This book examines the discrepancies between various Western representations of China and the reality of China. It inquires into the cultural, historical, and political contexts within which such discrepancies arise, and it points out the distortion of reality in the tendency toward cultural dichotomies, the tendency to view China as the conceptual opposite of the West.
First published in 1972. Shakespeare's God investigates whether a religious interpretation of Shakespeare's tragedies is possible. The study places Christianity's commentary on the human condition side by side with what tragedy reveals about it. This pattern is identified using the writings of Christian thinkers from Augustine to the present day. The pattern in the chief phenomena of literary tragedy is also traced
Through readings of King Lear, Hamlet, Henry VI and other works, this volume employs psychoanalytic theory to arrive at new understandings of the emergence of early modern subjectivities.
This major work offers a new interpretation of the witchcraft beliefs of European intellectuals between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, showing how these beliefs fitted rationally with other beliefs of the period and how far the nature of rationality is dependent on its historical context.
"Why God?" Everyday this question is uttered in sorrow, bewilderment, or anger. This cry is the problem of suffering. It is also known as the problem of evil. It asks why a good, all-powerful God allows evil and pain. Theodicy is the name of the theological responses that seek to defend God against charges of unfairness. Traditional theodicies have been accused of intensifying the problem by claiming that God is justified in allowing evil because he uses it to bring about a greater good. This greater-good approach has been criticized in more recent times. It seems to uncomfortably align God and evil too closely together. Does God need evil in order to bring good? This study explores an alternative stream of theodicy found in the idea of cosmic warfare. In this theodicy God fights evil in its moral, physical, spiritual, and supernatural forms. This book explores the world of theodicy and its cosmic warfare forms. It navigates the theological and ethical minefields involved. Building on the idea that God is in the midst of a great cosmic controversy, it seeks to further the conversation and articulates a new alternative "redeemed good defense."
The essence of life in an oligarchy like George Orwell presents in '1984' is that freedom of choice is virtually non-existent. But what happens when so many trivial and meaningless choices inundate a culture such as our own and freedom itself becomes devalued? In 'A Do-It-Yourself Dystopia', through a variety of essays, Steven Carter addresses this and other issues in a wide-ranging search for hidden oligarchies of the American self.
This remarkable, innovative book explores the significance in Shakespeare's plays of oaths, vows, contracts, pledges, and the other utterances and acts by which characters commit themselves to the truth of things past, present, and to come. In early modern England, such binding language was everywhere. Oaths of office, marriage vows, legal bonds, and casual, everyday profanity gave shape and texture to life. The proper use of such language, and the extent of its power to bind, was argued over by lawyers, religious writers, and satirists, and these debates inform literature and drama. Shakespeare's Binding Language gives a freshly researched account of these contexts, but it is focused on Shakespeare's plays. What motives should we look for when characters asseverate or promise? How far is binding language self-persuasive or deceptive? When is it allowable to break a vow? How do oaths and promises structure an audience's expectations? Across the sweep of Shakespeare's career, from the early histories to the late romances, this book opens new perspectives on key dramatic moments and illuminates language and action. Each chapter gives an account of a play or group of plays, yet the study builds to a sustained investigation of some of the most important systems, institutions, and controversies in early modern England, and of the wiring of Shakespearean dramaturgy. Scholarly but accessible, and offering startling insights, this is a major contribution to Shakespeare studies by one of the leading figures in the field.
