Character as Form (Hardcover)

Dr Aaron Kunin

ISBN 10: 1474222714 / ISBN 13: 9781474222716

Published by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, London, 2019

About this Item

Hardcover. What if the Renaissance had the right idea about character? Most readers today think that characters are individuals. Poets of the Renaissance understood characters as types. They thought the job of a character was to collect every example of a kind, in the same way that an entry in a dictionary collects definitions of a word.Character as Form celebrates the old meaning of character. The advantage of the old meaning is that it allows for generalization. Characters funnel whole societies of beings into shapes that are compact, elegant, and portable.This book tests the old meaning of character against modern examples from poems, novels, comics, and performances in theater and film by Shakespeare, Moliere, Austen, the Marx Brothers, Raul Ruiz, Denton Welch, and Lynda Barry. The heart of the book is the character of the misanthrope, who, in Shakespeare's phrase, banishes the world. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9781474222716

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Character as Form (Hardcover)
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, London
• Publication Date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1474222714
• ISBN 13: 9781474222716
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

What if the Renaissance had the right idea about character? Most readers today think that characters are individuals. Poets of the Renaissance understood characters as types. They thought the job of a character was to collect every example of a kind, in the same way that an entry in a dictionary collects definitions of a word.
Character as Form celebrates the old meaning of character. The advantage of the old meaning is that it allows for generalization. Characters funnel whole societies of beings into shapes that are compact, elegant, and portable.
This book tests the old meaning of character against modern examples from poems, novels, comics, and performances in theater and film by Shakespeare, Molière, Austen, the Marx Brothers, Raul Ruiz, Denton Welch, and Lynda Barry. The heart of the book is the character of the misanthrope, who, in Shakespeare's phrase, “banishes the world.”

About the Author

Aaron Kunin is Associate Professor of English, Pomona College, USA. He is the author of two books of poetry, Folding Ruler Star: Poems (2005) and The Sore Throat and Other Poems (2010) and a novel, The Mandarin (2008).