A fury in the words : love and embarrassment in Shakespeare's Venice / Harry Berger, Jr.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Berger, Harry.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. Merchant of Venice.

Shakespeare, William.

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. Othello.

Embarrassment in literature.

Love in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (239 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Fordham University Press, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Shakespeare's two Venetian plays are dominated by the discourse of embarrassment. The Merchant of Venice is a comedy of embarrassment, and Othello is a tragedy of embarrassment. This nomenclature is admittedly anachronistic, because the term "embarrassment" didn't enter the language until the late seventeenth century. To embarrass is to make someone feel awkward or uncomfortable, humiliated or ashamed. Such feelings may respond to specific acts of criticism, blame, or accusation. "To embarrass" is literally to "embar" to put up a barrier or deny access. The bar of embarrassment may be raised by unpleasant experiences. It may also be raised when people are denied access to things, persons, and states of being they desire or to which they feel entitled. The Venetian plays represent embarrassment not merely as a condition but as a weapon and as the wound the weapon inflicts. Characters in The Merchant of Venice and Othello devote their energies to embarrassing one another. But even when the weapon is sheathed, it makes its presence felt, as when Desdemona means to praise Othello and express her love for him: "I saw Othello's visage in his mind" (1.3.253). This suggests, among other things, that she didn't see it in his face.

Contents:

Mercifixion in The merchant of Venice: the riches of embarrassment

Introduction

Negotiating the bond

Antonio's blues

Curiositas: the two Sallies

Negative usury and the arts of embarrassment

Negative usury: Portia's ring trick

Portia the embarrasser

The archery of embarrassment

The first Jason

A note on verse and prose in Act 1

Another Jason

Portia cheating

Portia's hair

The siege of Belmont

Covinous casketeers

Moonlit maundering

Coigns of vantage

Standing for judgment

Standing for sacrifice

"Here is the money": Bassanio in the bond market

Twilight in Belmont: Portia's ring cycle

Death in Venice

Three's company: contaminated intimacy in Othello. Prehistory in Othello

Othello's embarrassment in 1.2 and 1.3

The proclamation scenes: Act 2 scenes 2 and 3

Desdemona on Cyprus: Act 2 scene 1

Dark triangles in 3.3

Desdemona's greedy ear

Impertinent trifling: Desdemona's handkerchief

The Emilian trail

Iago's soliloquies

Othello's endgame

The fury in her words.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

0-8232-4198-X

0-8232-4620-5

0-8232-4197-1

OCLC:

823654940