Shakespeare's Resources
(Paperback)
Available Formats
Publishing Details
Shakespeare's Resources
By (Author) John Drakakis
Manchester University Press
Manchester University Press
1st November 2023
United Kingdom
Classifications
General
Non Fiction
Literary studies: c 1600 to c 1800
Literary studies: general
822.33
Physical Properties
Paperback
400
Width 216mm, Height 138mm, Spine 21mm
459g
Description
Geoffrey Bulloughs The Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare (1957-75) established a vocabulary and a method for linking Shakespeares plays with a series of texts on which they were thought to be based. Shakespeares Resources revisits and interrogates the methodology that has prevailed since then and proposes a number of radical departures from Bulloughs model.
The tacitly accepted linear model of source and influence that critics and scholars have wrestled with is here reconceptualised as a dynamic process in which texts interact and generate meanings that domesticated versions of intertextuality do not adequately account for. The investigation uncovers questions of exactly how Shakespeare read, what he read, the practical conditions in which narratives were encountered, and how he re-deployed earlier versions that he had used in his later work.
Reviews
'Drakakis finds the idea of source or authority too narrow. The sheer scope of materials to which Shakespeare had access, the the circumstances in which the playwright utilized them, he argues, mean that source and authority imply a quasi-theological concept of creation. Instead of source or authority, Drakakis offers resources, a term that, as he uses it, is much more open-ended. A resource could be a book, but it could also be a half-forgotten encounter or, in Shakespeares case, the experience of having written an earlier play ... Each of his chapters is deeply engaged with the history of Shakespeare scholarship, on which he commentates with generosity and from which he quotes at length ... He closes on a musical metaphor, presenting Shakespeare as one who could repeat tunes, recall motifs to mind, imitate themes and memes, improvise on existing material and, on a number of occasions, innovate.
Times Literary Supplement
Times Literary Supplement
Author Bio
John Drakakis is Emeritus Professor of English Studies at the University of Stirling
