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Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature
Fluellen’S Foreign Influence And The Ill Neighborhood Of King Henry V, Ruben Espinosa
Fluellen’S Foreign Influence And The Ill Neighborhood Of King Henry V, Ruben Espinosa
Ruben Espinosa
This essay considers Shakespeare’s attention to Fluellen’s foreignness in King Henry V amid the play’s exploration of a nebulous cultural/national English identity, and it argues that the play’s emphasis on cultural and religious difference serves to underscore Elizabethan England’s tenuous sense of self. The imagined English fellowship under God that Henry evokes is at odds with the divided community at the margins of his play and the fractured identity of Shakespeare’s own England. Through Fluellen, then, difference is marked as concurrently strange and surprisingly stable.
Shakespeare And Immigration, Ruben Espinosa, David Ruiter
Shakespeare And Immigration, Ruben Espinosa, David Ruiter
Ruben Espinosa
The essays in this collection examine the role of, and reaction to, the issue of immigration in Shakespeare’s drama and culture. This volume not only seeks to interrogate how the massive influx of immigrants during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I influenced perceptions of English identity, and gave rise to anxieties about homeland security in early modern England, but they also aim to understand how our current concerns surrounding immigration shape our perception of the role of the alien in Shakespeare’s work and expand the texts in new and relevant directions to a contemporary audience.
"Can No Prayers Pierce Thee?": Re-Imagining Marian Intercession In The Merchant Of Venice, Ruben Espinosa
"Can No Prayers Pierce Thee?": Re-Imagining Marian Intercession In The Merchant Of Venice, Ruben Espinosa
Ruben Espinosa
In post-Reformation England, anti-Catholic polemics delineated Marian devotion as dangerous, if not idolatrous, and attacked the Virgin Mary’s influence by contending that belief in her intercessory power posed a threat to God’s authority. But the very existence of these polemics indicates that prayer to, and desire for, the Virgin Mary’s intercession endured the Reformation. This article addresses Shakespeare’s attention to this Marian strength in The Merchant of Venice to demonstrate how he draws on Mary’s “lost” intercessory power in his development of Portia as a character reminiscent of the compassionate Virgin Mary of Catholic tradition. By casting Marian intercession in …