Publisher Description

Shakespeare: Criticism and Theory is an anthology of the most significant essays and book chapters published on Shakespeare in the second half of the twentieth century.

• An anthology of about 50 of the most significant essays and book chapters published on Shakespeare in the second half of the twentieth century.
• Introduces students to the variety of theoretical positions, thematic claims, methodologies, and modes of argument in Shakespeare criticism over the last 50 years.
• Critical views represented range from the old style historicism of E.M.W. Tillyard and the new criticism of William Empson to the new historicism of Stephen Greenblatt and the feminist perspective of Catherine Belsey.
• Pieces are organised into categories of critical thought and introduced in clear language.
• Most pieces are reproduced in their entirety.

Back Cover

Shakespeare: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory 1945–2000 contains many of the most significant essays and book chapters published on Shakespeare in the second half of the twentieth century. It introduces students of Shakespeare to the variety of theoretical positions, thematic claims, methodologies, and modes of argument that have contributed to the current critical landscape. The collection consists of 49 essays written by a broad range of authors, from E. M. W. Tillyard and William Empson, who represent old-style historicism and a version of New Criticism respectively, to Stephen Greenblatt and Catherine Belsey, who respond to and refute the insights of their predecessors. The essays are organized into categories of critical thought and introduced in clear and accessible language. Taken together, they chronicle a particularly stimulating period in the history of literary study.

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Shakespeare: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory 1945-2000 contains many of the most significant essays and book chapters published on Shakespeare in the second half of the twentieth century. It introduces students of Shakespeare to the variety of theoretical positions, thematic claims, methodologies, and modes of argument that have contributed to the current critical landscape. The collection consists of 49 essays written by a broad range of authors, from E. M. W. Tillyard and William Empson, who represent old-style historicism and a version of New Criticism respectively, to Stephen Greenblatt and Catherine Belsey, who respond to and refute the insights of their predecessors. The essays are organized into categories of critical thought and introduced in clear and accessible language. Taken together, they chronicle a particularly stimulating period in the history of literary study.

Author Biography

Russ McDonald is Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He has written extensively on Shakespeare and early modern literature and culture, most recently in Shakespeare and the Art of Language (2001) and The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare (Second Edition, 2001).

