Columbus, Shakespeare, and the Interpretation of the New World - by J Hart (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Columbus, Shakespeare, and the Interpretation of the New World explores a range of images and texts that shed light on the complexity of the European reception and interpretation of the New World. Jonathan Hart examines Columbus's first representation of the natives and the New World, the representation of him in subsequent ages, the portrayal of America in sexual terms, the cultural intricacies brought into play by a variety of translators and mediators, the tensions between the aesthetic and colonial in Shakespeare's The Tempest, and a discussion of cultural and voice appropriation that examines the colonial in the postcolonial. This book brings the comparative study of the cultural past of the Americas and the Atlantic world into focus as it relates to the present.

Review Quotes

'Hart breaks new ground in exploring the ways in which the initial success of the Spanish in the new World set the agenda for the successive French and British attempts to create empires for themselves in the Atlantic. This is the largely untold story of the intellectual and ideological 'Scramble for America'. It is told with elegance, subtlety, and remarkable erudition by an author who brings to his readings of a complex body of texts the techniques of both the literary critic and the cultural historian. It will change the way we think about the first European overseas empires.' - Anthony Pagden, Harry C. Black, The Johns Hopkins University

About the Author

JONATHAN HART is the Director of the Institute for Renaissance Studies at the University of Edmonton, where he holds appointments in both English and History. Last year he was visiting professor at Princeton University. He holds a joint Ph.D in Literature and History, and has published widely on Shakespeare, Renaissance Literature, and the development if European empires.