Response to Paul A. Kottman, “Defying the Stars: Tragic Love as the Struggle for Freedom in Romeo and Juliet”

Paul A. Kottman’s philosophical dramaturgy takes flight from Hegel in order to demonstrate the dynamics of individuation and separation nestled within love as both its greatest gift and its greatest risk. Reorchestrating the play more than reading it, Kottman delivers a bracing form of dramatic engagement that eschews historicization in order to draw us closer to Romeo and Juliet and the dilemmas posed by their mutual acknowledgment.