Work
Radical Tragedy (1984, 2nd edition 1989, 3rd edition 2004)
In his first book, Dollimore argues that the humanist critical tradition has distorted for modern readers the actual radical function of Early Modern English drama, which had to do with 'a critique of ideology, the demystification of political and power relations and the decentring of “man”' (4).
Political Shakespeare: Essays in Cultural Materialism, edited with Alan Sinfield (1985, 2nd edition 1994)
Treading the same path as Radical Tragedy, this compendium of essays by leading writers on Shakespeare has as its goal to replace our idea of a timeless, humane and civilising Shakespeare with a Shakespeare anchored in the social, political and ideological conflicts of his historical moment. Included are essays by Stephen Greenblatt and Kathleen McLuskie.
Sexual Dissidence (1991)
In Sexual Dissidence, Dollimore sets out “to retrieve lost histories of perversion”, in part by tracing the term “perverse” back to its etymological origins in Latin and its epistemological origins in Augustine. A second theoretical section places Freud and Foucault in dialogue on the subject of perversion, followed by a second historical section, this time, on homophobia.
Death, Desire, and Loss (1998)
In a wide-ranging survey from Anaximander to Aids, Dollimore presses his case that the drive to relinquish the self has always lurked within Western notions of identity and can be found above all, ‘perversely, lethally, ecstatically’ in sexuality.
Sex, Literature, and Censorship (2001)
Dollimore explores the relationship between ethics and aesthetics, centring his discussion on literature’s “dangerous knowledge”. He calls for a shift in critical values from theoretical learning to experiential knowledge, endorsing a criticism capable of “being historically imaginative inside a perspective which one is also critically resisting” (p. 45).
Read more about this topic: Jonathan Dollimore
Famous quotes containing the word work:
“A perfect personality ... is only possible in a state of society where man is free to choose the mode of work, the conditions of work, and the freedom to work. One to whom the making of a table, the building of a house, or the tilling of the soil, is what the painting is to the artist and the discovery to the scientist,—the result of inspiration, of intense longing, and deep interest in work as a creative force.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Let’s holler and ask him if he won’t prescribe
For all humanity a complete rest
From all this wagery. But what’s the use
Of asking any sympathy of him?
That class of people don’t know what work is....”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Exile as a mode of genius no longer exists; in place of Joyce we have the fragments of work appearing in Index on Censorship.”
—Nadine Gordimer (b. 1923)