Many of Shakespeare’s plays are set in the Mediterranean region; Italy, for instance, has been called Shakespeare’s “favourite imaginative haunt”. Padua, Rome, Sicily, Verona, Venice – these are just some of the Italian locations in which Shakespeare set one or several of his plays. Other Mediterranean settings include Alexandria, Athens, Marseilles, and Troy. Partly, the fact that Shakespeare chose Mediterranean settings for so many of his plays reflects a broader Elizabethan fascination with this region as a source of classical civilisation and a cultural archive. But Shakespeare’s Mediterranean plays frequently also comment on his contemporary England. We will consider how Shakespeare used the Mediterranean to examine the rise and fall of great empires and their leaders, as well as to explore the poetic language of love, which was, after all, modelled on Italian poets and verse forms.
Required Reading:
Shakespeare, William. Julius Caesar (c. 1599).
Shakespeare, William. Anthony and Cleopatra (c. 1606-7).
Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night’s Dream (c. 1595).
Shakespeare, William. Troilus and Cressida (c. 1602).
Preferred edition: Arden Shakespeare, Third Series.
