
Shakespeare | Cut
Rethinking cutwork in an age of distraction
Bruce R. Smith(Author)
Oxford University Press
Published on 23. August 2019
Book
Paperback/Softback
228 pages
978-0-19-883117-4 (ISBN)
Description
In distracted times like the present, Shakespeare too has been driven to distraction. Shakespeare | Cut considers contemporary practices of cutting up Shakespeare in stage productions, video games, book sculptures, and YouTube postings, but it also takes the long view of how Shakespeare's texts have been cut apart in creative ways beginning in Shakespeare's own time. The book's five chapters consider cuts, cutting, and cutwork from a variety of angles: (1) as bodily experiences, (2) as essential parts of the process whereby Shakespeare and his contemporaries crafted scripts, (3) as units in perception, (4) as technologies situated at the interface between 'figure' and 'life,' and (5) as a fetish in western culture since 1900. Printed here for the first time are examples of the cut-ups that William S. Burroughs and Brion Guysin carried out with Shakespeare texts in the 1950s. Bruce R. Smith's original analysis is accompanied by twenty-four illustrations, which suggest the multiple media in which cutwork with Shakespeare has been carried out.
Reviews / Votes
All in all, Shakespeare * Joe Falocco, Renaissance Quarterly * Anyone in our field who values both creativity and academic rigor has probably drawn inspiration from Bruce R. Smith ... as always, Smith doesn't contribute to subfields, he invents his own ... Smith wonders how the concept of "cutting" might provide a new way to talk about the physics, psychology, and phenomenology of Shakespearean text and performance. * Kevin Curran, Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
24 black and white illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 203 mm
Width: 127 mm
Thickness: 12 mm
Weight
250 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-883117-4 (9780198831174)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
08/2016
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€9.49
Available for download

E-Book
07/2016
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€9.49
Available for download
Person
Bruce R. Smith, Dean's Professor of English and Professor of Theatre at the University of Southern California, is the author of seven books, including The Acoustic World of Early Modern England (1999), The Key of Green (2009), Phenomenal Shakespeare (2010), and Shakespeare and Masculinity (2000, reissued 2012). The two-volume two-million-word Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare, for which he served as General Editor, was published by Cambridge University Press in January 2016. A former president of the Shakespeare Association of America, he has held fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the British Academy, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Author
Dean's Professor of EnglishDean's Professor of English, University of Southern California
Content
1: Cuts In, To, By, From, and With Shakespeare: Forms and Effects Across Four Centuries
2: Cutwork: Cutting Out Plays and Putting Them On
3: Cut and Run: Perceptual Cuts in Hearing, Seeing, and Remembering
4: At the Cutting Edge: Interfaces Between Figure and Life
5: The New Cut: Shuffling Cuts Since 1900
2: Cutwork: Cutting Out Plays and Putting Them On
3: Cut and Run: Perceptual Cuts in Hearing, Seeing, and Remembering
4: At the Cutting Edge: Interfaces Between Figure and Life
5: The New Cut: Shuffling Cuts Since 1900