Shakespeare's Double Helix / Edition 1

by Henry S. Turner, Ewan Fernie, Simon Palfrey

Overview

What does it mean to make life? This book focuses on one of the key questions for culture and science in both Shakespeare's time and our own. Shakespeare wrote A Midsummer Night's Dream during a period when the 'new science' had begun to unsettle the foundations of knowledge about the natural world. Through close analysis of the play and reflection on modern genetic engineering, Turner examines developments in early modern culture as it sought to come to terms with the new forces of magic, astrology, alchemy and mechanics - fields of knowledge that preoccupied the most adventurous intellects of Shakespeare's period and that promised limitless power over nature. Shakespeare's writing sheds light on current developments in science, ethics, law, and religion in contemporary culture. This book reveals the richness and peculiarity of early scientific thought in Shakespeare's time and shows how the questions he poses remain fundamental as the nature of 'life' has become one of the most pressing political, ethical, and philosophical problems for society today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826491206
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	02/20/2008
Series:	Shakespeare Now!
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	5.06(w) x 7.81(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Ewan Fernie is Professor and Chair of Shakespeare Studies at the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, UK. He is the author of Shame in Shakespeare, the editor of Spiritual Shakespeares and general editor (with Simon Palfrey) of the Shakespeare Now! series.

Simon Palfrey is a Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford University. His books include Late Shakespeare: A New World of Words (Oxford, 1997); Shakespeare in Parts (Oxford, 2007), written with Tiffany Stern and awarded the Medieval and Renaissance Drama Society's David Bevington Prize for best new book; Romeo and Juliet (Short Books, 2011); and the novel Dunsinane, written with Ewan Fernie. He is the founding editor (with Fernie) of Continuum's innovative series of 'minigraphs', Shakespeare Now! His new work includes a book on possible worlds in early modern drama and philosophy, and a play inspired by Spenser's Faerie Queen. His book Doing Shakespeare was published by Arden Shakespeare in 2005, reissued 2011.

Table of Contents

General Editors' Preface Preface When everything seems double Two intertwining helices That is the true beginning of our end Then read the names of the actors Index

Editorial Reviews

The Shakespeare Now! series of 'minigraphs' aims to appeal to both Shakespeare specialists and the educated public by producing 100- to 140-page texts that purportedly reduce or eliminate arcane endnotes and scholarly jargon and that address timely topics- mainly post-modern ones- in readily understandable prose.” —English Studies, Vol 91, No6.

“"the conjoined pieces of Turbaner's book provide a fresh double reading of A Midsummer Night's dream. The book's imbricated left face/right face presentation makes every page mirror, echo or pre-empt themes from the opposite essay. In this year of Darwin's birth, the Globe Theatre's 2009 takes A Midsummer Night's dream on a national tour. Shakespeare Now! seems thus doubtly apt." Flux Magazine, 1 July 2009” —Tim Huntley

From the Publisher