« 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. » (Résumé)
Shakespeare’s Sea Creatures
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