Kenneth Gross specializes in Renaissance poetry and drama, especially Shakespeare, as well as lyric poetry and dramatic literature more generally. In addition to books on Shakespeare and Edmund Spenser, and essays on Renaissance and modern poets, he has written on the relation of literature and the visual arts, on ideas of metamorphosis and animation in literature, and most recently on the strange shapes of puppet theater, both traditional and experimental.
Professor Gross's teaching takes up a variety of authors and literary modes, from the biblical narratives and Renaissance drama to modern poetry. One aim his courses all share is to help students to understand the complex, often ambigous life of literary texts, to hone their powers of analysis and response, their ability to listen for what's said and not said in a work of literature, as well as their capacity for surprise.
