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Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 December 2024

Nicholas Luke
Affiliation:
The University of Hong Kong
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Summary

The book looks to the creative potential of experiences of failure, haunting, estrangement, impasse, or dream in Shakespeare. The focus is not just on what the plays represent but on what they do and how they inspire and unsettle the political imaginations of their audiences. The Introduction sets out the intellectual heritage underpinning this approach, including the tradition of negative theology and subsequent philosophies of the negative (Hegel, Kierkegaard, Benjamin, Adorno, Derrida, Badiou). It thereby establishes a negative political theology that challenges the official (or positive) political theology that sacralises power. By outlining “the disruptive spirit of negativity”, it shifts critical focus from the mimetic to the affective and opens new and more nuanced readings. The approach builds on the work of critics such as Annabel Patterson, Andrew Hadfield, and Chris Fitter, who have highlighted the anti-monarchical or popular political forces at play during the period. In the via negativia, however, it explores a very different origin and mode of egalitarianism. It focuses on the way negativity and unsettlement imaginatively transform political thought and relations. Shakespeare’s drama opens up visions of something other, including radical experiences of the “perhaps” or “what if”, that deepen the audience’s political thought.

Type
Chapter
Information
Shakespeare's Political Spirit
Negative Theology and the Disruption of Power
, pp. 1 - 37
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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  • Introduction
  • Nicholas Luke, The University of Hong Kong
  • Book: Shakespeare's Political Spirit
  • Online publication: 12 December 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009348232.001
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  • Introduction
  • Nicholas Luke, The University of Hong Kong
  • Book: Shakespeare's Political Spirit
  • Online publication: 12 December 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009348232.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Nicholas Luke, The University of Hong Kong
  • Book: Shakespeare's Political Spirit
  • Online publication: 12 December 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009348232.001
Available formats
×