ENGLISH

Swearing and Perjury in Shakespeare's Plays

By Frances A. Shirley

Book information

Publisher
Taylor & Francis Group
Year
2005
ISBN
9781136565175, 9780415353069
LCC
PR3069.S94 -- S55 2005eb
Language
english
Format
EPUB
Filesize
1 MB (1078166 bytes)
Pages
189\0
Time added
2023-08-05 14:04:50
-- 1564-1616 -- Knowledge -- Manners and customs.ShakespeareWilliam

Description

First published in 1979. How do the elements of swearing and perjury work in Shakespeare's plays? What effect did Shakespeare intend when he wrote them? How did they contribute to the delineation of character? These questions are investigated by combining a history of ideas approach with close textual analysis. The book begins by bringing together material from a wide range of contemporary sources in order to create a sense of popular awareness of oaths in Queen Elizabeth's time. Out of this emerges a scale of the relative strength of various oaths, an awareness of the ways in which people regarded perjury, and an appreciation of the attempts to prohibit profanity. Shakespeare's work is then examined against this background.

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