Built around some of the most electrifying scenes in Shakespearean tragedy, The Drama of Complaint examines Shakespeare's theatrical experiments with the poetic forms of complaint that were so prolific in early modern literature, showing how these conventional forms became crucibles for unconventional philosophical thought. Treating the literary field of complaint as a repertoire of stylized stock scenarios animated by conceptions of the good, this book argues that these microdramas of discontent and desire repeat across the period's literature as vehicles of ethical thought, and that Shakespeare's arrangements of these familiar scenes model and provoke new ways of thinking about ethical subjectivity and the good life. Drawing on early modern moral treatises and essays, Reformed theology, sermons, conduct manuals, and compendia of Aristotelian and Stoic moral philosophy alongside the period’s literature, the book identifies and theorizes five particular poetic forms of complaint and develops new readings of Shakespearean tragedies to which each of these forms is integral. By constructing a taxonomy that privileges the recurrence of particular objects of desire (justice, mercy, an end to suffering) over the characterological traits of particular complainers, it brings into relief the habitual ways of conceptualizing the good that shape and are articulated in these poetic forms. In showing how early modern scenes of complaint are critical points of entry to literary inquiries into ethical questions, The Drama of Complaint illuminates the literary practices of early modern England while gesturing to the rich potential that has led thinkers from Boethius to Montaigne to Freud to imagine human (un)happiness by constructing or interpreting scenes of complaint.

The Drama of Complaint: Ethical Provocations in Shakespeare's Tragedy is the first book-length study of complaint in Shakespearean drama. Emily Shortslef makes two main arguments. One is that poetic forms of complaint—expressions of discontent and unhappiness—operate in and across the period's literary and nonliterary discourses as sites of thought about human flourishing, the subject of ethical inquiry. The other is that Shakespearean configurations of these ubiquitous forms in theatrical scenes of complaint model new ways of thinking about ethical subjectivity, or ways of desiring, acting, and living consonant with notions of the good life. The Drama of Complaint develops these interlocking arguments through five chapters that demonstrate the thinking materialized in and through five prolific forms of complaint (existential, judicial, spectral, female, and deathbed). Built around some of the most electrifying scenes in Shakespearean tragedy, each chapter is a case study that identifies and theorizes one of these forms of complaint; delineates a matrix of ethical thought that structures that form; and develops a new reading of a Shakespearean tragedy to which that form of complaint and those ethical questions are integral.

The second half of the project pivots to plays that take up the interpellative and affective force of complaint within their narratives in order to reflect on the particular agency, and social value, of tragedy itself: my third chapter reads Hamlet as a meditation on how the structure of complaint, incorporated into tragic narrative, might strike theatrical audiences’ consciences, while my final chapter, on Richard II, shows how performances of complaint, even if they do nothing else, might move audiences to tears. As a staging ground for complaint, the early modern theater and its tragic shows oriented audiences to respond to and participate in social modes of complaining—and taught them to be more sophisticated spectators and consumers of tragedy.

Proudly presenting the widely anticipated new work of fiction from the multi-award winning bestselling author of Middlesex--a #1 major bestseller in Canada--and The Marriage Plot--also an acclaimed national bestseller--and the beloved The Virgin Suicides. Featuring unseen stories from one of the most eclectic, dynamic fiction writers working today, Fresh Complaint brings together works both new and previously published--including the crème de la crème of Eugenides's beloved New Yorker stories, never before collected between two covers. Jeffrey Eugenides's bestselling novels have shown that he is an astute observer of the crises of adolescence, sexual identity, self-discovery, family love and what it means to be an American in our times. The stories in Fresh Complaint continue that tradition. Ranging from the reproductive antics of "Baster" to the wry, moving account of a young traveller's search for enlightenment in "Air Mail" (selected by Annie Proulx for The Best American Short Stories 1997), this collection presents characters in the midst of personal and national crises. We meet a failed poet who, envious of other people's wealth during the real-estate bubble, becomes an embezzler; a clavichordist whose dreams of art collapse under the obligations of marriage and fatherhood; and, in "Bronze," a sexually confused college freshman whose encounter with a stranger on a train leads to a revelation about his past and his future. Narratively compelling, beautifully written and packed with a density of ideas that belie their fluid grace, Fresh Complaint proves Eugenides to be a master of the short form as well as the long. Showcasing stories from as far back as the 1980s and as recently as 2017, Fresh Complaint is the career-spanning collection from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author.

Nobody likes The Complaints -- they're the cops who investigate other cops. It's a department known within the force as The Dark Side, and it's where Malcolm Fox works. He's a serious man with a father in a nursing home and a sister who persists in an abusive relationship, frustrating problems about which he cannot seem to do anything. Then the reluctant Fox is given a new case. There's a cop named Jamie Breck, and he's dirty. The problem is, no one can prove it. As Fox takes on the job, he learns that there's more to Breck than anyone thinks -- dangerous knowledge, especially when a vicious murder takes place far too close to home. In The Complaints, Rankin proves again why he is one of the world's most beloved and bestselling crime writers, mixing unstoppable pacing with the deeper question of who decides right from wrong.