide important clues on how to read Shakespeare's works. In a pathbreaking chapter, he undertakes the first systematic comparison of Shakespeare and Nietzsche on Rome, exploring their central point of contention: Did Christianity corrupt the Roman Empire or was the corruption of the Empire the precondition of the rise of Christianity? Bringing Shakespeare into dialogue with other major thinkers about Rome, Shakespeare's Roman Trilogy reveals the true profundity of the Roman Plays.

General

Imprint:	University of Chicago Press
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	June 2017
Authors:	Paul A. Cantor
Dimensions:	228 x 152 x 21mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	302
ISBN-13:	978-0-226-46251-6
Categories:	Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political science & theory Books > Humanities > History > World history > BCE to 500 CE Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Plays & playwrights > 16th to 18th centuries > Shakespeare studies & criticism Books > History > World history > BCE to 500 CE Promotions
LSN:	0-226-46251-X
Barcode:	9780226462516

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