Re-Imagining Western European Geography in English Renaissance Drama

ISBN-13: 9780230366305 / Angielski / Twarda / 2012 / 220 str.

Monica Matei-Chesnoiu

Opis

Focusing on how citizens of early modern England tried to locate themselves and their nation through geography and travel writing, Monica Matei-Chesnoiu explores theatrical representations of Western European space and ethnography. Geographic discourses share many features with drama in that they appeal to the readers' and audience's curiosity and imagination. Playwrights use information derived from geography treatises as vehicles to allegorize contemporary English issues in a dialogical mode. While geography and travel texts provide an objective synthesis in describing Western European nations, dramatic interaction destabilizes any preconceived notions and submits contrastive views on imagined global European communities. This book explores representations of France, Spain, Germany, the Low Countries, and Denmark in a wide range of geography texts and offers fresh readings of Shakespeare, Jonson, Marlowe, Middleton, Dekker, Massinger, Marston, and others.

Recenzje

"This is an intriguing book with wide cross-disciplinary appeal, engaging with literary, political, historical and geographical texts to show the interwoven nature of places, peoples, events and representations." - Literature & History

Spis treści

Acknowledgements Introduction: Dramatic Geographies of the Self Geography as the Eye of History Romanticized France in the English Imagination Shifting Views of the German Principalities Geography and Trade: The Low Countries and Denmark Spain from Court to Country Notes Bibliography Index

O autorze

Monica Matei-Chesnoiu is Professor of English literature at Ovidius University of Constanta, Romania.