A Buddhist's Shakespeare: Affirming Self-deconstructions"In this argument, Howe applies his Buddhist perspective to some key ideas of neo-Marxists, Michel Foucault, and new historicists concerning the relations between literature and society. This perspective provides new challenges to the Marxist view that society necessarily determines our consciousness, Foucault's position that everyone in society is necessarily enclosed within a power field of competing and therefore oppositional interests, and the new historicist position that a society's established authority maintains itself in part by legitimating dissent in order to contain it. Howe proposes instead the possibility of a non-oppositional, nonideological posture in which one can stand apart from the class oppositions of Marx, the power field of Foucault, and the containment of dissent alleged by many new historicists, yet in a way which actually reduces the misery caused by social injustice." "Engaging contemporary theoretical debate, Howe draws a parallel between Jacques Derrida's ideas about "differance" - in which "presence" occurs only in "absence" - and the Buddhist idea of shunyata, the fullness of emptiness. He also shows the similarities between Derrida's and Buddhism's critiques of reason and language.". |
From inside the book
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... nature of Shakespeare's plays brings these affirmative positions force- fully to the surface . In this argument , Howe applies his Buddhist perspective to some key ideas of neo - Marxists , Michel Foucault , and new historicists ...
... nature of Shakespeare's plays brings these affirmative positions force- fully to the surface . In this argument , Howe applies his Buddhist perspective to some key ideas of neo - Marxists , Michel Foucault , and new historicists ...
Page 15
... nature in their specific culture as one of the sites of that transaction . Indeed , not to do so is to give free rein to , and hence to risk losing track of , subjectivity ; it is also to deny other- ness to the text itself , thus ...
... nature in their specific culture as one of the sites of that transaction . Indeed , not to do so is to give free rein to , and hence to risk losing track of , subjectivity ; it is also to deny other- ness to the text itself , thus ...
Page 17
... nature and creative role of the subject . But the subject should not be entirely abandoned . It should be reconsidered , not to restore the theme of an originating subject , but to seize its functions , its intervention in discourse ...
... nature and creative role of the subject . But the subject should not be entirely abandoned . It should be reconsidered , not to restore the theme of an originating subject , but to seize its functions , its intervention in discourse ...
Page 19
... , with the world and the idea of a text set up as analogues , their uncentered and therefore unstructured natures are far more explicit and emphatic than they are in Foucault . To Derrida , they are characterized INTRODUCTION 19.
... , with the world and the idea of a text set up as analogues , their uncentered and therefore unstructured natures are far more explicit and emphatic than they are in Foucault . To Derrida , they are characterized INTRODUCTION 19.
Page 21
... natural to us . The very desire for it may be self - defeating . This study , then , will privilege those voices and modes of presenta- tion in a limited group of texts that seem to present a radical critique of conventional patterns of ...
... natural to us . The very desire for it may be self - defeating . This study , then , will privilege those voices and modes of presenta- tion in a limited group of texts that seem to present a radical critique of conventional patterns of ...
Contents
27 | |
Awakening The Sword of Prajna in the Visual Arts and in Richard III | 51 |
The Merchant of Venice as Sword of Prajna | 74 |
The Cause of Suffering and the Birth of Compassion in Julius Caesar | 96 |
The Emptiness of Differenceand the Six Samsaric Realms in Antony and Cleopatra | 114 |
Prince Hals Deferral as the Ground of Free Play | 146 |
Further Glimpses of Free Play in Hamlet and King Lear | 168 |
The Tempest | 191 |
Common terms and phrases
actor affirmation Antony and Cleopatra Antony's argues art of resemblance artists audience authority awareness Bassanio becomes believe Bottom Brutus Brutus's Buddhist Buddhist view character Chögyam Trungpa choose consciousness context conventional create death deconstruction deferred Derrida desire différance discourse dramatic Duccio Elizabethan emphasizes emptiness enacts example experience fact Falstaff Foucault give Greenblatt Hal's Hamlet Holbein honor Hotspur human idea identity illusion implications interpretation Jonathan Dollimore Julius Caesar king Lear lovers metadramatic Midsummer Night's Dream nature nirvana Noble ourselves painting perspective play play's point of view political Portia Prajna present prince Prospero Pyramus and Thisby realistic reality relationship Renaissance representation Richard role Roman Roy Strong samsara scene seems self-image sense Shakespeare shows Shylock situation stage Stephen Greenblatt Stephen Orgel style subversion sunyata Tennenhouse texts theater theatrical Theseus things tion transparent Trungpa truth University Press vantage point viewer visual arts
Popular passages
Page 29 - I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, — past the wit of man to say what dream it was : man is but an ass, if he go about to expound this dream.