Issues of Death: Mortality and Identity in English Renaissance Tragedy

by Michael Neill

Issues of Death offers a fresh approach to the tragic drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Starting from the premise that "death" is a historical construct that is differently experienced in every culture, it treats Renaissance tragedy as an instrument for reimagining the human encounter with death. Analyses of major plays by Marlowe, Kyd, Shakespeare, Webster, Middleton, and Ford explore the relation of tragedy to the macabre tradition, to the apocalyptic displays of the anatomy theatre, and to the spectacular arts of funeral.

Genres: Shakespeare

424 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 3, 1997

About the author

Michael Neill is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Auckland and Professor of Early Modern Literature at the University of Kent.

Reviews

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

really dense and wordy. it took me a while to realise it was saying something good enough for my essay and by the time i'd realised this, i'd skim-read 10 pages and needed to reread them. it was a constant cycle of that, until i inevitably gave up.

[Chase Dooley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neill superbly analyzes and discusses the "issues of death" in English Renaissance tragedy; critiquing and connecting the various historical pieces together with masterful understanding and reasoning. However, Neill does not handhold through this book; it is very much a large collection of essays, thus it is easy to become bored or distracted while reading and loose the argument Neill was making. Combined with the length of the chapters, I noticed myself counting pages for the end while trying to finish the chapter before putting the book down. You simply need to be in a great analytical, intellectual mindset to prepare yourself for reading the book and pace yourself nicely in order to really enjoy the book and Neill's analysis and discussions.