Description: Using A Midsummer Night's Dream" as a case study, this book draws together questions of early science, examining the way literature and Renaissance theatre, a new technology itself, were used to illustrate and discuss new developments.
Brief description: 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.
Review Quotes:
"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 Turner'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