Richard II as Robinson Crusoe: Sovereignty and the Impossibility of Solitude

2020 ◽  
pp. 35-58
Author(s):  
Huw Griffiths
Keyword(s):  
Close Reading ◽  
Robinson Crusoe ◽  
Richard Ii ◽  
The World ◽  
Two Bodies ◽  
Dominant Influence

Through a close reading of two key moments of Richard II – the king’s return from Ireland and his later imprisonment and murder – this chapter demonstrates that, whilst the play develops an emotional investment in the trope of the lonely, isolated sovereign, sovereignty itself is imagined differently. Sovereignty is never contained within the lonely figure of a solitary man’s body but rather made manifest through an engagement with the world and, particularly, the organic with the machine, the “natural” with the “artificial”. This is a reading which is opposed to the dominant influence of Kantorowicz’s account of Richard II in The King’s Two Bodies, and that engages with Derrida’s consideration of Robinson Crusoe’s lonely sovereignty in the second volume of his The Beast and the Sovereign lectures.

scholarly journals Arboreal Tradition and Subversion: An Ecocritical Reading of Shakespeare’s Portrayal of Trees, Woods and Forests

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (36) ◽  
pp. 85-97
Author(s):  
Andoni Cossio ◽  
Martin Simonson
Keyword(s):  
Close Reading ◽  
Merchant Of Venice ◽  
Richard Ii ◽  
Individual Tree ◽  
Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
The Merchant Of Venice ◽  
The Tempest ◽  
The World ◽  
Individual Trees

This paper analyses from an ecocritical standpoint the role of trees, woods and forests and their symbolism in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Richard II and The Tempest. The analysis begins with an outline of the representation of trees on stage to continue with a ‘close reading’ of the mentioned plays, clearly distinguishing individual trees from woods and forests. Individual types of trees may represent death, sadness, sorcery and premonitions, or serve as meeting places, while forests and woods are frequently portrayed as settings which create an atmosphere of confusion, false appearances, danger and magic. This reflects a long-standing historical connection between trees and forests and the supernatural in literature and culture. However, while individual trees largely reflect traditional symbology, conventional interpretations are often subverted in Shakespeare’s treatment of forests and woods. From all this we may infer that Shakespeare was not only familiar with the traditions associated to individual tree species and forests in general, but also that he made conscious and active use of these in order to enhance the meaning of an action, reinforce character traits, further the plot and create a specific atmosphere. More subtly, the collective arboreal environments can also be interpreted as spaces in which superstitions and older societal models are questioned in favour of a more rational and reasonable understanding of the world.

Flow

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mitchell Ohriner
Keyword(s):  
Hip Hop ◽  
Rap Music ◽  
Music Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
South Bronx ◽  
The World ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Voice Flow ◽  
Computational Music Analysis

Originating in dance parties in the South Bronx in the late 1970s, hip hop and rap music have become a dominant style of popular music in the United States and a force for activism all over the world. So, too, has scholarship on this music grown, yet much of this scholarship, employing methods drawn from sociology and literature, leaves unaddressed the expressive musical choices made by hip-hop artists. This book addresses flow, the rhythm of the rapping voice. Flow presents theoretical and analytical challenges not encountered elsewhere. It is rhythmic as other music is rhythmic. But it is also rhythmic as speech and poetry are rhythmic. Key concepts related to rhythm, such as meter, periodicity, patterning, and accent, are treated independently in scholarship of music, poetry, and speech. This book reconciles those approaches, theorizing flow by integrating the methods of computational music analysis and humanistic close reading. Through the analysis of large collections of verses, it addresses questions in the theories of rhythm, meter, and groove in the unique ecology of rap music. Specifically, the work of Eminem clarifies how flow relates to text, the work of Black Thought clarifies how flow relates to other instrumental streams, and the work of Talib Kweli clarifies how flow relates to rap’s persistent meter. Although the focus throughout is rap music, the methods introduced are appropriate for other genres mix voices and more rigid metric frameworks and further extends the valuable work on hip hop from other perspectives in recent years.

Matthew Arnold and the Institutional Imagination of Liberalism

2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 361-375
Author(s):  
Sebastian Lecourt
Keyword(s):  
Close Reading ◽  
Common Language ◽  
Matthew Arnold ◽  
Main Claim ◽  
Great Books ◽  
Shared Identity ◽  
The World ◽  
Class Divisions ◽  
Literary Canons

I first took up Matthew Arnold's essays as a dissertation writer circa 2008. Although I had not read much of Arnold's prose beyond the commonly anthologized pieces (“The Function of Criticism at the Present Time,” “The Study of Poetry,” bits of Culture and Anarchy), he was a figure very much out of favor, and I brought to the table a strong preconception of his polemic. Arnold, I had learned, was a kind of cultural nationalist trying to fight class divisions within Britain by prescribing a narrow canon of books that could shore up a common language for his compatriots. His main claim was that there was a singular tradition of great books called “culture” that embodied “the best that is known and thought in the world.” Everyone in Britain needed to keep reading these books if the nation were to retain a shared identity and not fall into chaos. Furthermore, as I understood it, Arnold thought that to experience culture you needed to remain “disinterested” and “aloof from what is called ‘the practical view of things’” (5:252). Arnold was a Victorian Mortimer Adler who sought to defend the authority of traditional literary canons as well as a Victorian Wimsatt-and-Beardsley who upheld disinterested close reading against hyperpolitical Theory.

