Shakespeare’s Ocean: An Ecocritical Exploration

279 Pages·2012·2.559 MB·English

by  Dan Brayton

Shakespeare’s Ocean
Under the Sign of Nature:
Explorations in Ecocriticism
Editors
Michael P. Branch, SueEllen Campbell, John Tallmadge
Series Consultants
Lawrence Buell, John Elder, Scott Slovic
Series Advisory Board
Michael P. Cohen, Richard Kerridge, Gretchen Legler, Ian Marshall,
Dan Peck, Jennifer Price, Kent Ryden, Rebecca Solnit,
Anne Whiston Spirn, Hertha D. Sweet Wong
Shakespeare s
’
Ocean
an ecocritical exploration
Dan Brayton
University of Virginia Press Charlottesville and London
University of Virginia Press
∫ 2012 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
First published 2012
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brayton, Daniel.
Shakespeare’s ocean : an ecocritical exploration / Dan Brayton.
p. cm. — (Under the sign of nature)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-8139-3226-2 (cloth : acid-free paper)
isbn 978-0-8139-3227-9 (e-book)
1. Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616—Knowledge—Natural history.
2. Sea in literature. 3. Ecocriticism. I. Title.
pr3039.b73 2012
822.3%3—dc23
2011035953
For
Antonia J. Losano,
shipmate and
soulmate

contents
List of Figures ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction: Shakespeare and the Global Ocean 1
1. Backs to the Sea? The Terrestrial Bias 15
2. Consider the Crab 43
3. Shakespeare’s Benthic Imagination 62
4. Tidal Bodies 86
5. Royal Fish: Shakespeare’s Princely Whales 107
6. Shakespeare among the Fishmongers 136
7. Prospero’s Maps 166
Coda: Toward a Terraqueous Ecocriticism 196
Notes 203
Bibliography 227
Index 245

figures
1. Frontispiece of The Mariners Mirrour, 1588 3
2. Edward Wright, Hydrographiae Descriptio, 1599 83
3. Fool’s Cap, 1590 84
4. Joachim Camerarius, Emblem XII 124
5. Joachim Camerarius, Emblem VII 125
6. Joachim Camerarius, Emblem V 128
7. Johan Wierix, Three Beached Whales, 1577 129
8. Willem van der Gouwen, Beached Whale, 1598 130
9. Jan Saenredam, Beached Whale near Beverwijk, 1601 131
10. Pieter van der Heyden, after Pieter Brueghel the
Elder, Big Fish Eat Little Fish, 1557 161
11. Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Water, 1566 163
12. Wind Rose, seventeenth century 183
13. Sea chart, 1532, and 400 years later 184
14. Ptolemaic world map, sixteenth century 186
15. Martin Waldseemüller, World Map, 1508 188
16. Albrecht Dürer, Terrestrial Map (The Eastern
Hemisphere), 1515 190