In this groundbreaking work, one of our foremost literary and cultural critics turns to the major figure in English literature, William Shakespeare, and proposes a dramatic new reading of nearly all his plays and poems. The key to A Theater of Envy is Rene Girard's novel reinterpretation of "mimesis." For Girard, people desire objects not for their intrinsic value, but because they are desired by someone else--we mime or imitate their desires. This envy--or "mimetic desire"--he sees as one of the foundations of the human condition. Bringing such provocative and iconoclastic insights to bear on Shakespeare, Girard reveals the previously overlooked coherence of problem plays like Troilus and Cressida, and makes a convincing argument for elevating A Midsummer Night's Dream from the status of a chaotic comedy to a masterpiece. The book abounds with novel and provocative interpretations: Shakespeare becomes "a prophet of modern advertising," and the threat of nuclear disaster is read in the light of Hamlet. Most intriguing of all, perhaps, is a brief, but brilliant aside in which an entirely new perspective is brought to the chapter in Joyce's Ulysses in which Stephen Dedalus gives a lecture on Shakespeare. In Girard's view only Joyce, perhaps the greatest of twentieth-century novelists, comes close to understanding the greatest of Renaissance playwrights. Throughout this impressively sustained reading of Shakespeare Girard's prose is sophisticated, but contemporary, and accessible to the general reader. Anyone interested in literature, anthropology, or psychoanalysis will want to read this challenging book. And all those involved in theatrical production and performance will find A Theater of Envy full of suggestive new ideas.

A Theatre of Envy: William Shakespeare (Odeon)

Literature & Fiction

GIRARD, René

Dramas & Plays

Oxford University Press

The debate over the place of religion in secular, democratic societies dominates philosophical and intellectual discourse. These arguments often polarize around simplistic reductions, making efforts at reconciliation impossible. Yet more rational stances do exist, positions that broker a peace between relativism and religion in people's public, private, and ethical lives. Christianity, Truth, and Weakening Faith advances just such a dialogue, featuring the collaboration of two major philosophers known for their progressive approach to this issue. Seeking unity over difference, Gianni Vattimo and René Girard turn to Max Weber, Eric Auerbach, and Marcel Gauchet, among others, in their exploration of truth and liberty, relativism and faith, and the tensions of a world filled with new forms of religiously inspired violence. Vattimo and Girard ultimately conclude that secularism and the involvement (or lack thereof) of religion in governance are, in essence, produced by Christianity. In other words, Christianity is "the religion of the exit from religion," and democracy, civil rights, the free market, and individual freedoms are all facilitated by Christian culture. Through an exchange that is both intimate and enlightening, Vattimo and Girard share their unparalleled insight into the relationships among religion, modernity, and the role of Christianity, especially as it exists in our multicultural world.

Christianity, Truth, and Weakening Faith: A Dialogue

Politics & Social Sciences

Vattimo, Gianni

Philosophy

Columbia University Press

How we are motivated to imitate wanting what others desire—Girard’s theory primed for the social media age.\nA Penguin Classic\nRené Girard eludes easy categories, bridging the fields of literary criticism, anthropology, sociology, history, religion and theology. Influencing such writers as J. M. Coetzee and Milan Kundera, his insight into contagious violence looks ever more prophetic and relevant seven years after his death. In many ways he is the thinker for our modern world of social media and herd behavior. In this newly selected collection of writings, Cynthia L. Haven has created an approachable anthology of his work, addressing Girard's thoughts on the nature of desire, human imitation and rivalry, the causes of conflict and violence, the deep structure of religion and cultural subjects like opera and theatre. Girard spoke in language that was engaging, accessible and often controversial. A long-time friend and colleague, Haven shines a spotlight on his role as a public intellectual and profound theorist, inviting a new generation to his corpus.

All Desire Is a Desire for Being (Penguin Classics)

Penguin Classics

An individual desires an object, not for itself, but because another individual also desires it. This mimetic desire, Rene Girard contends, lies at the source of all human disorder and order. In brilliant readings of Dante, Camus, Nietzsche, Dostoevski, Levi-Strauss, Freud, and others, Girard draws out the thesis of mimetic desire -- and ponders its suppression in the West since Plato: "The historical mutilation of mimesis ... was no mere oversight, no fortuitous 'error.' Real awareness of mimetic desire threatens the flattering delusion we entertain not only about ourselves as individuals but also about the nature and origin of that collective self we call our society."

To Double Business Bound: Essays on Literature, Mimesis and Anthropology

Athlone

Presented as a series of conversations, Evolution and Conversion is a thorough discussion of the major tenets of Girard's thought. René Girard is one of the most brilliant and striking intellectuals of the 20th century. His theory on the imitative nature of desire and on the violent origin of culture has been at the centre of the philosophical and theoretical debate since the publication in 1971 of his seminal book: Violence and the Sacred. His reflection on the relationship between violence and religion is one of the most original and persuasive and, given the urgency of this issue in our contemporary world, demands a reappraisal. Girard, who has been hailed by Michel Serres as "the Charles Darwin" of human sciences, is in fact one of the few thinkers in the humanities and social sciences that takes into full consideration an evolutionary perspective to explain the emergence of culture and institutions. The authors draw out this aspect of his thought by foregrounding ethological, anthropological and evolutionary theories. Methodological and epistemological systematization has also been lacking in Girard's previous books, and by questioning him on the issue of evidence and truth, the authors provide a convincing framework for further inquiries. In the last chapters, Girard proposes a provocative re-reading of the Biblical texts, seen as the culmination of an enduring process of historical awareness of the presence and function of collective violence in our world. In fact, Girard's long argument is a historical spiral in which the origin of culture and archaic religion is reunited with the contemporary world by means of a reinterpretation of Christianity and its revelation of the intrinsic violent nature of the human being.

