A Defence of Pretence by Indira Ghose - 9780691269993

Princeton University Press

A Defence of PretenceCivility and the Theatre in Early Modern England\nAuthor(s): Indira Ghose\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Princeton University Press, United States\nImprint: Princeton University Press\nISBN-13: 9780691269993, 978-0691269993\nSynopsis\nHow the drama of Shakespeares time demonstrates the tensions within civility\n\nIs civility merely a matter of reinforcing status and excluding others? Or is it a lubricant in a polarised world, enabling us to overcome tribal loyalties and cooperate for the common good? In A Defence of Pretence, Indira Ghose argues that it is both. Ghose turns to the drama of Shakespeares time to explore the notion of civility. The theatre, she suggests, was a laboratory where many of the eras conflicts played out. The plays test the precepts found in treatises on civility and show that, in the complexity and confusion of human life, moral purity is an illusion. We are always playing roles. In these plays, as in social life, pretence is inescapable. .