De Roma a Verona: espaços trágicos shakespearianos

Shakespearean criticism has mainly focused on the study of his characters and their stories, mainly ignoring the places where the plots occur. Yet, in the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras the world frontiers, already altered due to medieval travellers’ books, expanded enormously owing to the sea voyages, imposing another cartography on the globe. The theatre, in an age lacking means of information, spread the news regarding the new lands which began to appear on the stage. This essay discusses how the contemporary geography influenced Shakespeare shown in the language of some comedies; as to the tragedies, which occur in the distant past, he incorporated the geographic expansion into his creative process resulting in memorable dramatic spaces and other possibilities of reading.