Playwright As Thinker

First published in 1946, The Playwright as Thinker is a classic work of drama criticism that helped create the intellectual environment in which serious American theater would thrive in the second ha

Using Kierkegaard's later religious writings as well as his earlier philosophical works, David Gouwens explores this philosopher's religious and theological thought, focusing on human nature, Christ, and Christian discipleship. He helps the reader approach Kierkegaard as someone who both analysed religion and sought to evoke religious dispositions in his readers. Gouwens discusses Kierkegaard's main concerns as a religious and, specifically, Christian thinker, and his treatment of religion using the dialectic of 'becoming Christian', and counters the interpretation of his religious thought as privatistic and asocial. Gouwens appraises both the edifying discourses and the pseudonymous writings, including the particular problems posed by the latter. Between foundationalism and irrationalism, Kierkegaard's ideas are seen to anticipate the end of 'modernity', while standing at the centre of the Christian tradition.

Using Kierkegaard's later religious writings as well as his earlier philosophical works, David Gouwens explores this philosopher's religious and theological thought, focusing on human nature, Christ, and Christian discipleship. He helps the reader approach Kierkegaard as someone who both analysed religion and sought to evoke religious dispositions in his readers. Gouwens discusses Kierkegaard's main concerns as a religious and, specifically, Christian thinker, and his treatment of religion using the dialectic of 'becoming Christian', and counters the interpretation of his religious thought as privatistic and asocial. Gouwens appraises both the edifying discourses and the pseudonymous writings, including the particular problems posed by the latter. Between foundationalism and irrationalism, Kierkegaard's ideas are seen to anticipate the end of 'modernity', while standing at the centre of the Christian tradition.

Addressing the questions central to any playwright's career and identity, Jon Klein offers you a glimpse into a career writing for the theatre. As well as an account of the day-to-day life of a writer

Nora Johnson's study of actors who wrote plays in early modern England uncovers important links between performance and authorship. The book traces the careers of Robert Armin, Nathan Field, Anthony Munday and Thomas Heywood, actors who were powerfully interested in marketing themselves as authors and celebrities; but Johnson contends that authorship as they constructed it had little to do with modern ideas of control and ownership. Finally, the book repositions Shakespeare in relation to actors, considering Shakespeare's famous silence about his own work as one strategy among many available to writers for the stage. The Actor as Playwright provides an alternative to the debate between traditional and materialist readers of early modern dramatic authorship, arguing that both approaches are weakened by a reluctance to look outside the Shakespearean canon for evidence.

Beckett (literature, Staffordshire U.) explores metaphor within a range of Lawrence's writing, including some of the early essays. Special attention is given to the books on the unconscious, Psychoana

This book is the first account of the way in which Weber appropriated and modified sources in the legal tradition, in which he was trained, to construct his sociology. It leads directly to a new under

The Many Faces of Ruan Dacheng: Poet, Playwright, Politician in Seventeenth-Century China is the first monograph in English on a controversial Ming dynasty literary figure. It examines and re-assesses the life and work of Ruan Dacheng (1587–1646), a poet, dramatist, and politician in the late Ming period. Ruan Dacheng was in his own time a highly regarded poet, but is best known as a dramatist, and his poetry is now largely unknown. He is most notorious as a ‘treacherous official’ of the Ming–Qing transition, and as a result his literary work―his plays as well as his poetry―has been neglected and undervalued. Hardie argues that Ruan’s literary work is of much greater significance in the history of Chinese literature than has generally been recognised since his own time. Ruan, rather than being a transgressive figure, is actually a very typical late Ming literatus, and as such his attitudes towards identity and authenticity can add to our understanding of these issues in late Ming intel

Originally published in 1996, this book presents and analyses children’s reasonings about fundamental metaphysical problems. The first part describes dialogues with children that were constructed on t

The poetry itself plays only a supporting role as O'Brien outlines Irish poet Heaney as an aesthetic thinker in the European intellectual tradition. He says that this tradition, generally located in t

Seamus Heaney’s unexpected death in August 2013 brought to completion his body of work, and scholars are only now coming to understand the full scale and importance of this extraordinary career. The N

Originally published in 1996, this book presents and analyses children’s reasonings about fundamental metaphysical problems. The first part describes dialogues with children that were constructed on t

This intense `genealogical' reconstruction of Albert Camus's political thinking challenges the philosophical import of his writings as providing an alternative, `aesthetic' way of thinking political a

During the early 1980s, Roger Planchon was foremost among a new breed in France of director-playwrights. Yvette Daoust ably demonstrates why this was so in her 1981 study of his dual role in the theatre. Setting Planchon's work in its historical and theatrical context, Dr Daoust summarises his career up until publication of this volume. In the first part of her book, Dr Daoust concentrates on Planchon as director of the dramatists Vinaver, Adamov and Brecht; of classic English plays - Shakespeare and Marlowe - and of the French classics. Turning in the second part to Planchon the playwright, Daoust examines the development of the social, political and aesthetic beliefs which determined the contents and emphasis of his plays. She estimates the influence of Brecht and the May 1968 événements on Planchon and describes his experiments with different forms of dramatic entertainment in his efforts to capture a regular working-class audience and keep the government subsidies flowing.

Shakespeare, National Poet-Playwright is an important book which reassesses Shakespeare as a poet and dramatist. Patrick Cheney contests critical preoccupation with Shakespeare as 'a man of the theatre' by recovering his original standing as an early modern author: he is a working dramatist who composes some of the most extraordinary poems in English. The book accounts for this form of authorship by reconstructing the historical preconditions for its emergence, in England as in Europe, including the building of the commercial theatres and the consolidation of the printing press. Cheney traces the literary origin to Shakespeare's favourite author, Ovid, who wrote the Amores and Metamorphoses alongside the tragedy Medea. Cheney also examines Shakespeare's literary relations with his contemporary authors Edmund Spenser and Christopher Marlowe. The book concentrates on Shakespeare's freestanding poems, but makes frequent reference to the plays, and ranges widely through the work of other R

More than one hundred years after her death, Elizabeth Cady Stanton still stands—along with her close friend Susan B. Anthony—as the major icon of the struggle for women’s suffrage. In spite of this c

Zoe Akins was an artist who became successful as a Broadway playwright. For Akins, this was a hard earned title, which she achieved after years of false starts and near misses. She wrote over 40 play

Cantor provides a close reading of 11 of Odets' plays as a whole, grounding his study within an analysis of themes common to each text. While granting emphasis to Odets' poetic style, Cantor gives due