Background
Calderwood, James Lee was born on April 7, 1930 in Corvallis, Oregon, United States. Son of George P. and Ruby (Williamson) Calderwood.
( Shakespearean Metadrama was first published in 1971. Mi...)
Shakespearean Metadrama was first published in 1971. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. In a new approach to Shakespeare criticism, the author interprets five of Shakespeare's early plays as metadramas, dramas that are not only about the various moral, social, political, and other thematic issues with which critics have so long been concerned but also about the plays themselves. Professor Calderwood demonstrates that in these five plays Shakespeare writes about his dramatic art -- its nature, its media of language and theater, its generic forms and conventions, its relationship to truth and the social order. In an introductory chapter the author explains his theory of metadrama, placing it in a general critical context as well as in the specific framework of Shakespeare's plays. He distinguishes between the meaning of metadrama and the similar terms "metaplay" and "metatheare." He points out that the dominant metadramatic aspect of the five plays under study is the interplay of language and action in drama. A separate chapter is devoted to the interpretation of each of the plays. Professor Calderwood is aware that in presenting his critical theory and interpretations he may be met with skepticism by other scholars and critics. He anticipates such a situation in the introduction: "To the critic trying on introductory styles for a book on Shakespearean metadrama," he writes, "the plight of Falstaff at the Boar's Head Tavern comes all to readily to mind. 'What trick," he must ask himself, 'what device, what starting-hole, canst thou now find out to hide thee from this open and apparent shame?'"
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0816605955/?tag=2022091-20
(James L. Calderwood offers a lively exploration of the wa...)
James L. Calderwood offers a lively exploration of the ways in which Shakespeare dramatizes the strategies people employ to deal with and transcend the inevitability of death. In keeping with the views of Ernest Becker, Norman O. Brown, and others, Calderwood argues that the denial of death is fundamental to both individuals and their cultures. By drawing on a fascinating range of examples, he suggests how often and how variously Shakespeare dramatizes this desire for symbolic immortality.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0870235834/?tag=2022091-20
(James L. Calderwood is surely among the liveliest and mos...)
James L. Calderwood is surely among the liveliest and most insightful Shakespearean critics writing today. In this book, he offers an extended meditation on Othello, employing the concept of property as a way of examining the play. According to Calderwood, property lines in Shakespeare's Venice divide women from men, black from white, outsiders from insiders, barbaric Turks from civilized Christians, land from money, and monologue from dialogue. Most of all, these lines draw a magic circle around the idealized identity of the Moor. Making use of theorists such as Bakhtin and Lacan, Calderwood demonstrates Othello's semiotics of self - as possessive self-capitalizer of an inviolate "I" and marital capitalist who tags Desdemona with a personal "mine" that helps materialize and mirror his inner value. Yet under the ministrations of Shakespeare and Iago, property dissolves the boundaries it draws between inner and outer, self and other, owner and owned. Chapters on barbarism and the evils of nobility, the status of women, the role of iterance in defining and destroying identities, and the mediating metadramatics of Iago suggest how the commercial associations of property - ownership, investment, exchange, alienation - not only inform the action of Othello but reveal its artistic properties as well.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0870236660/?tag=2022091-20
( Shakespearean Metadrama was first published in 1971. Mi...)
Shakespearean Metadrama was first published in 1971. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. In a new approach to Shakespeare criticism, the author interprets five of Shakespeare's early plays as metadramas, dramas that are not only about the various moral, social, political, and other thematic issues with which critics have so long been concerned but also about the plays themselves. Professor Calderwood demonstrates that in these five plays Shakespeare writes about his dramatic art -- its nature, its media of language and theater, its generic forms and conventions, its relationship to truth and the social order. In an introductory chapter the author explains his theory of metadrama, placing it in a general critical context as well as in the specific framework of Shakespeare's plays. He distinguishes between the meaning of metadrama and the similar terms "metaplay" and "metatheare." He points out that the dominant metadramatic aspect of the five plays under study is the interplay of language and action in drama. A separate chapter is devoted to the interpretation of each of the plays. Professor Calderwood is aware that in presenting his critical theory and interpretations he may be met with skepticism by other scholars and critics. He anticipates such a situation in the introduction: "To the critic trying on introductory styles for a book on Shakespearean metadrama," he writes, "the plight of Falstaff at the Boar's Head Tavern comes all to readily to mind. 'What trick," he must ask himself, 'what device, what starting-hole, canst thou now find out to hide thee from this open and apparent shame?'"
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0816657173/?tag=2022091-20
writer English literature educator
Calderwood, James Lee was born on April 7, 1930 in Corvallis, Oregon, United States. Son of George P. and Ruby (Williamson) Calderwood.
Bachelor of Science, University Oregon, 1952. Doctor of Philosophy, University Washington, 1963.
Instructor English, Michigan State University, East Lansing, 1961-1963; assistant professor, University of California at Los Angeles, 1963-1966; professor, University of California, Irvine, 1966-1994; vice chair department, University of California, Irvine, 1968-1974; associate dean School Humanities, University of California, Irvine, 1974-1994.
( Shakespearean Metadrama was first published in 1971. Mi...)
( Shakespearean Metadrama was first published in 1971. Mi...)
(First edition paperback (Prentice-Hall 1970). Evidence of...)
(James L. Calderwood offers a lively exploration of the wa...)
(James L. Calderwood is surely among the liveliest and mos...)
First lieutenant United States Army, 1952-1954.
Married Cleo Xeniades, August 14, 1955. Children: Stuart P., Ian G.