Introduction

pp. 127-129

in: Adam M. Cohen, Wonder in Shakespeare, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012

Abstract

Adam Max Cohen's first published article, "Genius in Perspective: Blake, Einstein, and Theories of Relativity," appeared in the Wordsworth Circle in 2000. As the title suggests, it is an ambitious attempt to find commonalities between the writings of Blake and Einstein. Cohen focuses on how both men regarded the universe in potentially opposing ways. He coins the term "perspectival lightness' to describe how they were able to deploy an anti-Newtonian tolerance of instability of point of view — like Keats, finding a way to hold contradictory ideas about a subject and at the same time maintain a coherent conception of it. For Cohen, the first step to comprehending "perspectival lightness' and to comprehending Blake was interdisciplinary, to "understand psychology, literature, mathematics … morals and theology."¹ And so throughout his scholarship, Cohen was fascinated by the ways in which different perspectives or disciplinarities could be brought together to generate new insights into his favorite objects of study: Shakespeare's plays and poems. This is perhaps best seen in his first book, Shakespeare and Technology, which carefully traces Shakespeare's sometimes explicit, sometimes nuanced use of technology as both resource and metaphor. Wonder in Shakespeare seeks to do similar work, though wonder is a much more abstract discourse than technology.