Political Aesthetics in the Era of Shakespeare

Political Aesthetics in the Era of Shakespeare PDF Author: Christopher Pye
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 0810142198
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
The turn to political concerns in Renaissance studies, beginning in the 1980s, was dictated by forms of cultural materialism that staked their claims against the aesthetic dimension of the work. Recently, however, the more robustly political conception of the aesthetic formulated by theorists such as Theodor Adorno and Jacques Rancière has revitalized literary analysis generally and early modern studies in particular. For these theorists, aesthetics forms the crucial link between politics and the most fundamental phenomenological organization of the world, what Rancière terms the “distribution of the sensible.” Taking up this expansive conception of aesthetics, Political Aesthetics in the Era of Shakespeare suggests that the political stakes of the literary work—and Shakespeare’s work in particular—extend from the most intimate dimensions of affective response to the problem of the grounds of political society. The approaches to aesthetic thought included in this volume explore the intersections between the literary work and the full range of concerns animating the field today: political philosophy, affect theory, and ecocritical analysis of environs and habitus.

Political Aesthetics in the Era of Shakespeare

Political Aesthetics in the Era of Shakespeare PDF Author: Christopher Pye
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 0810142198
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 401

Get Book Here

Book Description
The turn to political concerns in Renaissance studies, beginning in the 1980s, was dictated by forms of cultural materialism that staked their claims against the aesthetic dimension of the work. Recently, however, the more robustly political conception of the aesthetic formulated by theorists such as Theodor Adorno and Jacques Rancière has revitalized literary analysis generally and early modern studies in particular. For these theorists, aesthetics forms the crucial link between politics and the most fundamental phenomenological organization of the world, what Rancière terms the “distribution of the sensible.” Taking up this expansive conception of aesthetics, Political Aesthetics in the Era of Shakespeare suggests that the political stakes of the literary work—and Shakespeare’s work in particular—extend from the most intimate dimensions of affective response to the problem of the grounds of political society. The approaches to aesthetic thought included in this volume explore the intersections between the literary work and the full range of concerns animating the field today: political philosophy, affect theory, and ecocritical analysis of environs and habitus.

Shakespeare and the Nature of Love

Shakespeare and the Nature of Love PDF Author: Marcus Nordlund
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 0810124238
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
The best conception of love, Marcus Nordlund contends, and hence the best framework for its literary analysis, must be a fusion of evolutionary, cultural, and historical explanation. It is within just such a bio-cultural nexus that Nordlund explores Shakespeare’s treatment of different forms of love. His approach leads to a valuable new perspective on Shakespearean love and, more broadly, on the interaction between our common humanity and our historical contingency as they are reflected, recast, transformed, or even suppressed in literary works. After addressing critical issues about love, biology, and culture raised by his method, Nordlund considers four specific forms of love in seven of Shakespeare’s plays. Examining the vicissitudes of parental love in Titus Andronicus and Coriolanus, he argues that Shakespeare makes a sustained inquiry into the impact of culture and society upon the natural human affections. King Lear offers insight into the conflicted relationship between love and duty. In two problem plays about romantic love, Troilus and Cressida and All’s Well that Ends Well, the tension between individual idiosyncrasies and social consensus becomes especially salient. And finally, in Othello and The Winter’s Tale, Nordlund asks what Shakespeare can tell us about the dark avatar of jealousy.

Shakespeare's Dialectic of Hope

Shakespeare's Dialectic of Hope PDF Author: Hugh Grady
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009098098
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
Shakespeare was fascinated by power throughout his career but also understood its dangers and limits. Utopian visions were his solution.

Shakespeare Survey: Volume 69, Shakespeare and Rome

Shakespeare Survey: Volume 69, Shakespeare and Rome PDF Author: Peter Holland
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316712583
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 1494

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Book Description
Shakespeare Survey is a yearbook of Shakespeare studies and production. Since 1948, the Survey has published the best international scholarship in English and many of its essays have become classics of Shakespeare criticism. Each volume is devoted to a theme, play, or group of plays; each also contains a section of reviews of that year's textual and critical studies and of the year's major British performances. The theme for Volume 69 is 'Shakespeare and Rome'. The complete set of Survey volumes is also available online at http://www.cambridge.org/online/shakespearesurvey. This fully searchable resource enables users to browse by author, essay and volume, search by play, theme and topic, and save and bookmark their results.

