Shakespeare and character
Subtitle: theory, history, performance, and theatrical persons
By: Paul Yachnin and Jessica Slights.
Contributors: Yachnin, Paul Edward, 1953-; Slights, Jessica, 1968-
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: 2009
Place of publication: New York, NY
Language: eng
Number of pages: 259
ISBN-13: 9780230572621
Subjects: Shakespeare, William, -- 1564-1616 -- Characters; Shakespeare, William, -- 1564-1616 -- Knowledge -- Psychology; Characters and characteristics in literature; Identity (Psychology) in literature; Personality in literature
Description: 'Character' is a word with enormous resonance in theatrical practice, performance criticism, and literary and historical scholarship. It is also a word in need of concerted, interdisciplinary re-articulation. Shakespeare and Character provides a theoretically, historically, theatrically and critically substantial account of character. One of the questions that the authors ask is, 'What is character?' To answer this central question - and to begin to provide a new critical vocabulary for character study - they examine the theory, history, formal properties, and the literary and performance possibilities of Shakespearean character as we;; as the bearing that 'theatrical persons' might have on the situation of actual people. They also emphasize the interrelationship between theory and the particular by connecting theories and histories of the idea of character to concrete, detailed accounts of particular characters as they emerge in the text and on the stage.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction / Paul Yachnin and Jessica Slights; title: Theory. Confusing Shakespeare's characters with real people: reflections on reading in four questions / Michael Bristol; title: The reality of fictive cinematic characters / Trevor Ponech; title: Character as dynamic identity: from fictional interaction script to performance / William Dodd; title: History. Personnage: history, philology, performance / André G. Bourassa; title: Embodied intersubjectivity and the creation of early modern character / Leanore Lieblein; title: Performance. Metatheater and the performance of character in The winter's tale / Paul Yachnin and Myrna Wyatt Selkirk; title: Character, agency, and the familiar actor / Andrew James Hartley; title: The actor-character in "secretly open" action: doubly encoded personation on Shakespeare's stage / Robert Weimann; title: Theatrical persons. Is Timon a character? / Anthony Dawson; title: When is a bastard not a bastard?: character in King John / Camille Slights; title: Arming Cordelia: character and performance / Sarah Werner.