Knowing Shakespeare

Knowing Shakespeare describes the rich variance of embodied and sensory perception in early modern culture. The volume's cross-disciplinary emphasis enhances understanding of the 'sense' of sensing in Shakespeare's idiom by bringing schemes from early modern natural philosophy and rhetorical arts into critical conversation with concepts drawn from historical phenomenology, cognitive science and trauma theory. Collectively the essays, many of which are written by leading Shakespeare scholars, detail the range of issues; social, political, ethical, and aesthetic--to be found in the theatrical performance of diverse and sometimes competing languages and gestures of embodied, sensory perception on Shakespeare's stage. An important investment of many of the essays is to demonstrate how neglected legacies of philosophical scepticism and materialist developments in phenomenological thought shed light on the performative range of gender as embodied and voiced in Shakespeare's dramaturgy. The scope of the volume thus presents a timely survey of recent and innovative thinking about the critical role of the senses in Shakespeare.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.