Debapriya Sarkar, author of Possible Knowledge: The Literary Forms of Early Modern Science, discusses how poets and philosophers used 'the possible' as an alternative to the actual. Topics explored include the political and social significance of fiction, mistaken prophecies in Macbeth, the intricacies of style in Bacon's New Atlantis, the instrumental role of audiences in knowledge production, Margaret Cavendish's engagement with different literary genres, the connection between the changeability of the world and the female writer, and the importance of collaboration in literary criticism.
