An original reading of Shakespeare's plays illuminating his negotiations with mothers, present and absent, and tracing the genesis of Shakespearean tragedy and romance to a psychologized version of the Fall.

Adelman Janet

Chapter 1 Introduction; Chapter 2 Man and Wife Is One Flesh: Hamle. and the Confrontation with the Maternal Body; Chapter 3 "Is Thy Union Here?": Union and Its Discontents in Troilus and Cressid. and Othell.; Chapter 4 Marriage and the Maternal Body: On Marriage as the End of Comedy in All's Well that Ends Wel. and Measure for Measur.; Chapter 5 Suffocating Mothers in King Lea.; Chapter 6 Escaping the Matrix: The Construction of Masculinity in Macbet. and coriolanu.; Chapter 7 Making Defect Perfection: Imagining Male Bounty in Timon of Athen. and Antony and Cleopatr.; Chapter 8 Masculine Authority and the Maternal Body: The Return to Origins in the Romances; note Notes; Author Index; Index to Shakespeare's Works; Subject Index;