Shakespeare's images of the exotic are shown to be firmly based on the margins of contemporary maps; and examination of the icons and emblems of maps raises questions about the mapmakers' overt intentions and instinctive assumptions, and reveals connections between the semiology of a map and that of the theater.
An exploration of Shakespeare's geographic imagination and the relationship between Renaissance geography and theatre.
1. Mapping the other: Vico, Shakespeare and the geography of difference; 2. Of 'voyages and exploration: geography: maps'; 3. Theatres of the world; 4. 'The open worlde': the exotic in Shakespeare; 5. The frame of the new geography.