Using a combination of anthropological and psychoanalytic methods, Farrell relates the fantasies of "play-death" to the Renaissance belief that through self-effacement an individual may achieve autonomy in the family and society. Farrell develops a wide-ranging analysis of cultural responses to the human dread of death and makes Shakespeare's art a lens that brings into unusually sharp focus Renaissance social structure, gender relations, ideology, and religion.

Originally published in 1989.

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