Phenomenal Shakespeare (eBook)

Bruce R. Smith is Dean's Professor of English and Professor of Theatre at the University of Southern California. He has published widely on Shakespeare with recent works including The Key of Green: Passion and Perception in Renaissance Culture (2009), Shakespeare and Masculinity (2000), and The Acoustic World of Early Modern England (1999). A former president of the Shakespeare Association of America, Smith has been a keynote speaker at meetings of Shakespeare and Renaissance organizations in Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, Portugal, and the UK. He has also been featured in programs aired on BBC Radio 3, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Public Radio International, and TV 4 London.

Acknowledgments ix

Prologue: The Argument xi

1 As It Likes You 1

2 How Should One Read a Shakespeare Sonnet? 38

3 Carnal Knowledge 82

4 Touching Moments 132

Epilogue: What Shakespeare Proves 177

Works Cited 187

Picture Credits 197

Index 199

"I cannot recommend Bruce Smith's book highly enough to any researcher interested in deepening their understanding of historical phenomenology. The first chapter on As You Like It manifests-through an analysis of the modern use of the quotative "like" and three contrasting portraits of Bacon, Descartes and Husserl in their private studies of phenomena-the central goals and underpinnings of this theoretical approach." (Routledge ABES, 2011)

"But Smith's pleasure-seeking book, a useful corrective to the worst excesses of historicism is police-like in its own way". (Times Higher Education Supplement, 25 November 2010)

"A welcome introduction to what is proving an exciting set of
radically new approaches for making sense of the early modern
period [...] what is really groundbreaking about Smith's
work here is how it demands that we as scholars re-address what it
is that we think we are doing when we read these texts."

--William N. West, Northwestern University

"A timely and unique contribution that urges the reorientation
of critical attitudes from the "state the theory, show the theory,
restate the theory" approach towards a method of manifesting or
showing".

--P.A. Skantze, Roehampton University