Shakespeare, Storytelling, and Science: An Exploration of the Relationship Between the Early Modern Scientific Movement and Shakespeare’s 17th-Century Works

The 17th-century scientific movement generated a “death of the metaphor” that reverberated across the literary landscape. The creation of the Royal Society in 1660 shifted the ways in which literature and art were represented and respected in Western society. Shakespeare's works, believed to have been written from 1592-1615, show the growing relevance of the scientific and philosophical issues and queries that led to the formation of the Royal Society. A deep dive into Shakespearean metaphor and the scientific works that were causing shifts within Shakespeare’s world provides insight into the mind of an artist consumed and perturbed by matters of the natural world. In addition, Shakespeare’s characters repeatedly question the role that an individual plays within this rapidly changing world. This thesis seeks to unpack Shakespeare's 17th-century plays, with Pericles, Twelfth Night, King Lear, and Hamlet serving as main sources of Shakespearean analysis. These texts provide a range in genre and span Shakespeare's 17th-century canonical timeline.