Radical Tragedy: Religion, Ideology and Power in the Drama of Shakespeare and His Contemporaries
by Jonathan Dollimore
Duke University Press, 2004 Paper: 978-0-8223-3347-0 | Cloth: 978-0-8223-3335-7 Library of Congress Classification PR658.T7D6 2004 Dewey Decimal Classification 822.05120904
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
When it was first published, Radical Tragedy was hailed as a groundbreaking reassessment of the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. An engaged reading of the past with compelling contemporary significance, Radical Tragedy remains a landmark study of Renaissance drama. The third edition of this critically acclaimed work includes a new foreword by Terry Eagleton and an extensive new introduction by the author.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Jonathan Dollimore is Professor of English at the University of York. His books include Death, Desire, and Loss in Western Culture;Sex, Literature, and Censorship; Political Shakespeare: Essays in Cultural Materialism (with Alan Sinfield); and Sexual Dissidence: Augustine to Wilde, Freud to Foucault.
REVIEWS
“A welcome new edition of a pathbreaking book complete with a brilliantly incisive and thought-provoking introduction that will enthuse a new generation of students. With an iconoclastic energy all too rare in academic circles, Dollimore fearlessly revalues his own project and poses questions central to the larger critical, cultural, and philosophical debates within English Studies, to which Radical Tragedy continues to make a major scholarly contribution.”—John Drakakis, University of Stirling
“I put this book right at the top. I read it with excitement and sustained interest throughout.”—David Bevington, University of Chicago
“Prefaced by a powerful, provocative essay that brings its argument bang up to date, this splendid new edition of Radical Tragedy puts its status as a classic of cultural-materialist criticism beyond question.”—Kiernan Ryan, Royal Holloway, University of London
“Some critical studies are full of insight, but not many of them are necessary. Radical Tragedy ranks among the necessary critical interventions of our time.”—Terry Eagleton, from the foreword
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Foreword / Terry Eagleton x
Introduction to the Third Edition xiv
i September 1914 xiv
ii September 2001 xvi
iii September 1939 xix
iv Art and Humanism xxii
v Humanism and Materialism xxv
vi Returns xxvi
vii Knowledge and Desire xxx
Notes xxxv
Bibliography xxxvii
Introduction to the Second Edition xli
Part I: Radical Drama: Its Contexts and Emergence
1. Contexts 3
i Literary Criticism: Order versus History 5
ii Ideology, Religion and Renaissance Scepticism 9
iii Ideology and the Decentering of Man 17
iv Secularism versus Nihilism 19
v Censorship 22
vi Inversion and Misrule 25
2. Emergence: Marston's Antonio Plays (c. 1599-1601) and Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida (c. 1601-1602) 29
i Discontinuous Identity (1) 30
ii Providence and Natural Law (1) 36
iii Discontinuous Identity (2) 40
iv Providence and Natural Law (2) 42
v Ideology and the Absolute 44
vi Social Contradiction and Discontinuous Identity 47
vii Renaissance Man versus Decentered Malcontent 49
Part II: Structure, Mimesis, Providence
3. Structure: From Resolution to Dislocation 53
i Bradley 53
ii Archer and Eliot 56
iii Coherence and Discontinuity 59
iv Brecht: A Difference Reality 63
4. Reniassance Literary Theory: Two Concepts of Mimesis 70
i Poetry versus History 71
ii The Fictive and the Real 73
5. The Disintegration of Providentialist Belief 83
i Atheism and Religious Scepticism 83
ii Providentialism and History 87
iii Organic Providence 90
iv From Mutability to Cosmic Decay 92
v Goodman and Elemental Chaos 99
vi Providence and Protestantism 103
vii Providence, Decay and the Drama 107
6. Dr. Faustus (c. 1589-92): Subversion Through Transgression 109
Radical Tragedy: Religion, Ideology and Power in the Drama of Shakespeare and His Contemporaries
by Jonathan Dollimore
Duke University Press, 2004 Paper: 978-0-8223-3347-0 Cloth: 978-0-8223-3335-7
When it was first published, Radical Tragedy was hailed as a groundbreaking reassessment of the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. An engaged reading of the past with compelling contemporary significance, Radical Tragedy remains a landmark study of Renaissance drama. The third edition of this critically acclaimed work includes a new foreword by Terry Eagleton and an extensive new introduction by the author.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Jonathan Dollimore is Professor of English at the University of York. His books include Death, Desire, and Loss in Western Culture;Sex, Literature, and Censorship; Political Shakespeare: Essays in Cultural Materialism (with Alan Sinfield); and Sexual Dissidence: Augustine to Wilde, Freud to Foucault.
REVIEWS
“A welcome new edition of a pathbreaking book complete with a brilliantly incisive and thought-provoking introduction that will enthuse a new generation of students. With an iconoclastic energy all too rare in academic circles, Dollimore fearlessly revalues his own project and poses questions central to the larger critical, cultural, and philosophical debates within English Studies, to which Radical Tragedy continues to make a major scholarly contribution.”—John Drakakis, University of Stirling
“I put this book right at the top. I read it with excitement and sustained interest throughout.”—David Bevington, University of Chicago
“Prefaced by a powerful, provocative essay that brings its argument bang up to date, this splendid new edition of Radical Tragedy puts its status as a classic of cultural-materialist criticism beyond question.”—Kiernan Ryan, Royal Holloway, University of London
“Some critical studies are full of insight, but not many of them are necessary. Radical Tragedy ranks among the necessary critical interventions of our time.”—Terry Eagleton, from the foreword
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Foreword / Terry Eagleton x
Introduction to the Third Edition xiv
i September 1914 xiv
ii September 2001 xvi
iii September 1939 xix
iv Art and Humanism xxii
v Humanism and Materialism xxv
vi Returns xxvi
vii Knowledge and Desire xxx
Notes xxxv
Bibliography xxxvii
Introduction to the Second Edition xli
Part I: Radical Drama: Its Contexts and Emergence
1. Contexts 3
i Literary Criticism: Order versus History 5
ii Ideology, Religion and Renaissance Scepticism 9
iii Ideology and the Decentering of Man 17
iv Secularism versus Nihilism 19
v Censorship 22
vi Inversion and Misrule 25
2. Emergence: Marston's Antonio Plays (c. 1599-1601) and Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida (c. 1601-1602) 29
i Discontinuous Identity (1) 30
ii Providence and Natural Law (1) 36
iii Discontinuous Identity (2) 40
iv Providence and Natural Law (2) 42
v Ideology and the Absolute 44
vi Social Contradiction and Discontinuous Identity 47
vii Renaissance Man versus Decentered Malcontent 49
Part II: Structure, Mimesis, Providence
3. Structure: From Resolution to Dislocation 53
i Bradley 53
ii Archer and Eliot 56
iii Coherence and Discontinuity 59
iv Brecht: A Difference Reality 63
4. Reniassance Literary Theory: Two Concepts of Mimesis 70
i Poetry versus History 71
ii The Fictive and the Real 73
5. The Disintegration of Providentialist Belief 83
i Atheism and Religious Scepticism 83
ii Providentialism and History 87
iii Organic Providence 90
iv From Mutability to Cosmic Decay 92
v Goodman and Elemental Chaos 99
vi Providence and Protestantism 103
vii Providence, Decay and the Drama 107
6. Dr. Faustus (c. 1589-92): Subversion Through Transgression 109