The Storm at Sea

The Storm at Sea PDF Author: Christopher Pye
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
ISBN: 0823265064
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
The Storm at Sea: Political Aesthetics in the Time of Shakespeare counters a tradition of cultural analysis that judges considerations of aesthetic autonomy in the early modern context to be either anachronistic or an index of political disengagement. Pye argues that for a post-theocratic era in which the mise-en-forme of the social domain itself was for the first time at stake, the problem of the aesthetic lay at the very core of the political; it is precisely through its engagement with the question of aesthetic autonomy that early modern works most profoundly explore their relation to matters of law, state, sovereignty, and political subjectivity. Pye establishes the significance of a “creationist” political aesthetic—at once a discrete historical category and a phenomenon that troubles our familiar forms of historical accounting—and suggests that the fate of such an aesthetic is intimately bound up with the emergence of modern conceptions of the political sphere. The Storm at Sea moves historically from Leonardo da Vinci to Thomas Hobbes; it focuses on Shakespeare and English drama, with chapters on Hamlet, Othello, A Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest, as well as sustained readings of As You Like It, King Lear, Thomas Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy, and Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. Engaging political thinkers such as Carl Schmitt, Giorgio Agamben, Claude Lefort, and Roberto Esposito, The Storm at Sea will be of interest to political theorists as well as to students of literary and visual theory.

How To Do Things With Shakespeare

How To Do Things With Shakespeare PDF Author: Laurie Maguire
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470693304
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
This collection of 12 essays uses the works of Shakespeare to show how experts in their field formulate critical positions. A helpful guidebook for anyone trying to think of a new approach to Shakespeare Twelve experts take new critical positions in their field of study using the writings and analysis of Shakespeare, to show how writers (students and academics) find topics and develop their ideas Features autobiographical prefaces that explain how the experts chose their topics and why the editor commissioned these particular essays, topics, and authors Argues that literary research is a reaction to experiences, thoughts or feelings Essays are arranged in small dialogues of two or three, forming a debate Teaches students to respond individually to cultural positions

Shakespeare and the Future of Theory

Shakespeare and the Future of Theory PDF Author: François-Xavier Gleyzon
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317396421
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
Shakespeare and the Future of Theory convenes internationally renowned Shakespeare scholars, and scholars of the Early Modern period, and presents, discusses, and evaluates the most recent research and information concerning the future of theory in relation to Shakespeare’s corpus. Original in its aim and scope, the book argues for the critical importance of thinking Shakespeare now, and provides extensive reflections and profound insights into the dialogues between Shakespeare and Theory. Contributions explore Shakespeare through the lens of design theory, queer theory, psychoanalysis, Derrida and Foucault, amongst others, and offer an innovative interdisciplinary analysis of Shakespeare’s work. This book was originally published as two special issues of English Studies.

Shakespeare, Education and Pedagogy

Shakespeare, Education and Pedagogy PDF Author: Pamela Bickley
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000856380
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
This volume captures the diverse ways in which Shakespeare interacts with educational theory and practice. It explores the depiction of learning and education in the plays, the role of Shakespeare as pedagogue, and ways in which the teaching of Shakespeare can facilitate discussion of some of the urgent questions of modern times. The book offers a wide range of perspectives – historical, theoretical, theatrical. The Renaissance humanist learning underpinning Shakespeare’s own work is explored in essays that consider how the complexity of Shakespeare’s drama challenges early-modern pedagogical orthodoxies. From close analysis of individual, solitary reflection on Shakespeare’s writing, the book moves outward to engage with contemporary social issues around inclusivity, society, and the planet, demonstrating the many educational contexts in which Shakespeare is currently appropriated. Engaging with current questions of the value of literary study, the book testifies to the potentialities of an empowering Shakespearean pedagogy. Bringing together voices from a variety of institutions and from a wide range of educational perspectives, this volume will be essential reading for academics, researchers and post-graduate students of Shakespeare, literature in education, pedagogy and literary theory.

Shakespeare and Impure Aesthetics

Shakespeare and Impure Aesthetics PDF Author: Hugh Grady
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139479695
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Shakespeare and Impure Aesthetics explores ideas about art implicit in Shakespeare's plays and defines specific Shakespearean aesthetic practices in his use of desire, death and mourning as resources for art. Hugh Grady draws on a tradition of aesthetic theorists who understand art as always formed in a specific historical moment but as also distanced from its context through its form and Utopian projections. Grady sees A Midsummer Night's Dream, Timon of Athens, Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet as displaying these qualities, showing aesthetic theory's usefulness for close readings of the plays. The book argues that such social-minded 'impure aesthetics' can revitalize the political impulses of the new historicism while opening up a new aesthetic dimension in the current discussion of Shakespeare.

Shakespeare's Theory of International Relations

Shakespeare's Theory of International Relations PDF Author: William M. Hawley
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527585875
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
This book treats William Shakespeare’s romances as international relations (IR) theory plays depicting paths to peace abroad, showing that the playwright sounds the depths of human emotions and resolves diplomatic crises threatening entire populations overseas. Remarkably, Shakespeare vindicates Renaissance concepts of IR classical realism, as well as our modern definitions of IR realism, defensive realism, and constructivism. These late plays reveal the playwright at the height of his aesthetic powers, for, by virtue of his art, his antagonistic state actors restore frayed international alliances and reap the benefits of a renewed sense of universal well-being.