The Arden Introduction to Reading Shakespeare: Close Reading and Analysis

ISBN-13: 9781472581020 / Angielski / Miękka / 2018 / 176 str.

Jeremy Lopez

Opis

How can we define the complexity of Shakespeare's language? Where do literary critics begin when developing their interpretations out of Shakespeare's language? This handbook on close reading provides some practical answers to these questions. It offers a systematic survey of how Shakespeare's language works, and an introduction to the critical methods of linguistic interpretation that have been used since the eighteenth century. The book comprises seven chapters, each on a single unit of dramatic composition-Word, Line, Image, Passage, Play, Text, Performance. The examples in these chapters provide students of Shakespeare with a practical means of understanding, and expressing in their own interpretations, three fundamental assumptions about the language of his plays: (1) that poetic structures are both intertwined with and independent of the plays' content; (2) that the plays' language often expresses multiple, contradictory meanings simultaneously; and (3) that the things any given passage says are often surprisingly different from what that passage seems to mean.
This is an ideal teaching text for introductory courses on Shakespeare, offering a welcome return to close textual analysis and showing students how to read and analyse the plays in close detail to build sustained critical readings of their own.

Recenzje

Jeremy Lopez's Arden Introduction to Reading Shakespeare succeeds brilliantly as an Introduction for students - to every conceivable element of a play, from "The Title" to "Last Words," with topics in between as diverse and as essential as "Stage Directions" and "Patterned Language." The kinds of questions he poses for students will be of interest to - and adopted by - even the most experienced teachers, as he models a way of thinking about literature. And for specialists in the period, his own illustrative close readings are compelling and provocative. Lopez has created a wonderfully useful book. William C. Carroll - Boston University, USA

Spis treści

Acknowledgements Preface Part 1 1 The Title 2 Stage Directions 3 Scenes 4 The Whole Play Part 2 5 First Words 6 The First Act 7 Act Three 8 Acts Two and Four 9 The Last Act 10 Last Words Part 3 11 Patterned Language 12 Characters Part 4 13 Meter 14 Textual Variation Epilogue Suggested further reading Index

O autorze

Jeremy Lopez is Professor of English at Montclair State University, USA.