Shakespeare and Character Theory, History, Performance and Theatrical Persons

by Yachnin, Paul; Slights, Jessica

• ISBN13: 9780230572621
• ISBN10: 0230572626
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-01-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Shakespeare and Characterbrings together leading scholars in theory, literary criticism, and performance studies in order to redress a serious gap in Shakespeare studies and to put character back at the centre of our understanding of Shakespeare's achievement as an artist and thinker.

Author Biography

PAUL YACHNIN is Tomlinson Professor of Shakespeare Studies and Chair of the English Department at McGill University, Canada, and Director of the Shakespeare and Performance Research Team and the Making Publics Project. His books are Stage-Wrights (1997); The Culture of Playgoing in Shakespeare's England (2001, with Anthony Dawson); and Shakespeare and the Cultures of Performance (2008, with Patricia Badir). He is an editor of Oxford Complete Works of Thomas Middleton. Work-in-progress includes an edition of Richard II and a book-length study, Shakespeare and the Social Thing: Making Publics in the Renaissance Theatre.
 
JESSICA SLIGHTS is Associate Professor and Graduate Coordinator in the Department of English at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada. She has published on and lectured about various aspects of early modern literature and culture, and her work has appeared in English Studies in Canada, Studies in Philology and Studies in English Literature. She is currently preparing an edition of Othello for ISE/Broadview Press. MICHAEL DOBSON is an award-winning game designer and co-author of Fox on the Rhine and Fox at the Front. He served as a member of the team that built the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.

Table of Contents

Preface

Notes on Contributors

Introduction

Theory

Confusing Shakespeare's Characters with Real People: Reflections on Reading in Four Questions

The Reality of Fictive Cinematic Characters

Character as Dynamic Identity: From Fictional Interaction Script to Performance

History

Personnage: History, Philology, Performance

The Properties of Character inKing Lear

Embodied Intersubjectivity and the Creation of Early Modern Character

Performance

Metatheater and the Performance of Character inThe Winter's Tale

Character, Agency and the Familiar Actor

The Actor-Character in 'Secretly Open' Action: Doubly Encoded Personation on Shakespeare's Stage

Theatrical Persons

Is Timon a Character?

When is a bastard not a bastard? Character in

Arming Cordelia: Character and Performance

Bibliography

Index

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