Date Approved
2018
Degree Type
Open Access Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department or School
English Language and Literature
Committee Member
Elisabeth Däumer, PhD
Committee Member
Craig Dionne, PhD
Abstract
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.
Recommended Citation
Rees, Darcie, "Players in a storm: Climate and political migrants in The Tempest and Othello" (2018). Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations. 914.
https://commons.emich.edu/theses/914