Shakespeare in theory
Subtitle: the postmodern academy and the early modern theater
By: Stephen Bretzius.
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Ann Arbor
Language: eng
Number of pages: 154
Subjects: Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Criticism and interpretation -- History -- 20th century.; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Study and teaching (Higher); Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Study and teaching -- United States.; English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600 -- History and criticism -- Theory, etc.; English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600 -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- United States.; Postmodernism (Literature)
Description: Bretzius explores a compelling interplay of theater and theory across a wide spectrum of contemporary critical movements. Individual chapters provide fascinating interpretations of various postwar critical schools and Shakespearean dramas, including the New Historicism and Hamlet, feminism and The Taming of the Shrew, pragmatism and Henry V.

Other approaches, including psychoanalysis, multiculturalism, deconstruction, and nuclear criticism are brought to bear on Love's Labour's Lost, Julius Caesar, and Othello. A final chapter on Shakespeare and the Beatles opens up the question of this theater-theory continuum onto the larger question of the postwar university's place in contemporary culture, providing a lively conclusion to an imaginative and thought-provoking volume.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 137-150) and index.
Table of contents: title: The subject of new historicism; title: Joel Fineman's "Shakespeare's will"; title: The place of the university : Shakespeare and multiculturalism; title: Feminism and theater in the Taming of the shrew; title: The pragmatist dilemma : Henry V; title: "By heaven, thou echoest me": Lentricchia, Othello, de Man; title: Synchronic theory and absolutism : "Et tu, Brute?"; title: Nuclear criticism (the Aufhebung of the sun); title: Cultural studies : Shakespeare and the Beatles.