Shakespeare and the Geography of Difference [Paperback]

An exploration of Shakespeare's geographic imagination and the relationship between Renaissance geography and theatre.Shakespeare's images of the exotic are shown to be firmly based on the margins of Renaissance maps. This examination of map icons and emblems raises questions about the map-makers' intentions and assumptions, revealing connections between the semiology of a map and that of the theater.Shakespeare's images of the exotic are shown to be firmly based on the margins of Renaissance maps. This examination of map icons and emblems raises questions about the map-makers' intentions and assumptions, revealing connections between the semiology of a map and that of the theater.Shakespeare's images of the exotic are shown to be firmly based on the margins of contemporary maps; and examination of the icons and emblems of maps raises questions about the mapmakers' overt intentions and instinctive assumptions, and reveals connections between the semiology of a map and that of the theater.1. Mapping the other: Vico, Shakespeare and the geography of difference; 2. Of 'voyages and exploration: geography: maps'; 3. Theatres of the world; 4. 'The open worlde': the exotic in Shakespeare; 5. The frame of the new geography. The book as a whole has high suggestive value and may prove to be a seedbed for other useful studies. Sewanee Review John Gillies's idea of 'poetic geography'--a kind of historicized phenomenology of space--is compelling; it enables him to take what might otherwise appear to be unrelated fragments--maps, the metaphors used in the titles and prefaces of Renaissance atlases, isolated turns of phrase in Shakespeare and other literary texts--and construct a resonant account of a whole, complex mental universe. Stephen Greenblatt Shakespeare and the Geography of Difference, John Gillies's book on the Renaissance fascination with wide-ranging and marvelous phenomena, is itself wide-ranging and marvelous, energized by the contact between the disciplineslH