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Placing Human Constants within Literary History: Generic Revision and Affective Sociality in The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest

Placing Human Constants within Literary History: Generic Revision and Affective Sociality in The... Abstract This essay explores Shakespeare’s qualification of romance conventions as a significant event in Western literary history. It may be seen as part of a sustained challenge to the subordination of somatic and affective sense to intellectual, conceptual significance advocated or assumed by dominant hermeneutic and poetic theories since late antiquity. Shakespeare’s final romances move toward making an ethical sense—one rooted in human constants of embodied responsiveness to others—the source and ultimate judge of literary significance or poetic truth. By making the ethical rather than the metaphysical primary in romance, Shakespeare suggests that receptivity to affective upheaval disrupts ideological consolidations of elite complacency, awakening us to a redemptive sociality that is implicitly experienced by protagonists and audiences together (characters in the course of the action, audiences in the course of mental and bodily reception of artistically rendered action). Shakespeare’s revision of romance, in challenging inherited regulation of what and how literature can signify, dramatizes relations between somatic, affective experiences and social, ethical life that illuminate the role played by human constants in literary communication. CiteULike Connotea Delicious Digg Facebook Google+ Reddit Technorati Twitter What's this? « Previous | Next Article » Table of Contents This Article doi: 10.1215/03335372-1375189 Poetics Today 2011 Volume 32, Number 3: 521-591 » Abstract Full Text (PDF) References Classifications Article Services Email this article to a colleague Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Download to citation manager Citing Articles Load citing article information Citing articles via Web of Science Google Scholar Articles by Wehrs, D. R. Related Content Load related web page information Social Bookmarking CiteULike Connotea Delicious Digg Facebook Google+ Reddit Technorati Twitter What's this? Current Issue Fall 2011, 32 (3) Alert me to new issues of Poetics Today Duke University Press Journals ONLINE About the Journal Editorial Board Submission Guidelines Permissions Advertising Indexing / Abstracting Privacy Policy Subscriptions Library Resource Center Activation / Acct. Mgr. E-mail Alerts Help Feedback © 2012 by Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics, Tel Aviv University Print ISSN: 0333-5372 Online ISSN: 1527-5507 var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-5666725-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Poetics Today: International Journal for Theory and Analysis of Literature and Communication Duke University Press

Placing Human Constants within Literary History: Generic Revision and Affective Sociality in The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest

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References (257)

Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
Copyright © Duke Univ Press
ISSN
0333-5372
eISSN
1527-5507
DOI
10.1215/03335372-1375189
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Abstract This essay explores Shakespeare’s qualification of romance conventions as a significant event in Western literary history. It may be seen as part of a sustained challenge to the subordination of somatic and affective sense to intellectual, conceptual significance advocated or assumed by dominant hermeneutic and poetic theories since late antiquity. Shakespeare’s final romances move toward making an ethical sense—one rooted in human constants of embodied responsiveness to others—the source and ultimate judge of literary significance or poetic truth. By making the ethical rather than the metaphysical primary in romance, Shakespeare suggests that receptivity to affective upheaval disrupts ideological consolidations of elite complacency, awakening us to a redemptive sociality that is implicitly experienced by protagonists and audiences together (characters in the course of the action, audiences in the course of mental and bodily reception of artistically rendered action). Shakespeare’s revision of romance, in challenging inherited regulation of what and how literature can signify, dramatizes relations between somatic, affective experiences and social, ethical life that illuminate the role played by human constants in literary communication. CiteULike Connotea Delicious Digg Facebook Google+ Reddit Technorati Twitter What's this? « Previous | Next Article » Table of Contents This Article doi: 10.1215/03335372-1375189 Poetics Today 2011 Volume 32, Number 3: 521-591 » Abstract Full Text (PDF) References Classifications Article Services Email this article to a colleague Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Download to citation manager Citing Articles Load citing article information Citing articles via Web of Science Google Scholar Articles by Wehrs, D. R. Related Content Load related web page information Social Bookmarking CiteULike Connotea Delicious Digg Facebook Google+ Reddit Technorati Twitter What's this? Current Issue Fall 2011, 32 (3) Alert me to new issues of Poetics Today Duke University Press Journals ONLINE About the Journal Editorial Board Submission Guidelines Permissions Advertising Indexing / Abstracting Privacy Policy Subscriptions Library Resource Center Activation / Acct. Mgr. E-mail Alerts Help Feedback © 2012 by Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics, Tel Aviv University Print ISSN: 0333-5372 Online ISSN: 1527-5507 var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-5666725-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview();

Journal

Poetics Today: International Journal for Theory and Analysis of Literature and CommunicationDuke University Press

Published: Sep 21, 2011

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