Shakespeare's military spouses and twenty-first century warfare /
This volume presents a fresh look at the military spouses in Shakespeare's Othello, Henry IV, Julius Caesar, Troilus and Cressida, Macbeth and Coriolanus, vital to understanding the plays themselves. By analyzing the characters as military spouses, we can better understand current dynamics in m...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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New York :
Routledge,
2022.
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| Series: | Routledge studies in Shakespeare.
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| Summary: | This volume presents a fresh look at the military spouses in Shakespeare's Othello, Henry IV, Julius Caesar, Troilus and Cressida, Macbeth and Coriolanus, vital to understanding the plays themselves. By analyzing the characters as military spouses, we can better understand current dynamics in modern American civilian and military culture as modern American military spouses live through the War on Terror. Shakespeare's Military Spouses and Twenty-First-Century Warfare explains what these plays have to say about the role of military families and cultural constructions of masculinity both in the texts themselves and in modern America. Concerns relevant to today's military families, domestic violence, PTSD, infertility, the treatment of queer servicemembers, war crimes and the growing civil-military divide, pervade Shakespeare's works. These parallels to the contemporary lived experience are brought out through reference to memoirs written by modern-day military spouses, sociological studies of the American armed forces and reports issued by the Department of Defence. Shakespeare's military spouses create a discourse that recognizes the role of the military in national defence but criticizes risky or damaging behaviors and norms, promoting the idea of a martial identity that permits military defense without the dangers of toxic masculinity. Meeting at the intersection of Shakespeare studies, trauma studies and military studies, this focus on military spouses is a unique and unprecedented resource for academics in these fields, as well as for groups interested in Shakespeare and theatre as a way of thinking through and responding to psychiatric issues and traumatic experiences. |
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| Physical Description: | viii, 216 pages ; 24 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9781032033822 1032033827 9781032033839 1032033835 |