Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-12T20:06:17.075Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Anticipation and Foreboding in Shakespeare’s Early Histories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2007

Get access

Summary

It is strange that the role of anticipation and foreboding in Shakespearian drama has so far not received adequate attention and treatment. For here we find an important feature of Shakespeare’s dramatic art which is closely connected not only with the dramatist’s technique of preparation, but also with his art of characterization. It bears, too, on the composition and structure of his plays, since the peculiar function of anticipation and foreboding often consists in establishing subtle correspondences between earlier and later utterances or situations in the drama, or in binding together various threads of the action. Until now, however, the only aspect under which foreboding in Shakespeare’s drama has been studied connectedly seems to have been Shakespeare’s use of the supernatural. But the role played by foreboding is, with Shakespeare, in no way exhausted by his use of omen, prophecies and other portents which could be classified as more or less supernatural. And it is this very extension of the device of foreboding beyond the traditional realm of prophecy, omen, dream, etc., which makes a study of this particular feature so interesting and displays Shakespeare’s superiority over his contemporaries and predecessors in such a singular manner. For although we find anticipation and foreboding in all great dramatists, in Sophocles and Euripides as well as in Calderón and Ibsen, it can safely be said that with no other dramatist has this feature been turned to so manifold use and developed into such a refined and subtle instrument of dramatic art as with Shakespeare.

Type
Chapter
Information
Shakespeare Survey , pp. 25 - 35
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1953

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×