Description
Book SynopsisThis book explores the figure of the snail in Shakespeare and in Renaissance painting. From the emergence of the gastropod object/subject in the text of King Lear and its iconic interface in Giovanni Bellini's painting Allegory of Falsehood, this study follows the path traced by the snail throughout the Őuvre.
Trade ReviewShakespeare's Spiral takes part in the new attention to the Creature, the Thing, and forms of life in literary, philosophical, and iconographic studies of Renaissance matter. In this witty and moving book, Gleyzon twists natural history, biopolitics, and the ecology of signs into a single spiral of incarnate thought, presenting the [snail] as both an object and a method for contemporary engagement with major and minor life forms of the past and present. -- Julia Reinhard Lupton, The University of California, Irvine
The Spiral is at once beautiful and rare. -- Juliet Fleming, New York University and the University of Cambridge
An evocative, genuinely exploratory study - rangy and surprising. Gleyzon combines an extraordinary range of theoretical reference, an instinct for the improbable and illuminating conjunction - Charcot and Dürer, western thought and the gastropod - with a refined attentiveness to the poetics of text and language. -- Christopher Pye, Williams College
Shakespeare’s Spiral deserves to be read by scholars in and outside of the Shakespearean ‘‘shellter’’ (p. xix). The book invites critics to come out of their methodological shells; for this reason perhaps—in the words of an early review of Catch-22—it will prove to be 'a dazzling performance that will outrage nearly as many readers as it delights'. * English Studies *
Table of ContentsChapter 1 List of Illustrations Chapter 2 Acknowledgements Chapter 3 Introduction Part 4 Part One: A Shakespearean Gaze at the Snail Chapter 5 1. Introducing the Snail Chapter 6 2. From the Hovel to the Shell Chapter 7 3. Mutatis Mutandis I: From the Snail to the Worm Chapter 8 4. The Decadence of the Garden Snail Chapter 9 5. Mutatis Mutandis II: From the Worm to the Shell Chapter 10 6. The Resurrection Shell Chapter 11 7. The Virgin Mary's Snail Chapter 12 8. Opening up the Spiral Quest Part 13 Part Two: The Renascent Spiral: Dazzling-Darkening Chapter 14 1. Introduction: Seeing and Thinking Blindly Chapter 15 2. Dazzling-Darkening in King Lear Chapter 16 3. Conclusion: The Eye-Spiral: Shakespeare - Charcot - Dürer Part 17 Part Three: Under the Eye of Gorgô or the Medusa-Snail Chapter 18 1. Recapitulation and Re: Capitulation Chapter 19 2. Theoretical and Aporetic Considerations Chapter 20 3. Sleep and Macbeth Chapter 21 4. Return to King Lear: The Medusa-Snail Chapter 22 Bibliography
