Wonder in Shakespeare

by Cohen, Adam Max

• ISBN13: 9780230105416
• ISBN10: 0230105416
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-01-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Wonder is a highly ambivalent word and idea which can denote woe, horror, or terror on one hand and delight, jubilation, or ecstasy on the other. In the first part of this book, Adam Max Cohen embraces the many meanings of wonder in order to challenge the generic divides between comedy, tragedy, history, and romance to suggest that Shakespeare's primary goal in crafting each of his play worlds was the evocation of one or more varieties of wonder. In the second part of this book, seven esteemed scholars respond to Cohen's exploration and pay homage to his legacy.

Author Biography

Adam Max Cohen earned his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia and was an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. His teaching interests included Shakespeare, Renaissance Literature, Early Modern Cultural Studies, History of Science, and Technology. His previous publications include Shakespeare and Technology: Dramatizing Early Modern Technological Revolutions and Technology and the Early Modern Self.

Table of Contents

'The final work in a too brief career, Adam Max Cohen's Wonder in Shakespeare is a kind of seminar on Shakespeare's multiple senses of 'wonder': prodigies, resurrections, and Miranda—things that should be looked at, including that young castaway in The Tempest. This is also a book about limits—the limits of language and the senses and how Shakespeare's plays capture and reflect that precious aspect of human experience." - William Germano, Cooper Union