Description
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 t
