The Drama Of Complaint

Built around some of the most electrifying scenes in Shakespearean tragedy, The Drama of Complaint examines Shakespeare's theatrical experiments with the poetic forms of complaint that were so prolific in early modern literature, showing how these conventional forms became crucibles for unconventional philosophical thought. Treating the literary field of complaint as a repertoire of stylized stock scenarios animated by conceptions of the good, this book argues that these microdramas of discontent and desire repeat across the period's literature as vehicles of ethical thought, and that Shakespeare's arrangements of these familiar scenes model and provoke new ways of thinking about ethical subjectivity and the good life. Drawing on early modern moral treatises and essays, Reformed theology, sermons, conduct manuals, and compendia of Aristotelian and Stoic moral philosophy alongside the period's literature, the book identifies and theorizes five particular poetic forms of complaint and develops new readings of Shakespearean tragedies to which each of these forms is integral. By constructing a taxonomy that privileges the recurrence of particular objects of desire (justice, mercy, an end to suffering) over the characterological traits of particular complainers, it brings into relief the habitual ways of conceptualizing the good that shape and are articulated in these poetic forms. In showing how early modern scenes of complaint are critical points of entry to literary inquiries into ethical questions, The Drama of Complaint illuminates the literary practices of early modern England while gesturing to the rich potential that has led thinkers from Boethius to Montaigne to Freud to imagine human (un)happiness by constructing or interpreting scenes of complaint.

The Drama of Complaint: Ethical Provocations in Shakespeare's Tragedy is the first book-length study of complaint in Shakespearean drama. Emily Shortslef makes two main arguments. One is that poetic forms of complaint—expressions of discontent and unhappiness—operate in and across the period's literary and nonliterary discourses as sites of thought about human flourishing, the subject of ethical inquiry. The other is that Shakespearean configurations of these ubiquitous forms in theatrical scenes of complaint model new ways of thinking about ethical subjectivity, or ways of desiring, acting, and living consonant with notions of the good life. The Drama of Complaint develops these interlocking arguments through five chapters that demonstrate the thinking materialized in and through five prolific forms of complaint (existential, judicial, spectral, female, and deathbed). Built around some of the most electrifying scenes in Shakespearean tragedy, each chapter is a case study that identifies and theorizes one of these forms of complaint; delineates a matrix of ethical thought that structures that form; and develops a new reading of a Shakespearean tragedy to which that form of complaint and those ethical questions are integral.

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"It is not, nor it cannot come to good. But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue." Thus spoke Hamlet, one of the great kvetchers of literature. Every day, gripers challenge our patience and compassion. Yet Pollyannas rile us up with their grotesque contentment and unfathomable rejection of protest. Avital Ronell considers how literature and philosophy treat bellyachers, wailers, and grumps--and the complaints they lavish on the rest of us. Combining her trademark jazzy panache with a fearless range of readings, Ronell opens a dialog with readers that discusses thinkers with whom she has directly engaged. Beginning with Hamlet, and with a candid awareness of her own experiences, Ronell proceeds to show how complaining is aggravated, distracted, stifled, and transformed. She moves on to the exemplary complaints of Friedrich Nietzsche, Hannah Arendt, and Barbara Johnson and examines the complaint-riven history of deconstruction. Infused with the author's trademark wit, Complaint takes friends, colleagues, and all of us on a courageous philosophical journey.