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Shakespeare and Literary Theory
Jonathan Gil Harris
240 pages
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203x135mm
978-0-19-957338-7
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Paperback
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19 August 2010
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- 12 chapters on specific theoretical movements and tendencies
- Each extended discussion of a theorist focuses primarily on how she or he reads Shakespeare
- Argues that contemporary literary theory is a set of modes inspired by Shakespeare's writings
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 %Zižek 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 Hélène 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 Aimé Césaire'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.Readership: Scholars and advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of Shakespeare and of literary theory
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Jonathan Gil Harris, Professor of English, George Washington University
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"Gil Harris provides an essential, concise, reference work for Shakespearian libraries." - Chris Butler, Years Work in English Studies "This book serves a contemporary need by providing accessible introductions to theory, while simultaneously whetting the appetite for more theoretically inflected discussions of Shakespeare" - Graham Holderness, Times Literary Supplement
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Acknowledgements
Introduction: Shakespeare and Theory
I. Language and Structure
1: Formalism: William Empson, Cleanth Brooks, Mikhail Bakhtin
2: Structuralism: Roland Barthes, Roman Jakobson, René 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 %Zižek
7: Feminism: Virginia Woolf, Hélène Cixous, Elaine Showalter
8: Queer Theory: Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Jonathan Dollimore, Lee Edelman
III. Culture and Society
9: Marxism: Karl Marx, Georg Lukács, 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
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The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
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