Face-to-Face in Shakespearean Drama

Book excerpt: Explores the drama of proximity and co-presence in Shakespeare's playsKey FeaturesBrings together the rare pairing of philosophical ethics and performance studies in Shakespeare's playsEngages with the thought of philosophers including Ludwig Wittgenstein, Hannah Arendt, Paul Ricoeur, Stanley Cavell, and Emmanuel LevinasThis book celebrates the theatrical excitement and philosophical meanings of human interaction in Shakespeare. On stage and in life, the face is always window and mirror, representation and presence. It examines the emotional and ethical surplus that appears between faces in the activity and performance of human encounter on stage. By transitioning from face as noun to verb - to face, outface, interface, efface, deface, sur-face - chapters reveal how Shakespeare's plays discover conflict, betrayal and deception as well as love, trust and forgiveness between faces and the bodies that bear them.