The Improbability of Othello: Rhetorical Anthropology and Shakespearean Selfhood

'the Improbability Of Othello' Contributes Fresh Ideas To Our Understanding Of Shakespeare's Conception Of The Self, His Shaping Of Audience Response, And The Relationship Of Actors To His Texts. Prologue. 'as If For Surety': The Problematics Of Shakespearean Probability -- Toward A Rhetorical Genealogy Of Othello -- 'my Parts, My Title, And My Perfect Soul': Ingenuity, Apodeixis, And The Origins Of Rhetorical Anthropology -- 'against My Estimation': Ciceronian Decorum, Stoic Constancy, And The Production Of Ethos -- The Logic Of Renaissance Rhetoric -- 'apt And True': Speech, World, And Thought In Shakespeare's Humanist Dialectic -- 'yonder's Foul Murders Done': Place, Predicament, And Grammatical Space On Cyprus -- Willful Words, Christian Anxieties, And Shakespearean Dramaturgy -- 'tis In Ourselves That We Are Thus, Or Thus': Will, Habit, And The Discourse Of Res -- 'preposterous Conclusions': Eros, Enargeia, And Composition In Othello -- 'prophetic Fury': The Language Of Theatrical Potentiality And The Economy Of Shakespearean Reception -- Tropings Of The Self In Shakespeare's Scripts -- 'i Am Not What I Am': Shakespeare's Scripted Subject -- 'nobody. I Myself': Discovering What Passes Show -- Performing The Improbable Other On Shakespeare's Stage -- 'were I The Moor, I Would Not Be Iago': Ligatures Of Self And Stranger -- 'it Is Not Words That Shakes Me Thus': Burbage, As If Othello -- Epilogue. 'make Not Impossible/that Which But Seems Unlike': The Twilight Of Probability And The Dawn Of Shakespearean Romance. Joel B. Altman. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [429]-442) And Index.