Shakespeare And The Power Of Difference

The celebrity of Shakespeare is not just great; it is of a different kind. Along with the Shakespeare industry there exist other, more anarchic Shakespeares, as exemplified by rewritings, adaptations and alternative performances across a range of media. Shakespeare is thus both monolith and matrix. His language has the ability to inspire new meanings and withhold final closure, remaining in a creative state of flux. This volume — mainly addressed to Italian graduate students of English — combines cultural reflections and close readings, with the aim to trace difference in the early modern inscriptions of Shakespeare’s language. The surveys revisit established views on Shakespeare’s history to shed light on cultural facets that reference books do not normally contemplate. The readings focus on a selection of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets at different but complementary levels: Alessandra Marzola engages issues of Time and of Death through readings of Hamlet and Sonnets 60 and 73.