About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherEdinburgh Tea & Coffee Company University Press

ISBN-101474426042

ISBN-139781474426046

eBay Product ID (ePID)235611244

Product Key Features

Number of Pages248 Pages

Publication NameShakespeare in Hindsight : Counterfactual Thinking and Shakespearean Tragedy

LanguageEnglish

SubjectShakespeare, Criticism, Logic, European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh

Publication Year2017

TypeTextbook

AuthorAmir Khan

Subject AreaMathematics, Literary Criticism, Philosophy

SeriesEdinburgh Critical Studies in Shakespeare and Philosophy Ser.

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height0.5 in

Item Weight10.6 Oz

Item Length5.9 in

Item Width8.9 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceScholarly & Professional

ReviewsA splendidly original investigation of Shakespeare's most beloved tragedies. I applaud Khan for his courage and ambition in offering the reader a way of experiencing these familiar plays as if for the first time by re-examining the basic premises of character and action. For readers of his book, Hamlet, Macbeth, Lear, and Othello will never be the same.

Dewey Edition23

Dewey Decimal822.3/3

Table Of ContentAcknowledgments; A Note on Texts; 1. Introduction; 2. My Kingdom for a Ghost: Counterfactual Thinking and Hamlet; 3. Reversing Good and Evil: Counterfactual Thinking and King Lear; 4. Staging Passivity: Counterfactual Thinking and Macbeth; 5. Reversing Time: Counterfactual Thinking and The Winter's Tale ; 6. 'Why Indeed Did I Marry?' Counterfactual Thinking and Othello ; 7. Conclusion; Endnotes; Bibliography.

SynopsisThis bold new study uses counterfactual thinking to enable us to feel, rather than to explain, Shakespeare's tragedies., We know William Shakespeare matters but we cannot pinpoint, precisely, why he matters. Lacking reasons why, we do our best to involve him in others, or involve others in him. He has been branded many times over--as Catholic, Protestant, Materialist, Marxist, Psychoanalytic, Feminist, Postcolonial, Popular, Cultural, and, even, Popular-Cultural. In many ways, Shakespeare is overwrought. Why one more 'approach' to Shakespeare? One reason is because whatever these approaches say about tragedy in particular, none of them help us to feel tragedy. Or, rather, they subordinate tragedy to something else--to considerations of, say, class, race, or gender. What these approaches manage to do is explain tragedy away. What this book does is to help us feel tragedy first and foremost--hence to perceive it better. The aim of Amir Khan's counterfactual criticism of Shakespeare's tragedies, Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, A Winter's Tale and Othello, then, is precisely to reanimate the tragic effect, long since lost in some deluge of explanation., We know William Shakespeare matters but we cannot pinpoint, precisely, why he matters. Lacking reasons why, we do our best to involve him in others, or involve others in him. He has been branded many times over-as Catholic, Protestant, Materialist, Marxist, Psychoanalytic, Feminist, Postcolonial, Popular, Cultural, and, even, Popular-Cultural. In many ways, Shakespeare is overwrought. Why one more 'approach' to Shakespeare? One reason is because whatever these approaches say about tragedy in particular, none of them help us to feel tragedy. Or, rather, they subordinate tragedy to something else-to considerations of, say, class, race, or gender. What these approaches manage to do is explain tragedy away. What this book does is to help us feel tragedy first and foremost-hence to perceive it better. The aim of Amir Khan's counterfactual criticism of Shakespeare's tragedies, Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, A Winter's Tale and Othello, then, is precisely to reanimate the tragic effect, long since lost in some deluge of explanation.

LC Classification NumberPR2983