In this seminar, we will discuss and contextualise Shakespeare's works The Tempest, King Lear, and Othello with regards to their negotiation of ocean worlds. Drawing on such frameworks as early modern oceans, colonialism, and the blue humanities/ ecocriticism, and exploring the often-ambiguous references of these texts to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, our discussions will situate the oceanic as a conjoint metaphorical and material sphere crucial to the texts and the historical conditions from which they emerge.
Please make sure you purchase the three texts and have a cursory undestanding of them by the first session. I recommend the New Cambridge Shakespeare or Arden Shakespeare Editions of the plays:
First session: 12 October
- Lehrende/r: Caroline Koegler
Semester: WiSe 2022/23