Title: Rhetorical subversion in early English drama
Description: "This book centers on the uses and abuses of language in early English drama. It examines a number of plays alongside classical and sixteenth-century rhetorical treatises and focuses on the appearances of one stock character, the Vice figure, to determine how he uses language to dupe, implicate, and control others in the plays. The Vice figure is usually very skilled in the use of rhetoric and, in many cases, seems to be so persuasive and entertaining that the moral aims of the drama appear to be jeopardized. Douglas W. Hayes investigates the moral and rhetorical ambivalence of the Vice figure not only in Medieval morality plays and Tudor interludes, but also in the language of later characters related to the Vice such as Marlowe's Mephastophilis and Shakespeare's Falstaff and Iago."--BOOK JACKET.
Subjects: English drama, English language, Evil in literature, History and criticism, Rhetoric, Vices in literature, Villains in literature, English drama, history and criticism, early modern and elizabethan, 1500-1600, English language, middle english, 1100-1500, English language, early modern, 1500-1700, English drama, history and criticism, 17th century, Good and evil in literature
Time periods: 17th century, Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600, Early modern, 1500-1700, Middle English, 1100-1500, To 1500