Wonder in Shakespeare

About this book

Wonder is a highly ambivalent word and idea which can denote both 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 playworlds was the evocation of one or more varieties of wonder. In the second part of this book, seven contributors respond to Cohen's exploration and pay homage to his scholarly legacy.