Shakespeare's Cross-Cultural Encounters [Hardcover]

In this highly entertaining study, De Sousa argues that Shakespeare reinterprets, refashions and reinscribes his alien characters - Jews, Moors, Amazons and gypsies. In this way, the dramatist questions the narrowness of a European perspective which caricatures other societies and views them with suspicion. De Sousa examines how Shakespeare defines other cultures in terms of the interplay of gender, text and habitat. Written in a provocative style, this readable book provides a wealth of fascinating information both on contemporary stage productions and on race and gender relations in early modern Europe.Acknowledgements List of Illustrations Introduction 'The Uttermost Parts of Their Maps': Frontiers of Gender Joan of Arc, Margaret of Anjou, and the Instability of Gender Textual Encodings in The Merchant of Venice Textual Intersections: Othello and Titus Andronicus Habitat, Race, and Culture in Antony and Cleopatra Cultural Re-encounters in The Tempest Conclusion Bibliography Index

'vast cross-cultural scope...de Sousa's erudition is notable in every page of this fascinating work...A photographic treat with fourteen plates of rare engravings...Shakespeare's Cross-Cultural Encounters is the type of book that unsettles decades of interpretation of the canon which are infatuated with timeless and universal themes ...an invaluable source of aesthetic and ideological stimulation.' - Margarida Gandara Rauen, Shakespeare Quarterly

'many thought-provoking interpretative suggestions...in the process of comparing Shakespeare's with other constructions of alien culture, de Sousa introduces a spacious new world of early modern anthropological and ethnographic texts, often translated here for the first time, that will make all future discussions of this topic richer. - Meredith Ann Skura, Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900