Shakespeare and Science (Paperback)

Tom Rutter

ISBN 10: 0192898558 / ISBN 13: 9780192898555

Published by Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2024

About this Item

Paperback. As a figurehead for the literary humanities, and a dramatist whose plays feature fairies, ghosts, and spirits, Shakespeare may not be the first author that comes to mind when thinking about science. Tom Rutter shows, however, that in his plays and poetry Shakespeare made detailed use of the knowledge and theories of the cosmos, the natural world, and human biology that were available to him. These range from astronomical and anatomical ideas derived from medievalscholars, Islamic philosophers, and ancient Greek and Roman authorities, through to the challenges issued to those earlier models by more recent figures such as Copernicus and Vesalius. Shakespeare'streatment of these materials was informed by the poetic and dramatic media in which he worked; the dialogic nature of drama enabled an approach that could be provisional, exploratory, and tolerant of uncertainty and contradiction. Shakespeare made the early modern playhouse a venue for the production of scientific understanding through performance, illusion, and the creative use of space.As well as surveying current scholarship that contextualizes Shakespeare's work inrelation to histories of meteorology, matter theory, humoral physiology, racialization, mathematics, and more, Shakespeare and Science offers detailed original readings of a variety of texts including theHistories, Hamlet, Antony and Cleopatra, Othello, King Lear, The Tempest, the Sonnets, and Lucrece. It also makes extensive reference to works by Shakespeare's near-contemporaries such as Robert Recorde, William Fulke, Juan Huarte, and Thomas Elyot. Its four chapters focus on astronomy and meteorology, matter, the body, and mathematics. Rutter's overall approach is informed by recent studies that interrogate 'science' as a concept, and thatquestion both the boundary between literature and science and the idea of a seventeenth-century 'scientific revolution'. Tom Rutter examines how Shakespeare made use in his writings of the knowledge and theories of the cosmos, the natural world, and human biology that were available to him. The dialogic nature of drama enabled Shakespeare to develop an approach in the playhouse that could be provisional, exploratory, and tolerant of uncertainty and contradiction. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780192898555

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Shakespeare and Science (Paperback)
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, Oxford
• Publication Date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0192898558
• ISBN 13: 9780192898555
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

As a figurehead for the literary humanities, and a dramatist whose plays feature fairies, ghosts, and spirits, Shakespeare may not be the first author that comes to mind when thinking about science. Tom Rutter shows, however, that in his plays and poetry Shakespeare made detailed use of the knowledge and theories of the cosmos, the natural world, and human biology that were available to him. These range from astronomical and anatomical ideas derived from medieval scholars, Islamic philosophers, and ancient Greek and Roman authorities, through to the challenges issued to those earlier models by more recent figures such as Copernicus and Vesalius. Shakespeare's treatment of these materials was informed by the poetic and dramatic media in which he worked; the dialogic nature of drama enabled an approach that could be provisional, exploratory, and tolerant of uncertainty and contradiction. Shakespeare made the early modern playhouse a venue for the production of scientific understanding through performance, illusion, and the creative use of space.

As well as surveying current scholarship that contextualizes Shakespeare's work in relation to histories of meteorology, matter theory, humoral physiology, racialization, mathematics, and more, Shakespeare and Science offers detailed original readings of a variety of texts including the Histories, Hamlet, Antony and Cleopatra, Othello, King Lear, The Tempest, the Sonnets, and Lucrece. It also makes extensive reference to works by Shakespeare's near-contemporaries such as Robert Recorde, William Fulke, Juan Huarte, and Thomas Elyot. Its four chapters focus on astronomy and meteorology, matter, the body, and mathematics. Rutter's overall approach is informed by recent studies that interrogate 'science' as a concept, and that question both the boundary between literature and science and the idea of a seventeenth-century 'scientific revolution'.

About the Author

Tom Rutter, Senior Lecturer in Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama, University of Sheffield

Tom Rutter is Senior Lecturer in Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama at the University of Sheffield, where he has taught since 2012. Before that he worked at London South Bank University and then Sheffield Hallam. He is the author of Work and Play on the Shakespearean Stage, The Cambridge Introduction to Christopher Marlowe, and Shakespeare and the Admiral's Men, as well as numerous scholarly articles. He has also edited A Companion to the Cavendishes with Lisa Hopkins and The Arden Handbook of Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama with Michelle M. Dowd. He is an editor of Shakespeare, the journal of the British Shakespeare Association.