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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Page 21
... normal " relations with their audience ( or reader ) , and changing his role as author by making it visible . Rene Girard asks , Will a critic do to Shakespeare what Derrida has done to Plato ? Shakespeare has already done it to himself ...
... normal " relations with their audience ( or reader ) , and changing his role as author by making it visible . Rene Girard asks , Will a critic do to Shakespeare what Derrida has done to Plato ? Shakespeare has already done it to himself ...
Page 23
... normal " beliefs within the world of the play , in Merchant we are drawn into experiencing this dissolution ourselves . This experience is most intense during Shylock's trial : Portia is our wish - fulfilling heroine , our proxy onstage ...
... normal " beliefs within the world of the play , in Merchant we are drawn into experiencing this dissolution ourselves . This experience is most intense during Shylock's trial : Portia is our wish - fulfilling heroine , our proxy onstage ...
Page 25
... normal " reality outside the theater is further intensified by Prospero's associations with both Shakespeare and James , and by his epilogue request for us to take on his roles . However , because Prospero is a problematic hero , we are ...
... normal " reality outside the theater is further intensified by Prospero's associations with both Shakespeare and James , and by his epilogue request for us to take on his roles . However , because Prospero is a problematic hero , we are ...
Page 28
... normal " life . He does not discriminate between the situations in which he finds himself but , as Ronald Miller observes , simply accepts each of them " as perfectly ordinary " ( Miller 1975 , 260 ) . Just as in the casting episode he ...
... normal " life . He does not discriminate between the situations in which he finds himself but , as Ronald Miller observes , simply accepts each of them " as perfectly ordinary " ( Miller 1975 , 260 ) . Just as in the casting episode he ...
Page 39
... normal " life . He refuses to marginalize it . Quite the reverse , he joins it . The view of the woman Hippolyta is legitimized against reason . Theseus himself unfixes his supposedly stable , rational identity . With no threat , no ...
... normal " life . He refuses to marginalize it . Quite the reverse , he joins it . The view of the woman Hippolyta is legitimized against reason . Theseus himself unfixes his supposedly stable , rational identity . With no threat , no ...
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.