Harrying considers Richard III and the four plays of Shakespeare’s Henriad—Richard II, Henry IV Part 1, Henry IV Part 2, and Henry V. Berger combines close reading with cultural analysis to show how the language characters speak always says more than the speakers mean to say.
Shakespeare’s speakers try to say one thing. Their language says other things that often question the speakers’ motives or intentions. Harrying explores the effect of this linguistic mischief on the representation of all the Henriad’s major figures.
It centers attention on the portrayal of Falstaff and on the bad faith that darkens the language and performance of Harry, the Prince of Wales who becomes King Henry V.
About the author
Harry Berger, Jr., was Professor Emeritus of Literature and Art History at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His most recent books are Resisting Allegory: Interpretive Delirium in Spenser’s ‘Faerie Queene’; Harrying: Skills of Offense in Shakespeare’s Henriad; and The Perils of Uglytown: Studies in Structural Misanthropology from Plato to Rembrandt.
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