Ancient Stories of Eccentric Lands: Shakespeare’s Classical Geography of the Black Sea

Abstract

The paper examines migratory motifs and allusions to the Black Sea area from the classical texts into three Shakespearean comedies and a history play. The analysis focuses on how Shakespeare used classical myth related to the
Pontus Euxinus
to compare, but mainly to contrast these territories with his contemporaries’ assumptions about them. In addition, the paper looks at how Shakespeare made (tragic) drama out of classical historical texts, or the geographical narratives of wonder.