Shakespearean Territories

Description

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. Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Shakespearean Territories 1. Divided Territory: The Geo-politics of King Lear 2. Vulnerable Territories: Regional Geopolitics in Hamlet and Macbeth 3. The Territories: Majesty and Possession in King John 4. Economic Territories: Laws, Economies, Agriculture, and Banishment in Richard II 5. Legal Territories: Conquest and Contest in Henry V and Edward III 6. Colonial Territories: From The Tempest to the Eastern Mediterranean 7. Measuring Territories: The Techniques of Rule 8. Corporeal Territories: The Political Bodies of Coriolanus 9. Outside Territory: The Forest in Titus Andronicus and As You Like It Coda: Beyond Pale Territories References to Shakespeare's Plays Notes Index