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5. Empire and Conquest in the Comedies
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q Empire and Conquest in the Comedies Shakespeare’s public theater after early was the Globe. Here his company laid its claim to being able to talk about the entire globe. When Prospero speaks of the world’s (or globe’s) dissolving in an apocalypse, he deliberately leaves open the question of which globe would vanish (Tempest ..), but there is little doubt that one meaning of the “great globe” is the whole world, verified to be round only a little over a hundred years before the Globe opened. Shakespeare in the comedies talks about the entire known world. As I have mentioned, outside the Globe hung the sign of Hercules supporting the circle of the world with a Latin motto telling theater goers that all the world is a stage. And the globe as a world, as a community of national communities, or as a series of empires, comes to us vividly in the comedies.The histories are all England; the tragedies are primarily England and Scotland, ancient Rome, and Italy. But the great globe itself, insofar as it was available as something knowable to Shakespeare and his age, is the domain of the comedies (especially if one allows for the fact that Asia and the Americas were not available for Shakespeare or his audiences in forms that would permit serious verisimilitudinous narration). Even given the distance of Africa, the Far East, and the Americas, Shakespeare seems to refer to America in The Tempest and occasionally refers to India, China, and Africa in short passages, such as Benedick’s reference to Prester John, the pigmies, map .The Europe of Shakespeare’s Comedies, about Imperial borders are ambiguous because empires had a tendency to claim more land than they actually controlled.The Ottoman Empire, Holy Roman Empire, the kingdoms of Spain, London Paris Prague Algiers Tunis Kingdom of Fez3 Kingdom of Morocco United Provinces (Holland) Kingdom of Denmark Spanish lands1 Sp an ish la nd s 1 Switzerland2 Duchy Papal Holy Roman Empire (without Austria, Palatinate, and Spanish lands) Kingdom of England Kingdom of France Navarre Rousillon Kingdom of Portugal Kingdom of Castille Kingdom of Aragon S t a t e s Savoy2 of K i n g d o m o f S p a i n S p a n i s h l a n d s 1 Notes: 1) Spanish land holdings within the Holy Roman Empire 2) Contested territories within the Holy Roman Empire 3) Contested between the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Morocco Pala t i n a t e [3.238.64.201] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 16:27 GMT) France, and England, the Venetian Republic, the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania, and Russia (the Tsardom of Muscovy) all claimed descent from the Roman or Eastern Roman Empire. Vienna Lepanto (battle site) Constantinople (Istanbul) Moscow Austrian Monarchy Ottoman Empire Ottoman Empire and dependencies Ottoman Empire Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania Crete Cyprus Russia (Tsardom of Muscovy) Venetian R e p u b l i c and the great Cham’s beard in Much Ado, act , scene . The references to these places do have the air of the exotic, however. Europe, the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Ottoman Empire, and Russia were available as real places to the citizens of a great port city, and Shakespeare wrote about them (see map ). And his global interest does not begin with the erecting of the Globe. Even before he came to his new theater, around he parsed the body of the kitchen map . Shakespeare’s Central and Northern Italy in Milan Verona Padua Venice Pisa Florence Sienna Rome Naples Messina V e n e t i a n R e p u b l i c Ottoman Empire I l l y r i a Mediterranean Sea Adriatic Sea S a r d i n i a Sicily Papal States K i n g d o m o f S p a i n Empire and Conquest in the Comedies maid, Luce, in Comedy of Errors as a representation of Europe and America. The center of Shakespeare’s global world for the comedies includes the English empire, the Venetian one (see map ), the Turkish Ottoman hegemony, the Holy Roman Empire and related Habsburg domains, especially the Spanish possessions, possibly the New World in The Tempest, and the Russian Empire. Of Russia Shakespeare has little to say that reflects much knowledge . Ivan the Terrible had just completed his reign and claimed the title of “czar...