This book takes Shakespeare's plays as a site for studying the specter of interracial sex--of a "jungle fever"--in early modern England's envisionings of itself. Shakespeare's works here assume the status of interrogating, of re-envisioning, rather than simply restaging the scene of a horrific sexual encounter. The author argues that early modern England's national-imperial aesthetic, notably its evocation of classicism, relies significantly on a textual and cultural manipulation of race. Nowhere is this more apparent and popularly accessible than in the period's drama and in sacrificial rape...