Shakespeare and His Social Context: Essays in Osmotic Knowledge and Literary Interpretation

Abstract

published over some twenty-five years, surveying Shakespeare's reliance on a "shared background of knowledge and assumptions" hypothetically typical of his day (xi).This osmotic knowledge includes the information, the moral and be- havioral assumptions, and the shared identity and religion of Shakespeare and his contemporaries.To expose this cultural frame of reference, Ranald draws on semiotics, matrimonial law, precepts of feminine behavior, manners and mores, ritual, the rules of siege warfare, and the laws of chivalry.The book is organized in four parts: The Pathway into Marriage; The Way of Wifely Behavior; Women Without Power; and Men Who Lose Power.The first and largest part surveys the comedies, identifying A// '5 Well as a precursor to the late romances.Part Two examines Errors, Shrew, and "The Indiscretions of Des- demona," linking these comedies and Othello through socially-perceived roles for women in wooing, wedding, and wifely behavior.Part Three allies Lucrèce and "three historical ladies," Ranald's label for representative stages in female life: maid, wife, and widow.Part Four engages the dichotomy of masculine power and feminine powerlessness in an examination of Richard II and Macbeth, focussing on the inverted ritual in the degradation of Richard and the divestiture in Macbeth,