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Sweet Swan of Avon: Rivers in Shakespeare
- SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 59, Number 2, Spring 2019
- pp. 329-348
- 10.1353/sel.2019.0015
- Article
- Additional Information
- Purchase/rental options available:
Abstract:
River, stream, flood, fountain—the terms are often interchangeable. A brook is smaller, but it too is part of Shakespeare's imaginative world of streams and rivers. He names relatively few—Severn, Trent, Wye, Thames, Tiber, Saale, Elbe, Somme, Styx, Cydnus, Nile—but they are meaningful for him in ways that can focus the energies of the scenes in which they appear. They and many unnamed waterways are significant natural environments that provide strategic contexts for human actions. Rivers and streams in Shakespeare offer a continuous insight into character and dramatic situation in such a way as to become an integral feature of his great skill as poet and playwright.