Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Shakespeare and Presentist Theory

Shakespeare and Presentist Theory

Gajowski, Evelyn
Gajowski, Evelyn

Hardcover

Series: Shakespeare and Theory

Literary CriticismShakespeare

PREORDER - Expected ship date August 19, 2027

ISBN10: 1350030600
ISBN13: 9781350030602
Publisher: Arden Shakespeare
Published: Aug 19 2027
Pages: 200
Language: English

Why do Shakespeare's texts resonate so powerfully for us in the 21st century, 400 years after he wrote and produced them? Why is he more popular today than ever before? Why is that popularity now occurring in a global context, rather than a Western context? Surely, the comprehensiveness of Shakespeare's ethical vision is one of the reasons. His skill as a playwright elicits reader and audience empathy for his characters and the dramatic situations in which he situates them. Yet the political, economic, and social practices, discourses, and events of our present moment, and our inevitable 'situatedness' in them, constitute another, untheorized part of the story.

Presentism views Shakespeare's texts as infinitely flexible, elastic entities. It empowers readers, directors, actors, and audience members alike as endlessly capable of opening up new meanings in Shakespeare's texts - meanings that are inflected both temporally, in different periods of time, and spatially, in different cultures around the globe. This new study defines, explains, and analyses the significance of presentism as a 21st century theoretical and critical approach to Shakespeare's texts.

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