Rereading Shepard : Contemporary Critical Essays on the Plays of Sam Shepard

Rereading Shepard draws together 13 original theoretical perspectives on one of America's most important contemporary playwrights. Representing a range of critical appraoches - including semiotics, deconstruction, and feminism - the essays address recent debates emerging in Shepard criticism. These include the status of Shepard's texts within the modernist tradition on the one hand and a developing post-modernism on the other, and the feminist debate over Shepard's drama - does it reinforce a masculinist world or does it provide some oppositional stance toward patriarchal 'master narratives'? Rereading Shepard Draws Together Thirteen Original Theoretical Essays On One Of America's Most Important Contemporary Playwrights. Representing A Range Of Critical Approaches - Including Semiotics, Deconstruction, And Feminism - And Covering A Significant Spectrum Of Shepard's Oeuvre, The Essays Address The Recent Debates Emerging In Shepard Criticism. The First Of These Concerns The Relation Of Shepard's Drama To The Literary And Artistic Postmodernism That Has Been Fashioned In America Since The Mid Sixties. Do Shepard's Plays Represent An Expression Of This Postmodern Impulse, Or Are They Indebted Primarily To The Modernist Tradition? Do They Represent An Essential Modernist Quest For Origins And Authenticity, Or Are They Products Of A Postmodern World Where Origins Are Foreclosed And The Authentic Irretrievable? The Second Debate Centres Around Feminist Readings Of Shepard's Drama Which Return Inevitably To The Question: Do Shepard's Plays Reinforce A Masculinist World Or Do They Provide Some Oppositional Stance Towards Patriarchal 'master Narratives'?--book Jacket. Artifacts : The Early Plays Reconsidered / Gerald Weales -- Potential Performance Texts For The Rock Garden And 4-h Club / Dennis Carroll -- The Desert And The City / Leonard Wilcox -- Memory And Mind / Gerry Mccarthy -- Shepard's Challenge To The Modernist Myths Of Origin And Originality / Sheila Rabillard -- True Stories / Ann Wilson -- Shepard's Family Trilogy And The Conventions Of Modern Realism / Charles R. Lyons -- A Kind Of Cavorting / David J. Derose -- Speaking Without Words / Ann C. Hall -- When A Woman Looks / Susan Bennett -- Lighting Out For The Territory Within / Sherrill Grace -- Ì Smash The Tools Of My Captivity' / Jane Ann Crum -- A Motel Of The Mind / Felicia Hardison Londré. Edited By Leonard Wilcox. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Front Matter....Pages i-xii Introduction....Pages 1-7 Artifacts: The Early Plays Reconsidered....Pages 8-21 Potential Performance Texts for The Rock Garden and 4-H Club....Pages 22-41 The Desert and the City: Operation Sidewinder and Shepard’s Postmodern Allegory....Pages 42-57 Memory and Mind: Sam Shepard’s Geography of a Horse Dreamer....Pages 58-76 Shepard’s Challenge to the Modernist Myths of Origin and Originality: Angel City and True West....Pages 77-96 True Stories: Reading the Autobiographic in Cowboy Mouth, ‘True Dylan’ and Buried Child....Pages 97-114 Shepard’s Family Trilogy and the Conventions of Modern Realism....Pages 115-130 A Kind of Cavorting: Superpresence and Shepard’s Family Dramas....Pages 131-149 Speaking Without Words: the Myth of Masculine Autonomy in Sam Shepard’s Fool for Love....Pages 150-167 When a Woman Looks: The ‘Other’ Audience of Shepard’s Plays....Pages 168-179 Lighting Out for the Territory Within: Field Notes on Shepard’s Expressionist Vision....Pages 180-195 ‘I Smash the Tools of my Captivity’: The Feminine in Sam Shepard’s A Lie of the Mind....Pages 196-214 A Motel of the Mind: Fool for Love and A Lie of the Mind....Pages 215-224 Back Matter....Pages 225-229