SHAKESPEARE: THE INVENTION OF THE LITERARY
SHAKESPEARE: THE INVENTION OF THE LITERARY

Summary/Abstract: The paper borrows its title from one of Harold Bloom’s, which is an overstatement (“the invention of the human”)—and so is “the invention of the literary”; the point is that of suggestiveness, rather than thoroughness. There are several easily identifiable sections: Shakespeare praise, fictional Shakespeare, titles based on phrases, lines, characters, titles… in Shakespeare, Shakespeare “rewritten” (adapted, parodied, re-told, spoofed…). The basic idea is that critic-historian-professors could write/teach a form of literary history—or of literature as such—beginning from Shakespeare and going down along one or another of these paths, or beginning from any of these Shakespeare inspired authors, books, titles… and going back to the Elizabethan bard; either way, one can see the playwright-poet as “the inventor of the literary.”

• Details
• Contents