Players in a storm: Climate and political migrants in The Tempest and Othello

<p>This paper presents a reading of migrants and their relationships with political and environmental slow violence in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Othello. Using Steve Mentz’s work with water and shipwreck, Lowell Duckert’s work on water in Shakespeare, Rob Nixon’s concept “slow violence,” Patricia Fumerton’s book on vagrancy in sixteenth and seventeenth century England, and Ken Hiltner’s work with environmental advocacy of the same time, I read the social history of vagrancy of the time (presented by Hiltner and Fumerton) alongside the Poor Laws. This social history is combined with water-focused ecocriticism, shipwreck and a postcolonial reading of migrancy. Ultimately, the enmeshed position of the migrant in history, economics, and their environment in Shakespeare’s works is more clearly articulated.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

Open Access Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English Language and Literature

Year dc:date.available

2018

Author dc:creator

• Rees, Darcie

Contributors dc:contributor

• Elisabeth Däumer, PhD
• Craig Dionne, PhD

• Ecocriticism
• Migrants
• Shakespeare
• Shipwreck
• Slow Violence
• English Language and Literature

Repository record dc:identifier

https://commons.emich.edu/theses/914

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:commons.emich.edu:theses-2303