Shakespeare as a Way of Life

Skeptical Practice and the Politics of Weakness

Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality, Philosophy, Epistemology, Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, British, Social & Cultural Studies, Political Science, Politics, History & Theory
Cover of the book Shakespeare as a Way of Life by James Kuzner, Fordham University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: James Kuzner ISBN: 9780823269952
Publisher: Fordham University Press Publication: April 1, 2016
Imprint: Fordham University Press Language: English
Author: James Kuzner
ISBN: 9780823269952
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Publication: April 1, 2016
Imprint: Fordham University Press
Language: English

Shakespeare as a Way of Life shows how reading Shakespeare helps us to live with epistemological weakness and even to practice this weakness, to make it a way of life. In a series of close readings, Kuzner shows how Hamlet, Lucrece, Othello, The Winter’s Tale, The Tempest, and Timon of Athens, impel us to grapple with basic uncertainties: how we can be free, whether the world is abundant, whether we have met the demands of love and social life.

To Kuzner, Shakespeare’s skepticism doesn’t have the enabling potential of Keats’s heroic “negativity capability,” but neither is that skepticism the corrosive disease that necessarily issues in tragedy. While sensitive to both possibilities, Kuzner offers a way to keep negative capability negative while making skepticism livable. Rather than light the way to empowered, liberal subjectivity, Shakespeare’s works demand lasting disorientation, demand that we practice the impractical so as to reshape the frames by which we view and negotiate the world.

The act of reading Shakespeare cannot yield the practical value that cognitive scientists and literary critics attribute to it. His work neither clarifies our sense of ourselves, of others, or of the world; nor heartens us about the human capacity for insight and invention; nor sharpens our ability to appreciate and adjudicate complex problems of ethics and politics. Shakespeare’s plays, rather, yield cognitive discomforts, and it is just these discomforts that make them worthwhile.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Shakespeare as a Way of Life shows how reading Shakespeare helps us to live with epistemological weakness and even to practice this weakness, to make it a way of life. In a series of close readings, Kuzner shows how Hamlet, Lucrece, Othello, The Winter’s Tale, The Tempest, and Timon of Athens, impel us to grapple with basic uncertainties: how we can be free, whether the world is abundant, whether we have met the demands of love and social life.

To Kuzner, Shakespeare’s skepticism doesn’t have the enabling potential of Keats’s heroic “negativity capability,” but neither is that skepticism the corrosive disease that necessarily issues in tragedy. While sensitive to both possibilities, Kuzner offers a way to keep negative capability negative while making skepticism livable. Rather than light the way to empowered, liberal subjectivity, Shakespeare’s works demand lasting disorientation, demand that we practice the impractical so as to reshape the frames by which we view and negotiate the world.

The act of reading Shakespeare cannot yield the practical value that cognitive scientists and literary critics attribute to it. His work neither clarifies our sense of ourselves, of others, or of the world; nor heartens us about the human capacity for insight and invention; nor sharpens our ability to appreciate and adjudicate complex problems of ethics and politics. Shakespeare’s plays, rather, yield cognitive discomforts, and it is just these discomforts that make them worthwhile.

More books from Fordham University Press

Cover of the book The Subject of Freedom by James Kuzner
Cover of the book Insurgent Testimonies by James Kuzner
Cover of the book Toward an Ecology of Transfiguration by James Kuzner
Cover of the book Punishment and Inclusion by James Kuzner
Cover of the book Race Questions, Provincialism, and Other American Problems by James Kuzner
Cover of the book The Seeds of Things by James Kuzner
Cover of the book Sexual Disorientations by James Kuzner
Cover of the book Chronicle of Separation by James Kuzner
Cover of the book Questions of Phenomenology by James Kuzner
Cover of the book Tastes of the Divine by James Kuzner
Cover of the book The Relevance of Royce by James Kuzner
Cover of the book Sometimes Always True by James Kuzner
Cover of the book This Distracted Globe by James Kuzner
Cover of the book Derrida From Now On by James Kuzner
Cover of the book The Weight of Love by James Kuzner
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy