Metropolitan Tang is Linda Bamber's first book of poetry, a debut that is erudite, urban and urbane. Whether she is examining the breakup of her marriage or watching bulls in a field, considering Derrida's concepts of "presence" or her hairdresser's less theoretical philosophy, Ms. Bamber turns over images and ideas until she finds their proper relations, making meaning out of random juxtapositions, sense out of chaos, or, if nothing else, a good joke out of a bad situation. Her voice, sensitive and, at the same time, wry, is clear throughout, uniquely hers.
This book proceeds from the assumption that Shakespeare, so often perceived as the one writer who appears to have transcended the limits of gender, inevitably writes from the perspective of his own gender. From this perspective, whatever represents the Self is necessarily male; and the Other, which challenges the Self, is female. The author's approach gives us a fresh understanding of both Shakespeare's characters and the structure of the plays. The author defines genre in terms of the nature of the challenge offered by the Other to the Self. Using specific plays and characters of Shakespeare, the author shows how in tragedy the Other betrays or appears to betray the Self; in comedy the Other evades the social hierarchies dominated by versions of the male Self; in romance the Other comes and goes, leaving the Self bereft when she is gone and astounding him with happiness when she reappears. History is defined as a genre in which the masculine heroes confront no challenge from the Other but only from each other, from other versions of the Self. The book consists of a long theoretical introduction followed by chapters on comedy, history, and some individual plays: Hamlet, Antony and Cleopatra, Macbeth, Coriolanus, and The Tempest.
It is never possible to return literally to times and events of the past. Even places revisited will not be the same as they were. But we can, at least to some extent, go back in our minds. In trying to capture some of the past and record for posterity my lifetime of adventures, I find that my memory has been stretched more than I thought possible. The mind is a funny thing, and time is slippery stuff, but someone has said that we remember more than we think we do; that years after the fact, one day things fall into place and we say, "Ah yes, I remember that well.
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