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Zusatztext What a fantastically useful book, for actors, directors and audiences alike. Through practical examples and great scholarship, it helps us unpick the weave of Shakespeare’s speech and understand better the sexual tension, the mouth-filling insults, the disdain of aristocrats and the condescensions of patriarchy behind the choice of “thou" or “you". Whether you want to understand your soliloquy better, make your production clearer or enjoy what you’re watching and hearing more, this book is an excellent guide. Informationen zum Autor Penelope Freedman is a teacher and academic with a background both in linguistics and in theatre. With a first degree in Classics from Oxford, an MA in Linguistics from the University of Kent and a PhD on Shakespeare from Birmingham University, she has been a lecturer at Kent and Warwick universities, as well as at The Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, UK. She has also directed several Shakespeare productions and played eight of Shakespeare's heroines. Klappentext Romeo and Juliet always use 'thou' to each other, but they are the only pair of lovers in Shakespeare to do this. Why? All the women in Richard III address Richard as 'thou', but no man ever does. Why? When characters address the dead, they use 'thou' - except for Hamlet, who addresses Yorick as 'you'. Why? Shakespeare's contemporaries would have known the answers to these questions because they understood what 'thou' signified, but modern actors and audiences are in the dark. Through performance-oriented analysis of extracts from the plays, this book explores the language of 'trulls' and termagants, true loves and unwelcome wooers, male impersonators, smothering mothers, warring spouses and fighting men, as well as investigating lèse-majesté, Freudian slips, crisis moments and rhetorical flourishes. Drawing on work with RSC actors, as well as the author's experience of playing a range of Shakespearean roles, the book equips the reader with a new tool for tracking emotions, weighing power relations and appreciating dazzling complexity. Vorwort This companion explores, through analysis of a wide range of scenes and a series of acting workshops, the power-play, emotional self-revelation and complex dynamics that lie hidden in the use of ‘you ‘or ‘thou’ by Shakespeare’s characters. Zusammenfassung Romeo and Juliet always use ‘thou’ to each other, but they are the only pair of lovers in Shakespeare to do this. Why? All the women in Richard III address Richard as ‘thou’, but no man ever does. Why? When characters address the dead, they use ‘thou’ – except for Hamlet, who addresses Yorick as ‘you’. Why? Shakespeare’s contemporaries would have known the answers to these questions because they understood what ‘thou’ signified, but modern actors and audiences are in the dark. Through performance-oriented analysis of extracts from the plays, this book explores the language of ‘trulls’ and termagants, true loves and unwelcome wooers, male impersonators, smothering mothers, warring spouses and fighting men, as well as investigating lèse-majesté, Freudian slips, crisis moments and rhetorical flourishes. Drawing on work with RSC actors, as well as the author’s experience of playing a range of Shakespearean roles, the book equips the reader with a new tool for tracking emotions, weighing power relations and appreciating dazzling complexity. Inhaltsverzeichnis 1. Introduction2. Best Friends3. Too Wise to Woo Peaceably4. Unwelcome Advances5. Lèse-majesté6. Family Values7. Married Love8. Freudian Slips and Testing Moments9. Absent Friends10. Conclusion...
