Paul A. Cantor (October 25, 1945 – February 25, 2022) was an American literary and media critic. He taught for many years at the
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with highly selective ad ...
, where he was the Clifton Waller Barrett Professor of English.
Cantor wrote on a wide range of subjects, including
Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
,
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
,
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...
,
Dante
Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian people, Italian Italian poetry, poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', origin ...
,
Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 Old Style and New Style dates, NS) was an Early Modern Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-emin ...
,
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
Ben Jonson
Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for t ...
,
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolu ...
,
William Blake
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...
,
Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and has been regarded as among the ...
Mary Shelley
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (; ; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel '' Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' (1818), which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also ...
Romanticism
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...
Thomas Mann
Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...
Salman Rushdie
Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and We ...
Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard (born , 3 July 1937) is a Czech born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, and politi ...
,
Don Delillo
Donald Richard DeLillo (born November 20, 1936) is an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, screenwriter and essayist. His works have covered subjects as diverse as television, nuclear war, sports, the complexities of language, perf ...
Austrian economics
The Austrian School is a heterodox school of economic thought that advocates strict adherence to methodological individualism, the concept that social phenomena result exclusively from the motivations and actions of individuals. Austrian school ...
, postcolonial literature, contemporary popular culture, and relations between culture and commerce.
Early life
Cantor was born in New York City on October 25, 1945. As a young man he was an avid reader with interests in science, philosophy, and literature. He has given an account of his early years in his intellectual autobiography.
While still in high school, Cantor attended
Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises (; 29 September 1881 – 10 October 1973) was an Austrian School economist, historian, logician, and Sociology, sociologist. Mises wrote and lectured extensively on the societal contributions of classical liberali ...
' economics seminars in New York City.
He went on to study English literature at Harvard (A.B., 1966, Ph.D., 1971), where he studied literature with Larry Benson, Hershel Baker, and Walter Jackson Bate and politics with
Harvey Mansfield
Harvey Claflin Mansfield Jr. (born March 21, 1932) is an American political philosophy, political philosopher. He is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Government at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1962. He has held Guggenheim F ...
.
Critical focal points
Shakespeare criticism
Cantor published extensively on Shakespeare. In ''Shakespeare's Rome: Republic and Empire'' (1974), a revision of his doctoral thesis, he analyzed Shakespeare's Roman plays and contrasted the austere, republican mentality of ''
Coriolanus
''Coriolanus'' ( or ) is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1605 and 1608. The play is based on the life of the legendary Roman leader Caius Marcius Coriolanus. Shakespeare worked on it during the same yea ...
'' with the bibulous and erotic energies of '' Antony and Cleopatra''. He returned to the Roman plays in ''Shakespeare's Roman Trilogy: The Twilight of the Ancient World'' (2017).
In ''Shakespeare: Hamlet'' (1989), he depicted Hamlet as a man torn between pagan and Christian conceptions of heroism. In his articles on ''Macbeth'', he analyzed "the Scottish play" using the same polarity.
Cantor also published articles on several other Shakespeare plays, including '' As You Like It'', ''
The Merchant of Venice
''The Merchant of Venice'' is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. A merchant in Venice named Antonio defaults on a large loan provided by a Jewish moneylender, Shylock.
Although classified as ...
'', ''
Henry V Henry V may refer to:
People
* Henry V, Duke of Bavaria (died 1026)
* Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor (1081/86–1125)
* Henry V, Duke of Carinthia (died 1161)
* Henry V, Count Palatine of the Rhine (c. 1173–1227)
* Henry V, Count of Luxembourg (1 ...
King Lear
''King Lear'' is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare.
It is based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his power and land between two of his daughters. He becomes destitute and insane ...
'', ''
Timon of Athens
''Timon of Athens'' (''The Life of Tymon of Athens'') is a play written by William Shakespeare and probably also Thomas Middleton in about 1606. It was published in the '' First Folio'' in 1623. Timon lavishes his wealth on parasitic companio ...
'', and '' The Tempest''.
A characteristic feature of Cantor's scholarship is his focus on various political regimes and their depiction in Shakespeare's plays. Cantor notes that different regimes promote different ideas about human beings, the good, and government. He compares and contrasts the early Roman regime as depicted in ''Coriolanus'' and the later Roman regime as depicted in ''Antony and Cleopatra'', pagan values and Christian values, republican regimes and monarchical regimes.
Several sets of Cantor's lectures on Shakespeare are available on the internet (see below).
Romanticism
Cantor's second book, ''Creature and Creator: Myth-Making and English Romanticism'' (1984), included discussions of Rousseau, Blake, Byron, and the Shelleys.
Popular culture and media criticism
Cantor was perhaps best known in his later years for his writings on popular culture. He published three books in this field. In ''Gilligan Unbound: Pop Culture in the Age of Globalization'' (2003), he used literary and critical methods to analyze four popular American television shows: '' Gilligan's Island'', '' Star Trek'', ''
The Simpsons
''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer Simpson, Homer, Marge ...
'', and ''
The X-Files
''The X-Files'' is an American science fiction drama television series created by Chris Carter. The series revolves around Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Special Agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), who ...
''. Nine years later he followed this book up with another book on movies and television'', The Invisible Hand in Popular Culture: Liberty vs. Authority in American Film and TV'' (2012). His third and final book on popular culture was ''Pop Culture and the Dark Side of the American Dream: Con Men, Gangsters, Drug Lords, and Zombies'' (2019).
Cantor also published many articles on films and television shows, most of which are listed on his webpage at the University of Virginia and o his CV A 2004 article in ''Americana'' described Cantor as "a preeminent scholar in the field of American popular culture studies."
Austrian economics
Cantor combined his interests in literature and culture with an interest in Austrian Economics. ''Literature and the Economics of Liberty: Spontaneous Order in Culture'' (2010), a collection of essays Cantor edited with Stephen Cox, explored ways of using Austrian economics to understand works of literature. Cantor presented his work at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and in 1992 he received the Ludwig von Mises Prize for Scholarship in Austrian Economics.
Books
* ''Shakespeare's Rome: Republic and Empire.'' Cornell University Press, 1976. Reprinted with a new preface, University of Chicago Press (paperback), 2017.
* ''Creature and Creator: Myth-making and English Romanticism.'' Cambridge University Press, 1984.
* ''Shakespeare: Hamlet.'' Cambridge University Press, 1989. Second edition (revised), 2004
* ''Macbeth und die Evangelisierung von Schottland.'' Siemens Foundation, 1993. Translated into Korean and published by Editus Publishing Company, 2018.
* ''Gilligan Unbound: Pop Culture in the Age of Globalization.'' Rowman & Littlefield, 2001.
* ''Literature and the Economics of Liberty: Spontaneous Order in Culture.'' Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2009. Co-edited with Stephen Cox.
* ''The Invisible Hand in Popular Culture: Liberty vs. Authority in American Film and TV''. University Press of Kentucky, 2012.
* ''Shakespeare’s Roman Trilogy: The Twilight of the Ancient World.'' University of Chicago Press, 2017.
* ''Pop Culture and the Dark Side of the American Dream: Con Men, Gangsters, Drug Lords, and Zombies.'' University Press of Kentucky, 2019.
Death
Cantor had a stroke in mid-February 2022. He died on February 25, 2022, in Charlottesville, Virginia, at the age of 76.