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Shakespeare and Science: A Dictionary

Hardback

Main Details

Title Shakespeare and Science: A Dictionary
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Katherine Walker
SeriesArden Shakespeare Dictionaries
Physical Properties
Format:Hardback
Pages:320
Dimensions(mm): Height 234,Width 156
ISBN/Barcode 9781350044623
ClassificationsDewey:822.33
Audience
Tertiary Education (US: College)

Publishing Details

Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint The Arden Shakespeare
Publication Date 30 December 2021
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

With the recent turn to science studies and interdisciplinary research in Shakespearean scholarship, Shakespeare and Science: A Dictionary, provides a pedagogical resource for students and scholars. In charting Shakespeare's engagement with natural philosophical discourse, this edition shapes the future of Shakespearean scholarship and pedagogy significantly, appealing to students entering the field and current scholars in interdisciplinary research on the topic alongside the non-professional reader seeking to understand Shakespeare's language and early modern scientific practices. Shakespeare's works respond to early modern culture's rapidly burgeoning interest in how new astronomical theories, understandings of motion and change, and the cataloging of objects, vegetation, and animals in the natural world could provide new knowledge. To cite a famous example, Hamlet's letter to Ophelia plays with the differences between the Ptolemaic and Copernican notions of the earth's movement: "Doubt that the sun doth move" may either be, in the Ptolemaic view, an earnest plea or, in the Copernican system, a purposeful equivocation. The Dictionary contextualizes such moments and scientific terms that Shakespeare employs, creatively and critically, throughout his poetry and drama. The focus is on Shakespeare's multiform uses of language, rendering accessible to students of Shakespeare such terms as "firmament," "planetary influence," and "retrograde."

Author Biography

Katherine Walker is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA.