Shakespeare's brain : reading with cognitive theory / Mary Thomas Crane.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Crane, Mary Thomas, 1956-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Consciousness in literature.

Cognition in literature.

Brain--Case studies.

Brain.

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Criticism and interpretation.

Shakespeare, William.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (276 p.)

Edition:

Course Book

Place of Publication:

Princeton : Princeton University Press, c2001.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Here Mary Thomas Crane considers the brain as a site where body and culture meet to form the subject and its expression in language. Taking Shakespeare as her case study, she boldly demonstrates the explanatory power of cognitive theory--a theory which argues that language is produced by a reciprocal interaction of body and environment, brain and culture, and which refocuses attention on the role of the author in the making of meaning. Crane reveals in Shakespeare's texts a web of structures and categories through which meaning is created. The approach yields fresh insights into a wide range of his plays, including The Comedy of Errors, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, Measure for Measure, and The Tempest. ? Crane's cognitive reading traces the complex interactions of cultural and cognitive determinants of meaning as they play themselves out in Shakespeare's texts. She shows how each play centers on a word or words conveying multiple meanings (such as "act," "pinch," "pregnant," "villain and clown"), and how each cluster has been shaped by early modern ideological formations. The book also chronicles the playwright's developing response to the material conditions of subject formation in early modern England. Crane reveals that Shakespeare in his comedies first explored the social spaces within which the subject is formed, such as the home, class hierarchy, and romantic courtship. His later plays reveal a greater preoccupation with how the self is formed within the body, as the embodied mind seeks to make sense of and negotiate its physical and social environment.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction. Shakespeare's Brain: Embodying the Author-Function

Chapter 1. No Space Like Home: The Comedy of Errors

Chapter 2. Theatrical Practice and the Ideologies of Status in As You Like It

Chapter 3. Twelfth Night: Suitable Suits and the Cognitive Space Between

Chapter 4. Cognitive Hamlet and the Name of Action

Chapter 5. Male Pregnancy and Cognitive Permeability in Measure for Measure

Chapter 6. Sound and Space in The Tempest

Notes

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [211]-256) and index.

ISBN:

9786612505782

9781400815524

1400815525

9781400824007

1400824001

9781282505780

1282505785

9781400814060

1400814065

OCLC:

609858798