Radical Tragedy: Religion, Ideology and Power in the Drama of Shakespeare and His Contemporaries

Rating:
Summary: Cultural materialism at its best
Review: This book was originally written in 1984 but was reissued in 1989 and then reprinted in 1993. It is a cultural materialist study in Renaissance literature. Cultural materialism is a movement led by Raymond Williams and often associated with the new historicism of Stephen Greenblatt. The book reviews the relationship between culture and context, from a revised neo-Marxist standpoint. Along with his (then) colleague, Alan Sinfield, Dollimore led the way in Renaissance literary criticism and this book precedes their magnum opus, 'Political Shakespeare.' Dollimore focuses on the possibility of subversion in works that had previously been seen as re-asserting the validity and essential stability of a pre-existing social order. The possibility of resistance had effectively been refuted by Foucault and his followers, and the focus on potential dissidence in readings of the text allows a greater chance for subverting the status quo, necessary for any radical reading of a text. Dollimore draws on literary and cultural theory, particularly Althusser and Gramsci on ideology to assert a greater radical potential in the literary canon. In the context of a British Thatcherite hegemony, this search for a possible resistance movement seems natural, and it is also an outstanding piece of scholarship. Very useful, very influential, very well-written. In short, well worth having.