Anarchism, Violence and Civil Disorder

Worldview ◽  
1968 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 6-12
Author(s):  
Paul W. Blackstock
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Social Order ◽  
New Left ◽  
Western World ◽  
The Political ◽  
Robinson Crusoe ◽  
Moral Indignation ◽  
The World ◽  
Civil Disorder ◽  
Sensitive Individual

The Liberal's Dilemma and the Anarchism of Youth. The sensitive individual in the Western world has nearly always been impelled to protest the injustices of. the political and social order in which he finds himself. For example, very early in life Stephen Spender observed that "to be born is to be a Robinson Crusoe, cast up by elemental powers upon an island," that "all men are not free to share what nature offers here … are not permitted to explore the world into which they are born." Throughout their lives they are "sealed into leaden slums as into living tombs." To this general awareness of the plight of the poor, the New Left in this country has added a sense of burning moral indignation that the colored minority has also been sealed into ghettos and deprived of civil rights and human dignity.

scholarly journals RECOGNIZING THE IMPORTANCE AND STRUGGLES OF WOMEN: AN ECOFEMINIST READING OF ANITA DESAI’S NOVELS: FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN AND WHERE SHALL WE GO THIS SUMMER?

2017 ◽  
pp. 289-297
Author(s):  
Anjali Parmar ◽  
Ami Upadhyay
Keyword(s):  
Close Reading ◽  
Anita Desai ◽  
Human Race ◽  
Equal Share ◽  
Research Article ◽  
Living Things ◽  
The World

This research article glances in a few words at the concept of ecofeminism and the interconnectedness of woman and nature and their struggle. Earth belongs to all creatures on this planet so human has to share equally with them. All living things on earth have equal share on each and everything on this planet between them, But for the game called survival, human is destroying other things for their own benefits only. Since humanity is inseparable from nature, it is necessary to live in harmony to save the human race as well as the world from the damage and destructions which that demands the need of co existence. It is not only a movement but philosophies. Anita Desai is deeply fascinated by ecofeminism perception and through her novels she is trying to lead her readers to believe that nature and woman are resolving tools to the universal problems arising in today’s scenario. Through the close reading of Desai’s novel, I have explored the concept of ecofeminism. The present paper tries to reveal the features of ecofeminism through the portrayal of characters- Nanda Kaul and Sita in the Fire on The Mountain and Where shall We go This Summer? Respectively.

scholarly journals 明中葉知識體系建構的多元取向：從李夢陽〈刻《戰國策》序〉談起

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (31) ◽  
pp. 171-190
Author(s):  
王昌偉 王昌偉
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Song Dynasty ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
Good Case ◽  
Warring States ◽  
The Song Dynasty ◽  
The World ◽  
The Ideal

<p>嘉靖2年（1523），巡按河南的王溱（生卒年不詳）打算刊刻《戰國策》，為此特別請文學復古運動的領導者李夢陽（1473-1530）作序。通過對序文及李夢陽相關著作的細讀，本文旨在說明，從表面看來，李夢陽似乎是以衛道之士的口吻，通過作序的方式批判《戰國策》為畔經離道之書，事實上這篇序文實含有多重視角。要理解李夢陽這篇序文的學術思想史意義，我們必須把它放置在明中葉以還「雜學」或諸子學興起的背景下考慮。跟宋代以來的理學家強調士人學術應該統一在宏大和具普遍意義的「道」之下的傾向不同，明中葉以後的思想家對世界的理解，則是以多元和分別為基礎，強調萬物的分殊和差異。本文將說明，李夢陽序《戰國策》的多重視角，正反映了明代中葉知識界重視多元性和差異性多於普遍性的特點。</p> <p>&nbsp;</p><p>Li Meng-yang (1473-1530), a leader of mid-Ming literary archaist movement, was invited in 1523 by the inspector of Henan Wang Zhen to write a preface for a reprint of the Intrigues of the Warring States that the latter intended to publish. Through a close reading of the preface and Li&rsquo;s other works, this paper argues that while Li seems to have, on the surface, taken a moral high round and castigated the Intrigues for deviating from the orthodox teachings of the Classics, he preface actually encourages the readers to approach the text from multiple perspectives. We have to situate the preface in the context of the rise of &ldquo;miscellaneous learnings&rdquo; and the &ldquo;learnings of the masters&rdquo; in the mid-Ming period in order to appreciate its significance in intellectual history. Departing from the ways the Neo-Confucians since the Song dynasty envisioned literati learning to be a focused pursuit of a grand and universal Way, intellectuals from the mid-Ming onwards began with an assumption of multiplicity and diversity and emphasized disparities among all things. The multiple perspectives that Li Meng-yang exhibits in his preface to the Intrigues is a good case for showing that mid-Ming intellectuals were more inclined to see the world as complex and diverse, rather than to pursue the ideal of universality.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p>

scholarly journals „Ryszard II to ja”. Teoria dwóch ciał króla i elżbietańska praktyka polityczna

