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
Results 1-5 of 39
Page 9
... particular , my many helpful colleagues at the University of Vermont and my fellow members of the Burlington Dharmadhatu family have a very large place in my heart and mind . The burden of such an enterprise as this falls most heavily ...
... particular , my many helpful colleagues at the University of Vermont and my fellow members of the Burlington Dharmadhatu family have a very large place in my heart and mind . The burden of such an enterprise as this falls most heavily ...
Page 13
... particular Shakespearean texts . The version of Buddhism that underlies this transaction is therefore the one I myself practice : I am a Mahayana student of the late Chogyam Trungpa , Rinpoche , a teacher in the Kagyü lineage of Tibet ...
... particular Shakespearean texts . The version of Buddhism that underlies this transaction is therefore the one I myself practice : I am a Mahayana student of the late Chogyam Trungpa , Rinpoche , a teacher in the Kagyü lineage of Tibet ...
Page 14
... particular rewriting , I have been teaching Shake- speare for over twenty years at the University of Vermont . In the middle of this academic career , at a point when my previous assumptions about myself and the world seemed to be in ...
... particular rewriting , I have been teaching Shake- speare for over twenty years at the University of Vermont . In the middle of this academic career , at a point when my previous assumptions about myself and the world seemed to be in ...
Page 15
... particular Shakespearean play , but many , and indeed not even one meaning to an individual word , but none ( or as many as there are contexts in which difference can play ) , we know too that a reader's subjectivity cannot be edited ...
... particular Shakespearean play , but many , and indeed not even one meaning to an individual word , but none ( or as many as there are contexts in which difference can play ) , we know too that a reader's subjectivity cannot be edited ...
Page 16
... particular and ( at least to me ) known personal history , seated among an essentially similar group of people , transported to the specific cultural and theatrical place in which the play in question was originally performed ( insofar ...
... particular and ( at least to me ) known personal history , seated among an essentially similar group of people , transported to the specific cultural and theatrical place in which the play in question was originally performed ( insofar ...
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.