“Un-Romanticized” love in Anthony and Cleopatra and The Taming of the Shrew
Among Shakespeare’s plays revolving around the theme of love, Anthony and Cleopatra and The Taming of the Shrew develop an un-romanticized attitude by focusing on carnal realities, reinforced through the imagery associated with Cleopatra and Katherine as well as the banquet occasions. In these tw...
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Main Author: | |
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Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Penerbit UKM
2015
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Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/8878/1/7300-25676-1-PB.pdf http://journalarticle.ukm.my/8878/ http://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/archive |
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Institution: | Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia |
Language: | English |
Summary: | Among Shakespeare’s plays revolving around the theme of love, Anthony and
Cleopatra and The Taming of the Shrew develop an un-romanticized attitude by
focusing on carnal realities, reinforced through the imagery associated with Cleopatra
and Katherine as well as the banquet occasions. In these two plays, the theme of love
acquires a carnivalesque approach through which debasement is experienced as a part
of love rapports. This paper discusses grotesque representations of love and feasting
in the plays by employing relevant viewpoints of the ‘grotesque,’ mainly those
theorized by Mikhail Bakhtin. Accordingly, Bakhtinian idea of ‘grotesque realism’
and carnival as well as the concept of degradation related to bodily life are highlighted
in their association with carnal realities as portrayed in the selected works. The aim of
the study is to demonstrate how the theme of love is un-romanticized through the idea
of grotesque. Furthermore, since Bakhtinian analysis targets the comic and
regenerative in the grotesque, the elaborate choice of a comedy and a tragedy for this
study is assumed to be an illuminating endeavor. Grotesque and its implicative
denotation revolve around the concept of language and the discourse carried out by
the intention of the characters. The elaboration of linguistic discourse in this study
goes along with love ideology in a dramatic text. Thus, Bakhtin's conceptualization of
grotesque facilitates the dramatic orientation of love in Anthony and Cleopatra and
The Taming of the Shrew, whereby the theme of love gets un-romanticized in these
plays. |
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