Shakespeare and the Geography of Difference (Cambridge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture, Series Number 4) - Hardcover

Gillies, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521417198 ISBN 13: 9780521417198

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1994

Synopsis

In this engaging book, John Gillies explores Shakespeare's geographic imagination, and discovers an intimate relationship between Renaissance geography and theatre, arising from their shared dependence on the opposing impulses of taboo-laden closure and hubristic expansiveness. Dr Gillies shows that Shakespeare's images of the exotic, the 'barbarous, outlandish or strange', are grounded in concrete historical fact: to be marginalised was not just a matter of social status, but of belonging, quite literally, to the margins of contemporary maps. Through an examination of the icons and emblems of contemporary cartography, Dr Gillies challenges the map-makers' overt intentions, and the attitudes and assumptions that remained below the level of consciousness. His study of map and metaphor raises profound questions about the nature of a map, and of the connections between the semiology of a map and that of the theatre.

About this title

Review:

'[An] absorbing and challenging book.' John Scattergood, Theatre Research International

Book Description:

In this engaging book, John Gillies explores Shakespeare's geographic imagination, and discovers an intimate relationship between Renaissance geography and theatre arising from a shared dependence on the opposing impulses of taboo-laden closure and hubristic expansiveness.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0521417198
• ISBN 13: 9780521417198
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 269