R. S. White

Hamlet stands as a high water mark of canonical art, yet it has equally attracted rebels and experimenters, those avant-garde writers, dramatists, performers, and filmmakers who, in their adaptations and appropriations, seek new ways of expressing innovative and challenging thoughts in the hope that they can change perceptions of their own world. One reason for this, as the book argues, is that the source text that is their inspiration was written in the same spirit. Hamlet as a work of art exhibits many aspects of the “vanguard” movements in every society and artistic milieux, an avant-garde vision of struggle against conformity, which retains an edge of provocative novelty. Accordingly, it has always inspired unorthodox adaptations and can be known by a neglected portion of the company it keeps, the avant-garde in every age. After placing Hamlet alongside “cutting edge” works in Shakespeare’s time, such as Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, chapters deal with the ways in which experimental writers, theatre practitioners, and film-makers have used the play down to the present day to develop their own avant-garde visions. This is a part of the uncanny ability of Shakespeare’s Hamlet to be “ever-now, ever-new.”

Text, Stage, Screen

Avant-Garde Hamlet

Graham McGregor

Originally published in 1990. Each of the 12 chapters in this book build upon an approach to the analysis of spoken and written texts that is centred upon the recipient rather than the producer, for the abilities of listeners and readers deserve much attention. This book should be of interest to students and lecturers of linguistics, literary studies, English, education, communication studies and psychology.

Hearer Creativity and the Analysis of Spoken and Written Texts

Reception and Response

The Merry Wives of Windsor

In this book White "traces the influence of both the comedies and tragedies {of Shakespeare} on Keats's work." (Choice)

Keats as a Reader of Shakespeare

Originally published in 1986. This collection of essays is unified by one leading idea: that the active and creative abilities of listeners and readers deserve as much attention as the skills of speakers and writers. It is shown that hearers, far from being passive recipients in the communicative process, are in fact active in selecting, interpreting and creating from the disparate signals they receive. Equally, readers are involved in creating individual patterns of significance from a text. In presenting this argument, some essays deal with the importance of gender considerations, some with special modes of writing such as the private diary and literary translations, and others with the more familiar fields of poetry and drama. In the sphere of popular music, distinctions such as ‘folk’ and ‘pop’ indicate special problems in assessing the ‘authenticity’ of a listener’s response. By concentrating on active listening, the collection develops and illustrates the conviction that there are fundamental premises underlying the various disciplines under review, the analysis of which makes for a fuller understanding of communication in all its forms.

R. S. White

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