Shakespeare's sea creatures

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes Shakespeare's oceanic characters in The Comedy of Errors, Twelfth Night, Pericles, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest. Using three distinct categories of aquatic creatures, I investigate Shakespeare's conception of the sea as both a vast, physical body and a complex symbol of renewal, possibility, and transformation. Those I identify as "sea creatures" in Shakespeare's dramatic works are not animal, but human characters with an intimate connection and understanding of the ocean. These sea creatures--sea dogs, mermaids, and amphibians--symbolically bring the sea with them as they navigate their respective plays, and they contribute to the concept of the sea as not only a paradoxical and transformative space like Shakespeare's forests, but a space of supernatural and divine power.