Making a unique intervention in an incipient but powerful resurgence of academic interest in character-based approaches to Shakespeare, this book brings scholars and theatre practitioners together to rethink why and how character continues to matter. Contributors seek in particular to expand our notions of what Shakespearean character is, and to extend the range of critical vocabularies in which character criticism can work. The return to character thus involves incorporating as well as contesting postmodern ideas that have radically revised our conceptions of subjectivity and selfhood. At the same time, by engaging theatre practitioners, this book promotes the kind of comprehensive dialogue that is necessary for the common endeavor of sustaining the vitality of Shakespeare's characters.
Introduction, Yu Jin Ko; Part 1 Shakespearean Persons;
Chapter 1 How
Dark Was It in That Room? Performing a Scene Shakespeare Never Wrote, Michael
Bristol;
Chapter 2 Shakespearean Characters and Early Modern Subjectivity:
The Case of King Lear, Bruce W. Young;
Chapter 3 What Makes Someone a
Character in Shakespeare?, William Flesch;
Chapter 4 Wopsles Revenge, or,
Reading Hamlet as Character in Great Expectations 1 Special thanks to Mark
Bayer and Gretchen Minton, the directors of the 2006 Shakespeare Association
of America seminar on Shakespeares Literary Afterlives for providing an
occasion for the original draft of this essay and for their subsequent
suggestions. Thanks also to Yu Jin Ko, Edward Tayler, and Martha Woodruff for
offering encouragement and suggestions., James E. Berg; Part 2 Character in
Action;
Chapter 5 Historicizing Spontaneity: The Illusion of the First Time
of The Illusion of the First Time, Cary M. Mazer;
Chapter 6
(Re:)Historicizing Spontaneity: Original Practices, Stanislavski, and
Characterization, Tiffany Stern;
Chapter 7 Retracing Antonio: In Search of
the Merchant of Venice, Diego Arciniegas;
Chapter 8 Letting Unpleasantness
Lie: Counter-Intuition and Character in The Merchant of Venice, Brett Gamboa;
Chapter 9 Iago: In Following Him I Follow But Myself, Dan Donohue;
Chapter 10
I lay with Cassio lately: Iagos Fantasy, the Actor and Audience Response
to Othello in 3.3, Shurgot Michael W.; Part 3 Beyond Naturalism: Then and
Now;
Chapter 11 Just Do It: Theory and Practice in Acting, Eunice Roberts;
Chapter 12 Playing Sodomites: Gender and Protean Character in As You Like It,
Lina Perkins Wilder;
Chapter 13 Stops in the Name of Love: Playing
Typological Iago, Travis Curtright;
Chapter 14 Henry V s Character Conflict,
James Wells;
Yu Jin Ko, is Professor of English at Wellesley College, USA. Michael W. Shurgot is Professor of Humanities at South Puget Sound Community College, USA.
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