Poetic Will : : Shakespeare and the Play of Language / / David Willbern.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Penn eBook Package Archive 1898-1999 (pre Pub)
• VerfasserIn: Willbern, David,
• Place / Publishing House: Philadelphia : : University of Pennsylvania Press, , [2016]; ©1997
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Edition: Reprint 2016
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (240 p.)

The essence of Shakespeare, observes David Willbern, is in the details. What matters most in our appreciation of Hamlet is not the staged play but the play of language we find in the words of the Bard. This book explores the expressions of Shakespeare's poetic will--his sexual desire, conscious and unconscious volition, and posthumous legacy--within the linguistic matrix that enfolds his characters and readers. Using a combination of psychoanalytic approaches, Willbern rescues Shakespeare from the limitations and distortions of dramatic performance by showing that his language, scenes, and characters are propelled by the genius of this will and need to be understood primarily as written narrative.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Prologue: Cordelia's Skirt -- Introduction: Hamlet’s Inky Cloak -- 1. Limitations of Character, Limits of Language -- 2. Paranoia, Criticism, and Malvolio -- 3. Pushing the Envelope: Supersonic Criticism -- 4. The Famous Analyses of Henry the Fourth -- 5 Hyperbolic Desire: Shakespeare's Lucrece -- 6 Phantasmagoric Macbeth -- 7 Shakespeare's Nothing -- 8 What Is Shakespeare? -- Epilogue: Yorick's Skull, Miranda's Memory -- Notes -- Index -- Permissions