Tom Rutter examines how Shakespeare made use in his writings of the knowledge and theories of the cosmos, the natural world, and human biology that were available to him. The dialogic nature of drama enabled Shakespeare to develop an approach in the playhouse that could be provisional, exploratory, and tolerant of uncertainty and contradiction.

Tom Rutter is Senior Lecturer in Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama at the University of Sheffield, where he has taught since 2012. Before that he worked at London South Bank University and then Sheffield Hallam. He is the author of Work and Play on the Shakespearean Stage, The Cambridge Introduction to Christopher Marlowe, and Shakespeare and the Admiral's Men, as well as numerous scholarly articles. He has also edited A Companion to the Cavendishes with Lisa Hopkins and The Arden Handbook of Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama with Michelle M. Dowd. He is an editor of Shakespeare, the journal of the British Shakespeare Association.