Overview

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.

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9780823256624

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Harrying will no doubt surprise and delight readers with the unrivaled close readings Berger is famous for, but what makes this book so resonant is that it works this critical practice across a series of interlocking plays, turning ShakespeareGCOs histories into a powerful 'tetralogical echo chamber.' The effects are dazzling. GCoNina Levine, University of South Carolina Harrying will no doubt surprise and delight readers with the unrivaled close readings Berger is famous for, but what makes this book so resonant is that it works this critical practice across a series of interlocking plays, turning Shakespeare's histories into a powerful 'tetralogical echo chamber.' The effects are dazzling. --Nina Levine, University of South Carolina At the center of Berger's approach to the histories is his insistence on the continuities across plays that close attention to linguistic echoes reveals. Page by page, line by line, word by word, his detailed examination of the texts leads him, and us, to new insights and new understanding. --Peter Erickson, Northwestern University

"""Harrying will no doubt surprise and delight readers with the unrivaled close readings Berger is famous for, but what makes this book so resonant is that it works this critical practice across a series of interlocking plays, turning Shakespeare's histories into a powerful 'tetralogical echo chamber.' The effects are dazzling.""-Nina Levine, University of South Carolina"

Harrying will no doubt surprise and delight readers with the unrivaled close readings Berger is famous for, but what makes this book so resonant is that it works this critical practice across a series of interlocking plays, turning Shakespeare's histories into a powerful 'tetralogical echo chamber.' The effects are dazzling. -Nina Levine, University of South Carolina

Harrying will no doubt surprise and delight readers with the unrivaled close readings Berger is famous for, but what makes this book so resonant is that it works this critical practice across a series of interlocking plays, turning Shakespeare's histories into a powerful 'tetralogical echo chamber.' The effects are dazzling. -Nina Levine, University of South Carolina Harrying will no doubt surprise and delight readers with the unrivaled close readings Berger is famous for, but what makes this book so resonant is that it works this critical practice across a series of interlocking plays, turning Shakespeare's histories into a powerful 'tetralogical echo chamber.' The effects are dazzling. --Nina Levine, University of South Carolina At the center of Berger's approach to the histories is his insistence on the continuities across plays that close attention to linguistic echoes reveals. Page by page, line by line, word by word, his detailed examination of the texts leads him, and us, to new insights and new understanding. --Peter Erickson, Northwestern University

Author Information

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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