Table of Contents

Preface x Acknowledgments xiv Part I Authorship 1 1 Looney and the Oxfordians 4
S. Schoenbaum Part II New Criticism 15 2 The Naked Babe and the Cloak of Manliness 19
Cleanth Brooks 3 ''Honest'' in Othello 35
William Empson 4 ''Introductory'' Chapter About the Tragedies 50
Wolfgang Clemen 5 The ''New Criticism'' and King Lear 63
William R. Keast Part III Dramatic Kinds 89 6 The Argument of Comedy 93
Northrop Frye 7 Ambivalence: The Dialectic of the Histories 100
A. P. Rossiter 8 The Saturnalian Pattern 116
C. L. Barber 9 The Jacobean Shakespeare: Some Observations on the Construction of the Tragedies 125
Maynard Mack Part IV The 1950s and 1960s: Theme, Character, Structure 149 10 Reflections on the Sentimentalist's Othello 152
Barbara Everett 11 Form and Formality in Romeo and Juliet 164
Harry Levin 12 King Lear or Endgame 174
Jan Kott 13 The Cheapening of the Stage 191
Anne Righter [Barton] 14 How Not to Murder Caesar 209
Sigurd Burckhardt Part V Reader-Response Criticism 221 15 On the Value of Hamlet 225
Stephen Booth 16 Rabbits, Ducks, and Henry V 245
Norman Rabkin Part VI Textual Criticism and Bibliography 265 17 The New Textual Criticism of Shakespeare 269
Fredson Bowers 18 Revising Shakespeare 280
Gary Taylor 19 Narratives About Printed Shakespeare Texts: ''Foul Papers'' and ''Bad Quartos'' 296
Paul Werstine Part VII Psychoanalytic Criticism 319 20 ''Anger's my meat'': Feeding, Dependency, and Aggression in Coriolanus 323
Janet Adelman 21 The Avoidance of Love: A Reading of King Lear 338
Stanley Cavell 22 To Entrap the Wisest: Sacrificial Ambivalence in The Merchant of Venice and Richard III 353
René Girard 23 What Did the King Know and When Did He Know It? Shakespearean Discourses and Psychoanalysis 365
Harry Berger, Jr. 24 The Turn of the Shrew 399
Joel Fineman Part VIII Historicism and New Historicism 417 25 The Cosmic Background 422
E. M. W. Tillyard 26 Invisible Bullets: Renaissance Authority and its Subversion, Henry IV and Henry V 435
Stephen Greenblatt 27 The New Historicism in Renaissance Studies 458
Jean E. Howard 28 ''Shaping Fantasies'': Figurations of Gender and Power in Elizabethan Culture 481
Louis Adrian Montrose Part IX Materialist Criticism 511 29 Shakespeare's Theater: Tradition and Experiment 515
Robert Weimann 30 King Lear (ca. 1605–1606) and Essentialist Humanism 535
Jonathan Dollimore 31 Give an Account of Shakespeare and Education, Showing Why You Think They Are Effective and What You Have Appreciated About Them. Support Your Comments with Precise References 547
Alan Sinfield Part X Feminist Criticism 565 32 Egyptian Queens and Male Reviewers: Sexist Attitudes in Antony and Cleopatra Criticism 570
L. T. Fitz [Linda Woodbridge] 33 ''I wooed thee with my sword'': Shakespeare's Tragic Paradigms 591
Madelon Gohlke Sprengnether 34 The Family in Shakespeare Studies; or Studies in the Family of Shakespeareans; or The Politics of Politics 606
Lynda E. Boose 35 Disrupting Sexual Difference: Meaning and Gender in the Comedies 633
Catherine Belsey Part XI Studies in Gender and Sexuality 651 36 ''This that you call love'': Sexual and Social Tragedy in Othello 655
Gayle Greene 37 The Performance of Desire 669
Stephen Orgel 38 The Secret Sharer 684
Bruce R. Smith 39 The Homoerotics of Shakespearean Comedy 704
Valerie Traub Part XII Performance Criticism 727 40 Shakespeare and the Blackfriars Theatre 732
Gerald Eades Bentley 41 The Critical Revolution 745
J. L. Styan 42 William Shakespeare's Romeo þ Juliet : Everything's Nice in America? 750
Barbara Hodgdon 43 Deeper Meanings and Theatrical Technique: The Rhetoric of Performance Criticism 762
William B. Worthen Part XIII Postcolonial Shakespeare 777 44 Nymphs and Reapers Heavily Vanish: The Discursive Con-texts of The Tempest 781
Francis Barker and Peter Hulme 45 Sexuality and Racial Difference 794
Ania Loomba 46 Discourse and the Individual: The Case of Colonialism in The Tempest 817
Meredith Anne Skura Part XIV Reading Closely 845 47 Shakespeare's Prose 848
Jonas A. Barish 48 The Play of Phrase and Line 861
George T. Wright 49 Transfigurations: Shakespeare and Rhetoric 880
Patricia Parker Index 908

Long Description

Shakespeare: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory 1945 2000 contains many of the most significant essays and book chapters published on Shakespeare in the second half of the twentieth century. It introduces students of Shakespeare to the variety of theoretical positions, thematic claims, methodologies, and modes of argument that have contributed to the current critical landscape. The collection consists of 49 essays written by a broad range of authors, from E. M. W. Tillyard and William Empson, who represent old-style historicism and a version of New Criticism respectively, to Stephen Greenblatt and Catherine Belsey, who respond to and refute the insights of their predecessors. The essays are organized into categories of critical thought and introduced in clear and accessible language. Taken together, they chronicle a particularly stimulating period in the history of literary study.

Feature

• 
  
• An anthology of about 50 of the most significant essays and book chapters published on Shakespeare in the second half of the twentieth century.
• 
  
• Introduces students to the variety of theoretical positions, thematic claims, methodologies, and modes of argument in Shakespeare criticism over the last 50 years.
• 
  
• Critical views represented range from the old style historicism of E.M.W. Tillyard and the new criticism of William Empson to the new historicism of Stephen Greenblatt and the feminist perspective of Catherine Belsey.
• 
  
• Pieces are organised into categories of critical thought and introduced in clear language.
• 
  
• Most pieces are reproduced in their entirety.

Details