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 71-99
Author(s):  
Emilia Olechnowicz
Keyword(s):  
Political Practice ◽  
Richard Ii ◽  
Artistic Representation ◽  
Two Bodies

The purpose of the article is to show how the doctrine of the King’s Two Bodies formulated by lawyer Edmund Plowden influenced political practice and its artistic representation. It is worth emphasising that the image of the king as a one-man corporation includes an immanent conflict resulting not only from the coexistence of conflicting identities in one person, but also from the need to constantly negotiate relations between them. Therefore, the concept of two bodies could simultaneously serve as a tool for legitimising and contesting power. This paradox is well illustrated by Queen Elizabeth I’s famous declaration “Richard II is Me”, which has been intriguing researchers for decades and receiving extensive comments. So far it has not been placed in the context of the doctrine of the King’s Two Bodies, in which it sounds probably most fully. The perspective of abolished temporality inscribed in it sheds a new light on the queen’s identification with Richard II: both the historical ruler and the hero of the Shakespearean chronicle.

Reading

Overwhelmed ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 19-56
Author(s):  
Maurice S. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Ralph Waldo Emerson ◽  
Samuel Taylor Coleridge ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Robinson Crusoe ◽  
Main Concept ◽  
Interpretive Practices ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Literary Experience

This chapter reviews some roots of modern literary criticism by showing how some romantics respond to textual excess by variously resisting and adopting informational strategies of skimming and excerpting. A main concept of the chapter is “deserted island reading,” an ideal of immersive literary experience formed in opposition to mass print. The fantasy of losing oneself in a book unfolds across the legacy of Robinson Crusoe, which projects an account of intensive hermeneutics from the eighteenth through the nineteenth centuries. Deserted island reading was especially attractive to romantics such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a founding figure of modern close reading whose aesthetics and interpretive practices were formed under the pressures of information. But whereas Coleridge offers an agonistic example of the relationship between information and literature, Ralph Waldo Emerson presents a more modulated case in which the prophet of subjectivity, intuition, and motility that proves surprisingly open to informational modes of reading.

Gavel

2018 ◽  
pp. 214-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
James EK Parker
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Sound Studies ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
World Today ◽  
The World ◽  
Contemporary Work

The gavel is one of the most widely recognized objects of law around the world today. Images of it are everywhere. Gavels feature in some of the most prominent institutions of international law as well as in many courts and legislatures internationally. Even in jurisdictions where the gavel doesn’t appear in conventional legal settings it can still be found at auctions, conferences, and meetings, and will be doing important juridical work. It is not, however, well understood. Drawing on contemporary work in sound studies and jurisprudence, and via a close reading of a film by Italian artist Diego Tonus, this chapter provides a critical evaluation of the gavel’s material, symbolic, and sonic lives. It suggests that the gavel is right at the centre of the global juridical imaginary, and that this serves as a reminder that sound matters in law in ways that are not yet adequately explored.

Laplace, Pierre-Simon (1749–1827)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles C. Gillispie
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Celestial Mechanics ◽  
Generating Functions ◽  
Weights And Measures ◽  
Variation Of Constants ◽  
The World ◽  
The Laplace Transform ◽  
Laplace Expansion ◽  
Mathematical Techniques ◽  
Two Bodies

In company with Lagrange and Legendre, Laplace was one of the three foremost mathematicians during the half-century of French pre-eminence in science, from the 1770s into the 1820s. Although he invented or developed many mathematical techniques for solving various classes of problems, most notably generating functions, the Laplace transform, the Laplace expansion, the variation of constants, and the generalized gravitational function, he was more interested in what he could do with mathematics than with mathematics itself. His main treatises are Mécanique céleste (Celestial Mechanics) and Théorie analytique des probabilités (Analytical Theory of Probability). In addition he published Exposition du système du monde (Exposition of the System of the World) and Essai philosophique sur les probabilités (Philosophical Essay on Probability). Not exactly popularizations, the latter pair were verbal explanations of the two bodies of subject matter intended for a well-educated public. Both have gone through many editions. Though unrelated in content, the two main branches of Laplace’s work were related philosophically, celestial mechanics being concerned with the structure of the world, and probability with what we can know about it. In both respects Laplace’s motivation was to vindicate the Newtonian system of the world. In the later half of his life he developed an interest in physics and may be considered the impresario if not quite the founder of mathematical physics. He more than any other was responsible for the design of the metric system of weights and measures, a worldwide legacy of the French Revolution. A favourite of Napoleon, Laplace was a principal statesman of science during the Napoleonic period and afterwards.

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