The Uses of the Canon: Elizabethan Literature and Contemporary TheoryClarendon, 1990 - 192 pages An important contribution to the current rethinking of "English," and to the reconsideration of Shakespeare's role within it, this book focuses on the emergence of the New Historicism, clarifying a number of key positions in the criticism of the past fifteen years. The essays subject many of New Historicism's most challenging claims to rigorous analysis, distinguish sharply between its American and British versions, and assess the causes and consequences of its politicization of literary studies. The theoretical and political issues at stake in current debates are clearly examined, and the uses served by the canonical texts at their center are re-examined within a broad cultural and historical perspective. Offering fresh readings of a number of classic texts--including Hamlet, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest, Shakespeare's sonnets, More's Utopia, Donne's poetry, and Conrad's Heart of Darkness--this overview of contemporary critical theory and practice provides a deepened understanding of the complex and changing functions of the canon itself. |
From inside the book
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Page ix
... position in relation to the texts I interpret and the critics on whom I comment . While ' deconstruction ' may have ... positions can be determined . The ' left ' is too important to us all to be left to the ' left ' . For our ...
... position in relation to the texts I interpret and the critics on whom I comment . While ' deconstruction ' may have ... positions can be determined . The ' left ' is too important to us all to be left to the ' left ' . For our ...
Page 94
... position to notice , precisely because it was their own position . Enclosed as they were within a humanist essentialism - the ' simultaneous order ' of text and tradition- that remained pre - Freudian , pre - Marxian , and pre ...
... position to notice , precisely because it was their own position . Enclosed as they were within a humanist essentialism - the ' simultaneous order ' of text and tradition- that remained pre - Freudian , pre - Marxian , and pre ...
Page 171
... position within Shake- speare studies that it , along with the other late romances , had only just regained . A ' social - realist ' Tempest ? How oxymoronic , how literally unthinkable and incredible , would such a notion once have ...
... position within Shake- speare studies that it , along with the other late romances , had only just regained . A ' social - realist ' Tempest ? How oxymoronic , how literally unthinkable and incredible , would such a notion once have ...
Contents
Romance and Romanticism | 16 |
Marlowe our Contemporary | 100 |
Early Utopian Discourse | 122 |
Copyright | |
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Other editions - View all
The Uses of the Canon: Elizabethan Literature and Contemporary Theory Howard Felperin No preview available - 1992 |
Common terms and phrases
absolute play allegory authentic authority Barker and Hulme Caliban canonical text century claim classic Coleridge colonial discourse construction contemporary context conventionalism criticism cultural materialism dark deconstruction demystification discursive con-texts dominant Donne Donne's dramatic edition Elizabethan empirical empiricism English essays F. R. Leavis foreground Frye Greenblatt Hamlet Heart of Darkness hermeneutic historical historicism historicists ideological institutional interpretation L. C. Knights language Leontes less linguistic literary studies literature London Malone Marlovian Marlowe Marlowe's Marxist meaning Methuen mimetic modern myth naïve nature new-critical new-historicist object older once paradox poet poetry political Polixenes position post-structuralism post-structuralist potential practices present problem Prospero's question radical re-inscription reading realism relativism Renaissance Renaissance Self-Fashioning representation represented rhetorical romance Sarracoll Sarracoll's seems sense Shakespeare Shakespeare's plays signified social Sonnets Stephen Greenblatt structuralist structure Tempest textualist textuality of history theatre theatrical tion tradition University Press Utopia Winter's Tale writing