Shakespeare's Theater of Nature - (Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine) by Aaron Kitch (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Shakespeare's Theater of Nature argues that Shakespeare combined art and nature in new ways while experimenting with relations between words, images, and objects as sources of knowledge and pleasure. Shakespeare's re-centering of nature as a source of theatrical representation in a range of plays follows debates in natural philosophy and theology about how to understand divinity in and through the order of nature (ordo creationis). Early chapters analyze early modern reframing of nature by printed books of botany, cosmology, and history--as well Tudor interludes that center nature as a subject--while later chapters offer readings of eight plays by Shakespeare that draw on classical, medieval, and early modern debates in natural philosophy and theology to create new modes of dramatic mimesis.

From the Back Cover

Shakespeare's Theater of Nature explores nature in Shakespeare's plays not just as a source of pastoral nostalgia but also as a vital agent of knowledge, pleasure, and representation. Due in part to its reframing through new visual technologies such as the printing press, the telescope, and the microscope, nature was increasingly understood as a structure of representation itself in early modern Europe. Shakespeare's foregrounding of nature also draws on important debates in classical, medieval, and early modern theology and natural philosophy. His innovative works for the Renaissance stage developed new strategies of representing nature using both language and embodied action. Opening chapters survey printed books of nature and earlier traditions of theatrical mimesis that reframed the divine order of nature (ordo creationis), while later chapters offer detailed readings of eight plays by Shakespeare.

Aaron Kitch is Associate Professor of English at Bowdoin College and the author of Political Economy and the States of Literature in Early Modern England (2009). Together with Jennifer Rust, he is the co-editor of Rethinking Science and Religion in Early Modern Culture (2025) and has published articles in Studies in English Literature, Religion and Literature, Shakespeare Quarterly, Modern Philology, and Configurations, among other journals.

About the Author

Aaron Kitch is Associate Professor of English at Bowdoin College, USA, and the author of Political Economy and the States of Literature in Early Modern England (2009). Together with Jennifer Rust, he is the co-editor of Rethinking Science and Religion in Early Modern Culture (2025) and has published articles in Studies in English Literature, Religion and Literature, Shakespeare Quarterly, Modern Philology, and Configurations, among other journals.