William Shakespeare | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 31 pages of analysis & critique of William Shakespeare.
This section contains 9,147 words
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SOURCE: "'Since First We Were Dissevered': Trust and Autonomy in Shakespearean Tragedy and Romance," in Representing Shakespeare: New Psychoanalytic Essays, edited by Murray M. Schwartz and Coppélla Kahn, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980, pp.150-69.

In the following essay, Wheeler explores the psychological polarities associated with seeking self-fulfillment in Shakespeare's late tragedies and romances.

In the earlier phases of his career, Shakespeare writes interchangeably—perhaps often simultaneously—comedies, history plays, three widely divergent tragedies, and narrative and lyric poetry.1 But in the later phases, the last two of Dowden's four periods, Shakespeare tends to write within the inclusive framework of a single, exceptionally flexible genre: tragedy from Hamlet to Coriolanus, and then, with some overlap, the late romances.2 In this paper I will try to identify polarized trends in Shakespeare's development, separated by generic distinctions in the earlier work, which confront each other in the drama of...

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This section contains 9,147 words
(approx. 31 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by Richard P. Wheeler
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Critical Essay by Richard P. Wheeler from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.