Shakespearean Territories - Hardcover

Elden, Stuart

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 022655905X ISBN 13: 9780226559056

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2019

Synopsis

Shakespeare was an astute observer of contemporary life, culture, and politics. The emerging practice of territory as a political concept and technology did not elude his attention. In Shakespearean Territories, Stuart Elden reveals just how much Shakespeare's unique historical position and political understanding can teach us about territory. Shakespeare dramatized a world of technological advances in measuring, navigation, cartography, and surveying, and his plays open up important ways of thinking about strategy, economy, the law, and colonialism, providing critical insight into a significant juncture in history. Shakespeare's plays explore many territorial themes: from the division of the kingdom in King Lear, to the relations among Denmark, Norway, and Poland in Hamlet, to questions of disputed land and the politics of banishment in Richard II. Elden traces how Shakespeare developed a nuanced understanding of the complicated concept and practice of territory and, more broadly, the political-geographical relations between people, power, and place. A meticulously researched study of over a dozen classic plays, Shakespearean Territories will provide new insights for geographers, political theorists, and Shakespearean scholars alike.

About this title

About the Author

Stuart Elden is professor of political theory and geography at the University of Warwick. He is the author of several books, including The Birth of Territory, published by the University of Chicago Press.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 022655905X
• ISBN 13: 9780226559056
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 304