At the Bottom of Shakespeare's Ocean (Shakespeare Now!)

by SteveMentz (Author)

• New

  Hardcover
  2009

  $149.97

  A study revealing Shakespeare's career-long engagement with the sea and his frequent use of maritime imagery. It sets Shakespeare's sea-poetry against modern literary seascapes, including the vast Pacific of Moby-Dick , the rocky coast of Charles Olson's Maximus Poems , and the lyrical waters of the postcolonial Caribbean .

• New

  Paperback
  2009

  $44.22

  This is a fascinating study revealing Shakespeare's career-long engagement with the sea and his frequent use of maritime imagery. We need a poetic history of the ocean, and Shakespeare can help us find one. There's more real salt in the plays than we first expect. Shakespeare's dramatic ocean spans the God-sea of the ancient world and the immense blue vistas that early modern mariners navigated. Throughout his career, from the opening shipwrecks of The Comedy of Errors through The Tempest , Shakespeare's plays figure the ocean as shocking physical reality and mind-twisting symbol of change and instability. To fathom Shakespeare's ocean - to go down to its bottom - this book's chapters focus on different things that humans do with and in and near the sea: fathoming, keeping watch, swimming, beachcombing, fishing, and drowning. Mentz also sets Shakespeare's sea-poetry against modern literary seascapes, including the vast Pacific of Moby-Dick , the rocky coast of Charles Olson's Maximus Poems , and the lyrical waters of the postcolonial Caribbean . Uncovering the depths of Shakespeare's maritime world, this book draws out the centrality of the sea in our literary culture. Shakespeare Now! is a series of short books that engage imaginatively and often provocatively with the possibilities of Shakespeare's plays. It goes back to the source - the most living language imaginable - and recaptures the excitement, audacity and surprise of Shakespeare. It will return you to the plays with opened eyes.