Untimely Matter in the Time of Shakespeare

Jonathan Gil Harris

Published by University of Pennsylvania Press 2009

Untimely Matter in the Time of Shakespeare

Jonathan Gil Harris

https://doi.org/10.9783/9780812202205

Overview
Contents

About this book

Jonathan Gil Harris challenges the way we conventionally understand physical objects. Turning to Renaissance theories of matter, he considers the profound untimeliness of things, focusing particularly on Shakespeare's stage materials.

Author / Editor information

Jonathan Gil Harris is Professor of English at George Washington University and the author of Sick Economies: Drama, Mercantilism, and Disease in Shakespeare's England, also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Reviews

"Untimely Matter in the Time of Shakespeare is rigorously researched, well argued and skillfully written, and follows its own argument by using the past to suggest alternative ways of imaging both present and future. . . . Harris's book impresses with the depth and breadth of his knowledge, and the skill with which he brings together multiple branches of theoretical discourse to inform and advance his argument. . . . One of the more significant works of literary scholarship of recent years."—Parergon

"A deep, intelligent, thought-provoking book on the ways in which physical objects both inhabit and transcend time. . . . This exciting book takes familiar texts and presents them in a new way."—Choice

"One of the most intellectually profound interventions into the field of Renaissance studies to appear in the last five to ten years. In challenging conventional understandings of historical time, Harris's book offers nothing less than a complete overhaul of current critical practice and persuades us to glimpse a scholarly future that is genuinely and excitingly new."—Renaissance Studies

"Excitingly—and excitedly—written, energetic and widely suggestive. In restoring to the discussion of historical objects their resistance to temporal fixities, Harris's book does cultural historians a service."—Renaissance Quarterly

"A stylish, readable, and important intervention in early modern studies. In recalling a past that never was, it invites us to a future that might not be the same."—Jonathan Goldberg, Emory University

"It is difficult to do justice here to the extraordinarily wide range of critical and theoretical models that Harris draws on, or the ease with which he brings them together. . . . Harris's book is important . . . not only for its fine discussions of individual works but also for setting a yardstick for the work that early modernists might do in this area, and for the form that a 'turn to time' might take."—TLS

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Illustrations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Introduction. Palimpsested Time Toward a Theory of Untimely Matter Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
PART I. Supersessions
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	29
One. Reading Matter George Herbert and the East-West Palimpsests of The Temple Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	32
Two. Performing History East-West Palimpsests in William Shakespeare’s Second Henriad Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	66
PART II. Explosions
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	91
Three. The Writing On The Wall London’s Old Jewry and John Stow’s Urban Palimpsest Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	95
Four. The Smell Of Gunpowder Macbeth and the Palimpsests of Olfaction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	119
PART III. Conjunctions
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	143
Five. Touching Matters Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	148
Six. Crumpled Handkerchiefs William Shakespeare’s and Michel Serres’s Palimpsested Time Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	169
Coda. Dis-Orientations Eastern Nonstandard Time Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	189
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	195
Works Cited Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	235
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	261
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	275

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 288
Illustrations
- Other: 8 illus.
Keywords: Literature; Medieval and Renaissance Studies; Literature; Cultural Studies

eBook

Published: November 24, 2010
ISBN: 9780812202205