Terence Hawkes is real super-amazing in
his wonderful book on Structuralism titled, Structuralism and Semiotics! It’s
been a primer of sorts for quite many years in a row, for any beginner who’d like to
foray into theory proper! Added, some of his key definitions that he’s
given us all in this book are awesomeyyy to the highest order! You may wish to
read some of these snippets from Terence on our previous blogpost HERE!
But the same gusto and vibrancy seems to
be lacking in Terence’s Alternative
Shakespeares 2!
Well, the ‘Alternative Shakespeares’ Series
has been such a phenomenal contribution to the ‘phenomenon called Shakespeare’,
from various theoretical postulates! Housing a host of scholarly treatises from
the ‘best in town’ as regards theory, the series has been a rave and a rage for
scholars of all hues, bent on politicizing oops theorizing the bard through an unending
plethora of –isms to suit their own vested hypos and typos!!! Also, Terence has given an
Introduction that seems to have been done more in haste and hence lacking in
taste! ;-(
In addition, the treatises contained
therein are so scholarly that one needs to approach them more with admiration
than with love! [A rehash of Dr. Johnson’s famous line, ‘I admire Jonson, but I
love Shakespeare’!]
This little lacuna in Shakespearean
criticism from a theoretical framework, has been so beautifully addressed nay
remedied by Jonathan Gil Harris in his book titled, Shakespeare and Literary Theory!
If per chance you’ve had the privilege of
reading through his The First Firangis
or even his Masala Shakespeare, chances
are that, you’ve real gotten for yourself a wonderfully refreshing frame of
mind to approach this theoretical text too!
Jo has you in splits on almost every
other page, although the humour is not quite overt all over! But not quite like
how the humour pops up every now and then in his The First Firangis, though! There’s always an impish streak to his characterizations,
descriptions and portrayals, which could be rightly said to be his forte, his
charm and his hallmark!
Sample this from the Introduction!
Jonathan Gil Harris speaks –
Shakespearian theory is not just about
Shakespeare, but also derives its energy from Shakespeare. By reading what
theorists have to say about and in concert with Shakespeare, we can begin to get
a sense of how much the DNA of contemporary literary theory contains a
startling abundance of chromosomes—concepts, preoccupations, ways of using
language—that are of Shakespearian provenance.
Some of these chromosomes may be
immediately familiar to us from Shakespeare’s writing; some have mutated almost
beyond recognition. But they are omnipresent in literary theory’s genome.
And
if ‘Shakespearian theory’ suggests how theory has always been Shakespearian, it
can equally help us realize that Shakespeare’s writing has itself always been
theoretical. That is why the British literary theorist Terry Eagleton can say
that ‘it is difficult to read Shakespeare without feeling that he was almost
certainly familiar with the writings of Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Wittgenstein
and Derrida’.
Such pronouncements may be deliberately
and provocatively anachronistic. But they also recognize how the relation between
Shakespeare and theory is not one of prior host and belated foreign body.
Rather, the relation is familial, grounded in resemblance. Shakespeare and
theory do not belong to different times and lands; they are instead kissing
cousins, speaking a shared tongue.
Moreover, the fact that Jo is a ‘one-man-army’ as the sole author of the book, also helps!
While it looks like, Terence seems to
have had teething problems up his sleeve collating ‘myriad-minded’ Shakespearian
critics and critiques under one huge umbrella, Jo has had the blessedness of
skillfully skipping over this problem; and hence the man is on a jamboree of
sorts right from the word ‘go!’
He has structured his book in an easy-to-read
elegant way based on the three powerful currents that have swayed and still
continue to sway ‘theory’ for years without measure!
The first part deals with ‘Language and
Structure’, and the second part is on ‘Desire and Identity’, whereas the third and
final part deals with Culture and Society!’
Taking a leaf from out of his own discourses on
Shakespeare, it could be said that, this book on Shakespeare and Literary Theory
is ‘honeyed and sweet’ and would sure continue to stimulate, and reward,
contemplation!
Happy reading folks!!!
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