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Often set in domestic environments and built around protagonists of more modest status than traditional tragic subjects, 'domestic tragedy' was a genre that flourished on the Renaissance stage from 1580-1620. Shakespeare, 'Othello', and Domestic Tragedy is the first book to examine Shakespeare's relationship to the genre by way of the King's and Chamberlain's Men's ownership and production of many of the domestic tragedies, and of the genre's extensive influence on Shakespeare's own tragedy, Othello. Drawing in part upon recent scholarship that identifies Shakespeare as a co-author of Arden of Faversham, Sean Benson demonstrates the extensive-even uncanny-ties between Othello and the domestic tragedies. Benson argues that just as Hamlet employs and adapts the conventions of revenge tragedy, so Othello can only be fully understood in terms of its exploitation of the tropes and conventions of domestic tragedy. This book explores not only the contexts and workings of this popular sub-genre of Renaissance drama but also Othello's secure place within it as the quintessential example of the form.
List of contents
Acknowledgements \ Introduction:
Shakespeare and the Domestic Tragedies \ 1. Genre Theory and the Rise of Domestic
Tragedy \ 2. A Local Habitation Lends a Name: Thomas Arden'sTragic Stature \ 3. Othello and Domestic
Tragedy: The Critical Reception \ 4. Othello
as Domestic Tragedy: The Case for Inclusion \ 5. From the Miraculous and Monstrous
to the Uncanny \ Conclusion: Tragic Ontology and Spousal Murders \ Bibliography \ Index
About the author
Sean Benson
