{"product_id":"our-naked-frailties-1","title":"Our Naked Frailties","description":"\u003cb\u003eOur Naked Frailties: Sensational Art and Meaning in Macbeth\u003c\/b\u003e by Paul A. Jorgensen offers a penetrating reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s darkest tragedy through the lens of sensational art. Jorgensen argues that \u003ci\u003eMacbeth\u003c\/i\u003e is distinguished among Shakespeare’s plays by its deliberate evocation of physical and emotional sensation—what Banquo calls “our naked frailties.” Exploring imagery, language, and atmosphere, the book demonstrates how Shakespeare crafts a play that disturbs not only the intellect but the nervous system, producing a tactile, almost bodily experience of evil. Rather than treating the sensational merely as excess, Jorgensen situates it in Renaissance traditions of biblical spectacle, witchcraft literature, and moralized violence, showing how Macbeth’s artistry magnifies horror into moral recognition.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e At once a work of literary criticism and a study in Renaissance culture, the book moves from broad accounts of sensationalism in Elizabethan drama to close readings of Macbeth’s murders, blood imagery, witches, and visions of torment. Jorgensen contends that the play embodies a tragedy of crime and punishment, where the protagonist’s ordeal is rendered through poetic sensation and condign suffering. By linking Shakespeare’s dramaturgy to contemporary notions of providence, imagination, and conscience, \u003cb\u003eOur Naked Frailties\u003c\/b\u003e reveals how \u003ci\u003eMacbeth\u003c\/i\u003e achieves its haunting power: not by abstract philosophy but by forcing audiences to confront their own capacities for fear, pity, and guilty recognition. This study stands as both a defense of sensational artistry and an exploration of Shakespeare’s most viscerally unsettling work.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1971.","brand":"University of California Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54219226480984,"sku":"9780520372269","price":92.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/1295\/4195\/files\/9780520372269.jpg?v=1764415806","url":"https:\/\/agendabookshop.com\/products\/our-naked-frailties-1","provider":"Agenda Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}