At the Bottom of Shakespeare's Ocean

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 might 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 <em>The Comedy of Errors</em> through <em>The Tempest</em> 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. <br/>Mentz also sets Shakespeare's sea-poetry against modern literary sea-scapes including the vast Pacific of <em>Moby-Dick</em> the rocky coast of Charles Olson's <em>Maximus</em> <em>Poems</em> 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.