In this text, the author Philippa Berry rewrites critical perceptions of death in Shakespeare's tragedies from a feminist perspective. Drawing on feminist theory, postmodern thought and queer theory, Berry challenges existing critical notions of what is "fundamental" to Shakespearean tragedy. She argues that there is a figurative rejection of death as terminus, which owes more to pagan thought than Christian. Through a close reading of the main tragedies, Berry discovers a sensuous and meditative Shakespearean discourse of materialism. Her theoretical and textual insights into the properties of matter, time, the soul, and the body now have relevance to contemporary debates about time and matter in science and philosophy.

Elizabeth I was one of the most powerful women rulers in European history. What can feminism reveal about the attitudes of her male subjects towards this enigmatic figure?Through readings of key Elizabethan texts by Lyly, Ralegh, Chapman, Shakespeare, and Spenser, Philippa Berry shows that while Elizabeth's combination of chastity with political and religious power was repeatedly idealized, it was also perceived as extremely disturbing. The figure of the unmarried queen implicitly challenged the masculine focus of Renaissance discourses of love, philosophy and absolutist political ideology.In her exploration of the potent combination of themes of sexuality and politics with classical myth and Neoplatonic mysticism, Berry offers a radical reassessment of the status of `woman' as a bearer of meaning within Renaissance literature and culture.

In "Of Chastity and Power," Philippa Berry combines Renaissance scholarship with feminist literary criticism to reject former accounts of the cult of Elizabeth, which presented both the queen's gender and her marital status as unproblematic.
Through readings of key Elizabethan texts by Lyly, Raleigh, Chapman, Shakespeare and Spenser, Phillipa Berry shows that while Elizabeth's combination of chastity with political and religious power was repeatedly idealized, it was also perceived as extremely disturbing. By placing these texts within a wider context of European culture and history, Berry shows that the figure of the unmarried queen implicitly challenged the masculine focus of Renaissance discourses of love and of absolutist political ideology, ultimately subverting the philosophical division between spirit and matter upon which Renaissance ideas of women were founded.

By illuminating the striking affinity between the most innovative aspects of postmodern thought and religious mystical discourse, "Shadow of Spirit" challenges the long established assumption that western thought is committed to nihilism.
This collection of essays by internationally recognized scholars explores the implications of the fascination with the "sacred," "divine" or "infinite" which characterizes much contemporary thought. It shows how these concerns have surfaced in the work of Derrida, Baudrillard, Lyotard, Kristeva, Irigaray and others. Examining the connection between this postmodern "turn" and the current search for a new discourse of ethics and politics, it also stresses the contribution made by feminist thought to this unexpected intellectual direction.

A collection of internationally recognised scholars address the postmodern shake-up of theory, culture and politics, which has led to a new encounter between the humanities and the discourses of religion.

Philippa Berry draws on feminist theory, postmodern thought and queer theory, to challenge existing critical notions of what is fundamental to Shakespearean tragedy. She shows how, through a network of images clustered around feminine or feminized characters, these plays 'disfigure' conventional ideas of death as a bodily end, as their figures of women are interwoven with provocative meditations upon matter, time, the soul, and the body. The scope of these tragic speculations was radical in Shakespeare's day; yet they also have a surprising relevance to contemporary debates about time and matter in science and philosophy.

This volume addresses the multiple, complex and overlapping, sometimes contradictory and frequently strange forms of knowledge in circulation during a period which has always been recognized as a turning point in the intellectual history of Western Europe, and which is described alternatively as "early modern" or "Renaissance". The problems of the label "early modern" are discussed, including the implied rupture with earlier periods, and the consequent denial of the difference or "otherness" of the complex material particularities - the textures - of these forms of knowledge. It is to a variety of such textures - to textualized spaces and material artifacts as well as to "literay" and "non-literary" texts - that the distinguished contributors to this volume attend. Drawing on a range of critical discourses they engage with these textures in the more nuanced styles of interpretative practice which are emerging in the wake of new historicism and cultural materialism, and which represent a significant shift in critical approach and focus. Individual essays as well as the volume as a whole should be of interest to undergraduate and graduate students as well as to scholars of the period.