Shakespeare and Donne are themselves hybrids who crossed generic and social boundaries and also shared a contemporary urban space and roots in the old religion. Centering on cross-fertilization between these authors’ writings, the chapters in this volume examine relationships that are broadly cultural, theoretical, and imaginative. They emphasize the intersection of physical or material dimensions of experience with nonphysical and transcendent ones, whether these are moral, intellectual, or religious. They also juxtapose lyric and sermons interactively with narrative and plays. Performance an ... More

Shakespeare and Donne are themselves hybrids who crossed generic and social boundaries and also shared a contemporary urban space and roots in the old religion. Centering on cross-fertilization between these authors’ writings, the chapters in this volume examine relationships that are broadly cultural, theoretical, and imaginative. They emphasize the intersection of physical or material dimensions of experience with nonphysical and transcendent ones, whether these are moral, intellectual, or religious. They also juxtapose lyric and sermons interactively with narrative and plays. Performance and audience are among their concerns, as are the themes of skepticism and imagination and various philosophies of thought, sensation, and meaning: those of Aristotle, Wittgenstein, Cavell, Kripke, Agamben, Massumi, and Serres, for example. Language and rhetoric constitute a conspicuous emphasis in the volume and include naming and punning, public and private discourse, figures, tropes, and styles. Besides philosophies of mind and language, theoretical orientations encompass intertextuality, feminism and sexuality, reception and performance, and historicism. The chapters are grouped under four headings: “Time, Love, Sex, and Death” (Matthias Bauer and Angelika Zirker, Catherine Gimelli Martin, Jennifer Pacenza), “Moral, Public, and Spatial Imaginaries” (Mary Blackstone and Jeanne Shami, Douglas Trevor), “Names, Puns, and More” (Marshall Grossman, David Lee Miller, Julian Lamb), and “Realms of Privacy and Imagination” (Anita Gilman Sherman, Judith H. Anderson).