John Drakakis

Geoffrey Bullough’s The Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare (1957-75) established a vocabulary and a method for linking Shakespeare’s plays with a series of texts on which they were thought to be based. Shakespeare’s Resources revisits and interrogates the methodology that has prevailed since then and proposes a number of radical departures from Bullough’s model. The tacitly accepted linear model of ‘source’ and ‘influence’ that critics and scholars have wrestled with is here reconceptualised as a dynamic process in which texts interact and generate meanings that domesticated versions of intertextuality do not adequately account for. The investigation uncovers questions of exactly how Shakespeare ‘read’, what he read, the practical conditions in which narratives were encountered, and how he re-deployed earlier versions that he had used in his later work.

Tragedy is one of the oldest and most resilient forms of narrative. Considering texts from ancient Greece to the present day, this comprehensive introduction shows how tragedy has been re-imagined and redefined throughout Western cultural history.Tragedy offers a concise history of tragedy tracing its evolution through key plays, prose, poetry and philosophical dimensions. John Drakakis examines a wealth of popular plays, including works from the ancient Greeks, Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, Sarah Kane and Tom Stoppard. He also considers the rewriting and appropriating of ancient drama though a wide range of authors, such as Chaucer, George Eliot, Ted Hughes and Colm Tóibín. Drakakis also demystifies complex philosophical interpretations of tragedy, including those of Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Benjamin.This accessible resource is an invaluable guide for anyone studying tragedy in literature or theatre studies.

Tragedy is one of the oldest and most resilient forms of narrative. Considering texts from ancient Greece to the present day, this comprehensive introduction shows how tragedy has been re-imagined and redefined throughout Western cultural history.Tragedy offers a concise history of tragedy tracing its evolution through key plays, prose, poetry and philosophical dimensions. John Drakakis examines a wealth of popular plays, including works from the ancient Greeks, Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, Sarah Kane and Tom Stoppard. He also considers the rewriting and appropriating of ancient drama though a wide range of authors, such as Chaucer, George Eliot, Ted Hughes and Colm Tóibín. Drakakis also demystifies complex philosophical interpretations of tragedy, including those of Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Benjamin.This accessible resource is an invaluable guide for anyone studying tragedy in literature or theatre studies.

Geoffrey Bullough’s The Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare (1957-75) established a vocabulary and a method for linking Shakespeare’s plays with a series of texts on which they were thought to be based. Shakespeare’s Resources revisits and interrogates the methodology that has prevailed since then and proposes a number of radical departures from Bullough’s model. The tacitly accepted linear model of ‘source’ and ‘influence’ that critics and scholars have wrestled with is here reconceptualised as a dynamic process in which texts interact and generate meanings that domesticated versions of intertextuality do not adequately account for. The investigation uncovers questions of exactly how Shakespeare ‘read’, what he read, the practical conditions in which narratives were encountered, and how he re-deployed earlier versions that he had used in his later work.

This wide-ranging and unique collection of documents on one of the most enduring of literary genres, Tragedy, offers a radical revaluation of its significance in the light of the critical attention that it has received during the past one-hundred and fifty years. The foundations of much contemporary thinking about Tragedy are to be found in the writings of Hegel, Nietzsche, and Kierkegaard; in addition, the dialectical tradition emanating from Marxism, and the psycho-analytical writings of Freud, have extended significantly the horizons of the subject. With the explosion of interest in the areas of post-structuralism, sociology of culture, social anthropology, feminism, deconstruction, and the study of ritual, new questions are being asked about this persistent artistic exploration of human experience. This book seeks to represent a full selection of these divergent interests, in a series of substantial extracts which display the continuing richness of the debate about a genre which has provoked, and challenged categorical discussion since the appearance of Aristotle's Poetics.

Shakespearean Tragedy brings together fifteen major contemporary essays on individual plays and the genre as a whole. Each piece has been carefully chosen as a key intervention in its own right and as a representative of an influential critical approach to the genre. The collection as a whole, therefore, provides both a guide and explanation to the various ways in which contemporary criticism has determined our understanding of the tragedies, and the opportunity for assessing the wider issues such criticism raises.The collection begins by considering the impact of social semiotics on approaches to the tragedies, before moving on to deal, in turn, with the various forms of Marxist criticism, New Historicism, Cultural Materialism, Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and Poststructuralism.

A wide-ranging selection from the most recent criticism of Antony and Cleopatra, beginning with seminal work from the 1950s onwards, and culminating in a series of radical reappraisals of the play's content, form, and appeal to modern readers. Represented in this selection is material from the late John Danby, Terence Hawkes, Janet Adelman, Margot Heinemann, J.Neville Davies, Barbara Vincent, Ania Loomba, Phyllis Rackin, Jonathan Dollimore and Jyotsyna Singh. Together with a substantial Introduction they offer a radical reappraisal of one of Shakespeare's Major Tragedies.

A wide-ranging selection from the most recent criticism of Antony and Cleopatra, beginning with seminal work from the 1950s onwards, and culminating in a series of radical reappraisals of the play's content, form, and appeal to modern readers. Represented in this selection is material from the late John Danby, Terence Hawkes, Janet Adelman, Margot Heinemann, J.Neville Davies, Barbara Vincent, Ania Loomba, Phyllis Rackin, Jonathan Dollimore and Jyotsyna Singh. Together with a substantial Introduction they offer a radical reappraisal of one of Shakespeare's Major Tragedies.