Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 6, No. 0750. Wednesday, 4 October 1995.
(1) From: Ken Steele <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 3 Oct 95 03:25:27 UT
Subj: RE: SHK 6.0747 Self-conscious Irony
(2) From: Gabriel Egan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 3 Oct 1995 20:46:41 +0100
Subj: Re: SHK 6.0747 Self-conscious Irony
(1)----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ken Steele <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 3 Oct 95 03:25:27 UT
Subject: 6.0747 Self-conscious Irony
Comment: RE: SHK 6.0747 Self-conscious Irony
John McClain will find hundreds of articles and not a few books on the subject
of "Metatheatricality" in Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Many in this
discussion group will have more up-to-date bibliographies than I.
Ken Steele
(2)----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Gabriel Egan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 3 Oct 1995 20:46:41 +0100
Subject: 6.0747 Self-conscious Irony
Comment: Re: SHK 6.0747 Self-conscious Irony
John McClain asks
>I'd like to know of any recent studies that explore this [self-reflexivity in
>characters speaking of themselves as players] aspect of
>Shakespeare's drama and poetry.
Anne Righter (now Barton) _Shakespeare and the Idea of the Play_ (London:
Penguin, 1962) presents an argument for increasingly sophisticated and
increasingly self-conscious self-referentiality in English drama from the
medieval Mysteries and Moralities through to the Caroline period, with
Shakespeare (of course) as the most outstanding exponent. If I recall she
thinks it became something of tired cliche towards the end.
This doesn't qualify as a recent study, however.
Gabriel Egan