Shakespeare the Thinker - Hardcover

A.D. Nuttall

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300119283 ISBN 13: 9780300119282

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2007

Synopsis

A. D. Nuttall's study of Shakespeare's intellectual preoccupations is a literary tour de force and comes to crown the distinguished career of a Shakespeare scholar. Certain questions engross Shakespeare from his early plays to the late romances: the nature of motive, cause, personal identity and relation, the proper status of imagination, ethics and subjectivity, language and its capacity to occlude and to communicate. Yet Shakespeare's thought, Nuttall demonstrates, is anything but static. The plays keep returning to, modifying, and complicating his creative preoccupations. Nuttall allows us to hear and appreciate the emergent cathedral choir of play speaking to play. By the later stages of Nuttall's book this choir is nearly overwhelming in its power and dimensions. The author does not limit discussion to moments of crucial intellection but gives himself ample space in which to get at the distinctive essence of each work. Much recent historicist criticism has tended to 'flatten' Shakespeare by confining him to the thought-clichés of his time, and this in its turn has led to an implicitly patronizing view of him as unthinkingly racist, sexist, and so on. Nuttall shows us that, on the contrary, Shakespeare proves again and again to be more intelligent and perceptive than his 21st-century readers. This book challenges us to reconsider the relation of great literature to its social and historical matrix. It is also, perhaps, the best guide to Shakespeare's plays available in any language.

About this title

Review:

'A wonderfully illuminating study' -- A.C. Grayling, Literary Review, April, 2007

"Ranging widely in its frame of reference, which encompasses popular culture -- films and television programmes -- as well as a broad spectrum of European literature and thought, it offers a highly personal and deeply imaginative reading of Shakespeare's plays and its investigation of the intellect that produced them." -- The Shakespeare Bookshop Newsletter, August 2007

'... a marvellously wise and humane account... Always highly
intelligent and effortlessly readable.'
-- Sunday Telegraph, 8th April 2007

'The delight of Nuttall's book springs from the incisiveness of
his ideas.'
-- The Sunday Times, April 22nd, 2007

Nuttal is at his brilliant best when Shakespeare drops the
philosophising and forces him to relish the thoughtless wisdom of a
haunting image, an eloquent gesture, or a line that stops the heart. -- The Indepedent, April 20, 2007

Shakespeare the Thinker is an exhaustive, marvellous exploration
of the many interconnected themes that run through the plays. -- The Tablet, April 28, 2007

This is an impressive swansong from a distinguished scholar. -- The Good Book Guide, May 2007

[Nuttall] aims to restore to us the depth and brightness of
Shakespeare's thought, to undim him, like a good picture cleaner. And he
has suceeded magnificiently. -- The Spectactor, April 28, 2007

wonderfully incisive and unstuffy look at the Bard's ideas.
-- The Sunday Times, May 6, 2007

About the Author:

A. D. Nuttall was professor of English at Oxford University and the author of numerous books, including A Common Sky: Philosophy and the Literary Imagination and Why Does Tragedy Give Pleasure? His books Two Concepts of Allegory and A New Mimesis: Shakespeare and the Representation of Reality are published by Yale University Press.

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0300119283
• ISBN 13: 9780300119282
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 448