Appropriating Shakespeare by Brian Vickers
During the 1970s and 1980s new critical schools of Shakespeare scholarship emerged, each with its own ideology, each convinced that all other approaches are deficient. This book argues that in attempting to appropriate Shakespeare for their own purposes, these schools omit and misrepresent Shakespeare's text - and thus distort it. Brian Vickers describes the iconoclastic attitudes emerging in French criticism of the 1960s that continue to influence literary theory: that language cannot reliably represent reality; that literature cannot represent life; that since no definitive reading is possible, all interpretation is misinterpretation. Vickers shows that these positions have been refuted, and he brings together work in philosophy, linguistics, and literary theory to rehabilitate language and literature. He then surveys the main conflicting schools in Shakespearean and other current literary criticism - deconstructionism, feminism, new historicism, cultural materialism, and psychoanalytic, marxist and Christian interpretations - describing the theoretical basis of each school, both in its own words and in those of its critics. Evaluating the resulting interpretations of Shakespeare, he shows that each is biased and fragmentary in its own way. The epilogue considers two related issues: the attempt of current literary theory to present itself as a coherent system while at the same time wishing to evade accountability; and the way in which different critical schools "demonize" their rivals, thus adding an intolerant tone to much recent criticism.
Vickers, Brian: -
Brian J. Vickers (PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is professor of New Testament interpretation and biblical theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and the assistant editor of the Southern Baptist Journal of Theology. He is actively involved in leading short-term mission trips and teaching overseas. He is also a member of the Evangelical Theological Society and the Institute for Biblical Research.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780300054156 |
| ISBN 10 | 0300054157 |
| Title | Appropriating Shakespeare |
| Author | Brian Vickers |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Yale University Press |
| Year published | 1993-05-26 |
| Number of pages | 528 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |