The Drama of Complaint: Ethical Provocations in Shakespeare's Tragedy [Hardcover]

The first book-length study of complaint in Shakespearean drama, arguing that poetic forms of complaint--expressions of discontent and unhappiness--operate as sites of thought about human flourishing; and that Shakespearean configurations of these forms of complaint in theatrical scenes model new ways of thinking about ethical subjectivity.The Drama of Complaint: Ethical Provocations in Shakespeare's Tragedyis the first book-length study of complaint in Shakespearean drama. Emily Shortslef makes two main arguments. One is that poetic forms of complaint--expressions of discontent and unhappiness--operate in and across the period's literary and nonliterary discourses as sites of thought about human flourishing, the subject of ethical inquiry. The other is that Shakespearean configurations of these ubiquitous forms in theatrical scenes of complaint model new ways of thinking about ethical subjectivity, or ways of desiring, acting, and living consonant with notions of the good life.The Drama of Complaintdevelops these interlocking arguments through five chapters that demonstrate the thinking materialized in and through five prolific forms of complaint (existential, judicial, spectral, female, and deathbed). Built around some of the most electrifying scenes in Shakespearean tragedy, each chapter is a case study that identifies and theorizes one of these forms of complaint; delineates a matrix of ethical thought that structures that form; and develops a new reading of a Shakespearean tragedy to which that form of complaint and those ethical questions are integral.Introduction: Scenes of Complaint1. Signs of Life: Existential Complaint and the Creaturely Ethics of Complaining2. Ethical Demands: Judicial Complaint and the Call of Conscience3. 'Me and My Cause': Spectral Complaints and Sublime Motives4. Lamentable Objects: Good Audiences and the Art of Female Complaint5. 'Nobody, I myself': Deathbed Complaint and the Authority of Happiness ScriptsEmily Shorlóç