Shakespeare's First Folio and the fetish of the book. (July 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Cummings, Brian
• Is Part Of: Cahiers élisabéthains. Volume 93:Number 1(2017)
• Page Start: 50
• Page End: 69
• Publication Date: 2017-07
• Subjects: Fetishism -- post-Marxism -- Louis Althusser -- Shakespeare -- First Folio -- material texts -- historiography; Fétichisme -- post-Marxisme -- Louis Althusser -- premier in-folio de Shakespeare -- matérialité textuelle -- historiographie; English literature -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; English literature -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- History and criticism -- Book reviews -- Periodicals; 820.9003
• DOI: 10.1177/0184767817698932
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0184-7678

Abstract

Prospero's renunciation of his book in The Tempest acknowledges its power as a kind of 'fetish'. This essay traces the idea of the book as 'commodity fetish' and as material text. The argument examines how post-Marxist thought, in a new reading of Louis Althusser, might be used to challenge the Shakespeare of late capitalism. It suggests how a complex reading of the fetish in historiography, combining a history of the material book in Shakespeare, with a theoretical reading of William Pietz, Stephen Greenblatt and Peter Stallybrass, sheds light on the First Folio, one of the most famous – and fetishized – books in history.