Affecting Grace

Affecting Grace examines the importance of Shakespeare’s poetry and plays within German literature and thought after 1750 – including its relationship to German classicism, which favoured unreflected ease over theatricality.

Kenneth S. Calhoon is a professor of German and Comparative Literature at the University of Oregon.

David E. Wellbery, LeRoy T. and Margaret Deffenbaugh Carlson University Professor, Departments of Germanic Studies and Comparative Literature, University of Chicago:
“Affecting Grace is an exquisite study. The force and importance of this book derive from the depth and acumen of Kenneth S. Calhoon’s insights into imaginative processes, and it amounts to a wonderful demonstration of the critical imagination doing its very best work for us. Born of a unique critical personality and alive to the imaginative richness of the literary tradition, it’s a book that one will return to, as one returns to the books of Auerbach, Fried, and Starobinski.”

Thomas Pfau, Alice Mary Baldwin Professor of English and Professor of German, Duke University:
“Affecting Grace is a wide-ranging and highly perceptive study of eighteenth-century aesthetics and theatricality. It abounds with rich and concise forays into to Eighteenth-century drama, the visual arts, and aesthetics. Thoroughly at home in his diverse materials, Calhoon explores numerous techniques employed either to accentuate or conceal the theatricality of aesthetic form and expression. He presents his findings in unfailingly subtle and graceful prose.”