Shakespeare and literary theory
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Shakespeare and literary theory
（Oxford Shakespeare topics / general editors, Peter Holland and Stanley Wells）
Oxford University Press, 2010
- : hbk
- : pbk
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"Works cited": p. [213]-218
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
- Volume
-
: pbk ISBN 9780199573387
Description
OXFORD SHAKESPEARE TOPICS
General Editors: Peter Holland and Stanley Wells
Oxford Shakespeare Topics provide students and teachers with short books on important aspects of Shakespeare criticism and scholarship. Each book is written by an authority in its field, and combines accessible style with original discussion of its subject.
How is it that the British literary critic Terry Eagleton can say that 'it is difficult to read Shakespeare without feeling that he was almost certainly familiar with the writings of Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Wittgenstein and Derrida', or that the Slovenian psychoanalytic theorist Slavoj Zizek can observe that 'Shakespeare without doubt had read Lacan'? Shakespeare and Literary Theory argues that literary theory is less an external set of ideas anachronistically imposed
on Shakespeare's texts than a mode - or several modes - of critical reflection inspired by, and emerging from, his writing. These modes together constitute what we might call 'Shakespearian theory': theory that is not just about Shakespeare but also derives its energy from Shakespeare. To name just a few examples:
Karl Marx was an avid reader of Shakespeare and used Timon of Athens to illustrate aspects of his economic theory; psychoanalytic theorists from Sigmund Freud to Jacques Lacan have explained some of their most axiomatic positions with reference to Hamlet; Michel Foucault's early theoretical writing on dreams and madness returns repeatedly to Macbeth; Jacques Derrida's deconstructive philosophy is articulated in dialogue with Shakespeare's plays, including Romeo
and Juliet; French feminism's best-known essay is Helene Cixous's meditation on Antony and Cleopatra; certain strands of queer theory derive their impetus from Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's reading of the Sonnets; Gilles Deleuze alights on Richard III as an exemplary instance of his theory of the war machine; and postcolonial theory owes
a large debt to Aime Cesaire's revision of The Tempest. By reading what theoretical movements from formalism and structuralism to cultural materialism and actor-network theory have had to say about and in concert with Shakespeare, we can begin to get a sense of how much the DNA of contemporary literary theory contains a startling abundance of chromosomes - concepts, preoccupations, ways of using language - that are of Shakespearian provenance.
Table of Contents
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- INTRODUCTION: SHAKESPEARE AND THEORY
- I. LANGUAGE AND STRUCTURE
- II. DESIRE AND IDENTITY
- III. CULTURE AND SOCIETY
- FURTHER READING
- WORKS CITED
- Volume
-
: hbk ISBN 9780199573394
Description
OXFORD SHAKESPEARE TOPICS General Editors: Peter Holland and Stanley Wells Oxford Shakespeare Topics provide students and teachers with short books on important aspects of Shakespeare criticism and scholarship. Each book is written by an authority in its field, and combines accessible style with original discussion of its subject. How is it that the British literary critic Terry Eagleton can say that 'it is difficult to read Shakespeare without feeling that he was almost certainly familiar with the writings of Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Wittgenstein and Derrida', or that the Slovenian psychoanalytic theorist Slavoj %Zizek can observe that 'Shakespeare without doubt had read Lacan'? Shakespeare and Literary Theory argues that literary theory is less an external set of ideas anachronistically imposed on Shakespeare's texts than a mode - or several modes - of critical reflection inspired by, and emerging from, his writing. These modes together constitute what we might call 'Shakespearian theory': theory that is not just about Shakespeare but also derives its energy from Shakespeare.
To name just a few examples: Karl Marx was an avid reader of Shakespeare and used Timon of Athens to illustrate aspects of his economic theory; psychoanalytic theorists from Sigmund Freud to Jacques Lacan have explained some of their most axiomatic positions with reference to Hamlet; Michel Foucault's early theoretical writing on dreams and madness returns repeatedly to Macbeth; Jacques Derrida's deconstructive philosophy is articulated in dialogue with Shakespeare's plays, including Romeo and Juliet; French feminism's best-known essay is Helene Cixous's meditation on Antony and Cleopatra; certain strands of queer theory derive their impetus from Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's reading of the Sonnets; Gilles Deleuze alights on Richard III as an exemplary instance of his theory of the war machine; and postcolonial theory owes a large debt to Aime Cesaire's revision of The Tempest.
By reading what theoretical movements from formalism and structuralism to cultural materialism and actor-network theory have had to say about and in concert with Shakespeare, we can begin to get a sense of how much the DNA of contemporary literary theory contains a startling abundance of chromosomes - concepts, preoccupations, ways of using language - that are of Shakespearian provenance.
Table of Contents
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- INTRODUCTION: SHAKESPEARE AND THEORY
- I. LANGUAGE AND STRUCTURE
- 1. Formalism: William Empson, Cleanth Brooks, Mikhail Bakhtin
- 2. Structuralism: Roland Barthes, Roman Jakobson, Rene Girard
- 3. Deconstruction:J. Hillis Miller, Paul de Man, Jacques Derrida
- 4. 4. Rhizome and Actor Network Theory: Gilles Deleuze, Michel Serres, Bruno Latour
- II. DESIRE AND IDENTITY
- 5. Freudian Psychoanalysis: Sigmund Freud, Ernest Jones, Melanie Klein
- 6. Lacanian Psychoanalysis: Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, Slavoj %Zizek
- 7. Feminism: Virginia Woolf, Helene Cixous, Elaine Showalter
- 8. Queer Theory: Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Jonathan Dollimore, Lee Edelman
- III. CULTURE AND SOCIETY
- 9. Marxism: Karl Marx, Georg Lukacs, Bertolt Brecht
- 10. Poststructuralist Marxisms: Terry Eagleton, Jacques Derrida, Fredric Jameson
- 11. New Historicism and Cultural Materialism: Michel Foucault, Stephen Greenblatt, Alan Sinfield
- 12. Postcolonial Theory: Wole Soyinka, Edward Said, Sara Ahmed
- FURTHER READING
- WORKS CITED
by "Nielsen BookData"