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- Title
A Modern Classic: The Cute and the Uncanny in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure.
- Authors
TIMM, VIOLA
- Abstract
The psychological developmental conditions that shape the aesthetic experience of the cute and the uncanny are so thoroughly embedded in the modern--and postmodern--experience that they easily escape the attention of the contemporary Shakespeare reader. New Historicism has the virtue of reinstating the political context of the plays, but it also has the vice of covering up the mechanics of both historical and contemporary psychology. Writing at the threshold of modernity, Shakespeare was able to reflect on the psychological reality that will shape both branches of modern philosophy, its ethics and aesthetics, and thus represents an inexhaustible source of knowledge about contemporary experience. In reference to Winnicott's concept of the transitional object, this essay reflects on the formation of modern values at the very border between the self and the world, especially between the self and society. Is the alleged narcissism of modern art internal or external? Do we like to be "like" in order to appear "good" or because we lack the courage and the imagination to develop unique internal identities that would put us in the circulation systems of the modern world? Conformism or Biblical virtue? An Angelo or a Vincentio? Shakespeare's Measure for Measure shows the way to social grace and the need to breed individuals with rich interiors in order to preserve the ethical core of society.
- Subjects
MEASURE for Measure (Play : Shakespeare); CUTENESS (Aesthetics); SHAKESPEARE, William, 1564-1616; NEW Historicism; POSTMODERNISM (Literature); EARLY Modern Period (Literary period)
- Publication
Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, 2016, Vol 16, Issue 3, p60
- ISSN
1531-0485
- Publication type
Essay
- DOI
10.1353/jem.2016.0021