The annotated bibliography provides the foundation for a future research paper dedicated to William Shakespeare and the problems of identity and values in his literary works. The authors of the articles address the problems of values, identity, and the use of mimesis in the literature of the prominent English playwright, poet, and author. The academic papers employ specific examples from literature and use international and historical context to analyze the writer’s narrative and his sources of inspiration. The review of the literature may lead to the proposal that the works of Shakespeare disclose the author’s values, views on identity, and approach to the relation between ethics and aesthetics.
Source Summaries
Hage, Ralph. “Necessary Victims: William Shakespeare’s Tragic Ethics of Identity.” Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, vol. 27, 2020, pp. 123–154. JSTOR.
The scholarly source discovered on the JSTOR database was published in a peer-reviewed journal, Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, in 2020. Hage argues that Shakespeare’s ambivalence and his approach to identity and violence can be explored through the examination of his theatrical work (2). The scholar suggests that the playwright promoted the idea that morality emerges simultaneously with society as a result of the relation between different identities. The researcher analyzes Romeo and Juliet and Henry IV and concludes that Shakespeare’s position was influenced by the pressures of violence and social disintegration following the War of the Roses. The article is a valuable source of information for the research paper on the historical context of the playwright’s work and his views on morality, violence, and the tragic ethics of identity.
Hart, Johnathan Locke. “The Voices of Life and Death in Shakespeare’s Narrative Poems.” Comparative Literature and Culture, vol. 20, no. 5, 2018, pp. 1–9. ProQuest.
The article was found on the ProQuest database containing a wide range of credible multidisciplinary sources. It was originally published by Purdue University Press in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal Comparative Literature and Culture in 2018. In the article, Hart discusses Shakespeare’s approach to art and life with its ethics and aesthetics (2). According to the researcher, the narrative poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece reflect Shakespearean values and his use of mimesis, or imitation, in literature. The article suggests tragic poetics originate from the philosophy and wisdom of Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato, who considerably influenced the art of the English writer (Hart 2).
The researcher also focuses on the position that the voice of a character in Shakespeare’s poems represents his life in connection to the reader and his/her response to the literary work. The article might be helpful for the research paper because it investigates the poet’s understanding of good and evil through the lens of his characters.
Liu, Zhengbing, and Mengting Yu. “A Comparative Study of Romeo and Juliet and The Butterfly Lovers.” International Communication of Chinese Culture, vol. 7, 2020, pp. 379–394. SpringerLink.
The search on Google Scholar provided the link to the recent article on the SpringerLink database. The comparative peer-reviewed study was published by Springer in the respectable cross-disciplinary journal, International Communication of Chinese Culture, in 2020. Liu and Yu discuss the historical backgrounds of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and its Chinese counterpart, The Butterfly Lovers, and review the national characteristics of the literary works (379).
The article examines the characters’ values exposed in the tragedies and the issues of feudalism contributing to identity formation. The plots of the stories based on the notions of love and vengeance are considered typical for both cultures. However, the authors claim that Romeo and Juliet has distinct value orientation and ethics due to the influence of Western culture on Shakespeare and the Renaissance historical setting. The academic source might be incorporated in the research paper, as it proposes Shakespeare’s lessons on values and identity and addresses the topic in the international context.