Evolution and Conversion: Dialogues on the Origins of Culture

Religion & Spirituality

Bloomsbury Academic

Presented as a series of conversations, Evolution and Conversion is a thorough discussion of the major tenets of Girard's thought. René Girard is one of the most brilliant and striking intellectuals of the 20th century. His theory on the imitative nature of desire and on the violent origin of culture has been at the centre of the philosophical and theoretical debate since the publication in 1971 of his seminal book: Violence and the Sacred. His reflection on the relationship between violence and religion is one of the most original and persuasive and, given the urgency of this issue in our contemporary world, demands a reappraisal. Girard, who has been hailed by Michel Serres as "the Charles Darwin" of human sciences, is in fact one of the few thinkers in the humanities and social sciences that takes into full consideration an evolutionary perspective to explain the emergence of culture and institutions. The authors draw out this aspect of his thought by foregrounding ethological, anthropological and evolutionary theories. Methodological and epistemological systematization has also been lacking in Girard's previous books, and by questioning him on the issue of evidence and truth, the authors provide a convincing framework for further inquiries. In the last chapters, Girard proposes a provocative re-reading of the Biblical texts, seen as the culmination of an enduring process of historical awareness of the presence and function of collective violence in our world. In fact, Girard's long argument is a historical spiral in which the origin of culture and archaic religion is reunited with the contemporary world by means of a reinterpretation of Christianity and its revelation of the intrinsic violent nature of the human being.

Continuum

This study extends beyond the scope of literature into the psychology of much of our contemporary scene, including fashion, advertising, and propaganda techniques. In considering such aspects, the author goes beyond the domain of pure aesthetics and offers an interpretation of some basic cultural problems of our time."

Deceit, Desire, and the Novel: Self and Other in Literary Structure

History & Criticism

Johns Hopkins University Press

Violence and the Sacred

Violence and the Sacred is René Girard's landmark study of human evil. Here Girard explores violence as it is represented and occurs throughout history, literature and myth. Girard's forceful and thought-provoking analyses of Biblical narrative, Greek tragedy and the lynchings and pogroms propagated by contemporary states illustrate his central argument that violence belongs to everyone and is at the heart of the sacred.

An individual desires an object, not for itself, but because another individual also desires it. This mimetic desire, Rene Girard contends, lies at the source of all human disorder and order. In brilliant readings of Dante, Camus, Nietzsche, Dostoevski, Levi-Strauss, Freud, and others, Girard draws out the thesis of mimetic desire -- and ponders its suppression in the West since Plato: "The historical mutilation of mimesis ... was no mere oversight, no fortuitous 'error.' Real awareness of mimetic desire threatens the flattering delusion we entertain not only about ourselves as individuals but also about the nature and origin of that collective self we call our society."

The Scapegoat

Widely regarded as one of the most profound critics of our time, René Girard has pursued a powerful line of inquiry across the fields of the humanities and the social sciences. His theories, which the French press has termed "l'hypothèse girardienne," have sparked interdisciplinary, even international, controversy. In The Scapegoat, Girard applies his approach to "texts of persecution," documents that recount phenomena of collective violence from the standpoint of the persecutor―documents such as the medieval poet Guillaume de Machaut's Judgement of the King of Navarre, which blames the Jews for the Black Death and describes their mass murder.
Girard compares persecution texts with myths, most notably with the myth of Oedipus, and finds strikingly similar themes and structures. Could myths regularly conceal texts of persecution? Girard's answers lies in a study of the Christian Passion, which represents the same central event, the same collective violence, found in all mythology, but which is read from the point of view of the innocent victim. The Passion text provides the model interpretation that has enabled Western culture to demystify its own violence―a demystification Girard now extends to mythology.
Underlying Girard's daring textual hypothesis is a powerful theory of history and culture. Christ's rejection of all guilt breaks the mythic cycle of violence and the sacred. The scapegoat becomes the Lamb of God; "the foolish genesis of blood-stained idols and the false gods of superstition, politics, and ideologies" are revealed.

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Books by GIRARD, René

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by GIRARD, René. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

A Theatre of Envy: William Shakespeare (Odeon)

Christianity, Truth, and Weakening Faith: A Dialogue

All Desire Is a Desire for Being (Penguin Classics)

To Double Business Bound: Essays on Literature, Mimesis and Anthropology

Evolution and Conversion: Dialogues on the Origins of Culture

Evolution and Conversion: Dialogues on the Origins of Culture

Deceit, Desire, and the Novel: Self and Other in Literary Structure

Violence and the Sacred

To Double Business Bound: Essays on Literature, Mimesis and Anthropology

The Scapegoat