Minor Shakespeares

ABSTRACT

This introduction to the journal special edition Minor Shakespeares contextualises the articles which follow by exploring Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of ‘minor literature’ as it helps to read and reconceptualise Shakespearean drama and poetics, as well as the range of global Shakespeares. It is illustrated how recent paths taken by Deleuzian scholarship in the fields of literary and film criticism, ontology, vitalism, sexuality studies, ecocriticism and postcolonialism open potentially new lines of enquiry into Shakespeare, and how a Deleuzian/Deleuzoguattarian approach can combine openness to Shakespearean concerns with the bringing of Shakespeare into dialogue with pressing contemporary political questions.