Centre de Publication universitaire
Extract:
" Violence is a multiform phenomenon, a source of perplexity very difficult to limit and to understand.
Though the present work is concerned particularly with violence in its most common form of physical violence, it argues that violence in Shakespeare's plays is supported not so much by what is in them but by what is left out yet which might be expected by a typical English theatregoer.
All the plays dealt with offer an instable, heterogenous universe with different ethical standards, yet they show the same ambiguity of the character-drawing, and the same constant reaction to a preoccupying state of affairs.
Through a particular, colourful technique which largely accounts for the present interest and modern relevance of Shakespeare, a technique which imposes the presence of the body and, instructively associates it with the explosion of drives, feelings and thoughts, these plays appear not as an effusion of blood and hate but rather as an artistic creation, a brilliant discourse on violence. " (Introduction)