Nyhet

Play and the Thing

A Phenomenology of Shakespearean Theatre

AvMatthew D. Wagner

Inbunden, Engelska, 2026

Del i serien Edinburgh Critical Studies in Shakespeare and Philosophy

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Beskrivning

Shakespeare’s Hamlet insisted that ‘the play’s the thing’; Edmund Husserl’s philosophy advised us to (re)turn our attention ‘back to the things themselves!’ How might a careful, detailed exploration of the basic ‘things’ of Shakespearean theatre illuminate his plays in performance? Taking up this question, The Play and the Thing offers the first book-length phenomenological study of Shakespearean stage craft, from the ground up. The book approaches the study of Shakespearean theatre by attending to the ways in which three of those basic things – Bodies, Objects, and Spaces – might appear to perception in the act of performance. As such, it demonstrates how the principal, if at times divergent, strands of phenomenological enquiry can offer insight into those particular things and the theatrical practices they engender(ed). Cutting across both early modern and modern-day performative and textual praxis, The Play and the Thing both explicates and enacts phenomenology as an illuminating approach to Shakespearean theatre.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2026-07-31
Mått:156 x 234 x 17 mm
Vikt:442 g
Format:Inbunden
Språk:Engelska
Serie:Edinburgh Critical Studies in Shakespeare and Philosophy
Antal sidor:208
Förlag:Edinburgh University Press
ISBN:9781474410861

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Mer om författaren

Matthew D. Wagner is Senior Lecturer in Theatre and Performance at the Guildford School of Acting, University of Surrey. He has written widely on Theatre and Temporality and on Shakespearean dramaturgy and performance practices. Previous publications include co-editing a special edition of the journal Shakespeare on Experiencing Time in Shakespearean Theatre (2019), co-editing the book collection Performance Phenomenology: To the Thing Itself (2019), co-authoring The Dramaturgy of the Door (2019, with Stuart Andrews) and Shakespeare, Theatre and Time (2012).

Recensioner i media

The Play and the Thing is an exuberant and exacting phenomenological reading of Shakespearean theatre. At every turn, Matthew Wagner urges readers to think with renewed wonder and openness about how we encounter and experience the ‘things’ of Shakespeare’s plays. The book's phenomenological approach to bodies, spaces and objects invites us to see how they appear on their own terms as ‘wondrous strange’, like the Ghost in Hamlet and Hermione's statue in The Winter’s Tale. An absorbing, original book on Shakespeare and an exciting addition to the field of phenomenology and theatre.

Innehållsförteckning

List of FiguresAcknowledgements1. Of Plays and Things - A Phenomenology of Shakespearean Theatre2. Of Shakespearean BodiesCoda I. The Winter’s Tale: Making Statues Move3. Of Shakespearean ObjectsCoda II. The Winter’s Tale – ‘This seal’d up Oracle’4. Of Shakespearean SpacesCoda III. The Winter’s Tale – The Coast of Bohemia5. Of a Few Other ThingsReferencesNotesIndex