The Theatre of Wonder

In this chapter, I approach the emotional experience of wonder in medieval and early modern English drama from the perspective of the philosopher Jane Bennett’s useful distinction between awe and fascination. In her work on an emotional response that she describes as ‘secular enchantment’, Bennett separates her own subject from what she calls ‘fall-to-your-knees awe’. ¹ Secular enchantment, she argues, is a ‘state of interactive fascination’, an ‘active engagement’ with the object of that fascination. ² Since medieval and early modern drama is often concerned with both awe and enchantment, and with the boundary between religious and secular matters, Bennett’s distinction is a productive way of approaching wonder, which is a more capacious term than awe or fascination, embracing both the passive, fall-to-your-knees response and the active, engaged one.