
Publication details
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Place: Basingstoke
Year: 2016
Pages: 121-140
Series: Palgrave Shakespeare Studies
ISBN (Hardback): 9781137518347
Full citation:
, "The sea in pericles", in: Shakespeare and space, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016


The sea in pericles
pp. 121-140
in: Ina Habermann, Michelle Witen (eds), Shakespeare and space, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016Abstract
By the time Shakespeare and Wilkins's Pericles (1608) was written, English trading into the Levant had grown to significant volumes, and a permanent English consul had been based for nearly 20 years in Aleppo, with a remit that included Tripoli, Aleppo, Damascus, Jerusalem, Amman, and all other port cities in Syria and Palestine, among them Tharsus, Antioch and Tyre. This essay explores the ways in which the contemporary aspirations of English merchants and diplomats in the Levant are subtly registered in a play that has its main character voyaging across the sea, dealing in grain, and acquiring kingdoms by diplomacy or marriage. The main focus is on the meaning of the sea as a geopolitical space and itself a dramatic agent in the play.
Cited authors
Publication details
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Place: Basingstoke
Year: 2016
Pages: 121-140
Series: Palgrave Shakespeare Studies
ISBN (Hardback): 9781137518347
Full citation:
, "The sea in pericles", in: Shakespeare and space, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016