A Spatial Interpretation Of Power Themes In Shakespeare's Romances

William Shakespeare is an outstanding playwright in British literary history.After his writing creation stage of poems,historical plays,comedies and tragedies,Shakespeare started to write romances.In his late years,Shakespeare's understanding towards humanity became more sophisticated,compared with his earlier plays.Shakespeare's romances contain four plays,including Pericles,Cymbeline,The Winter's Tale,The Tempest.Romances are written in a similar mode with a tragic beginning and a comedic ending,which show Shakespeare's optimistic faith towards humanity.Romances reflect Shakespeare's humanism spirit in the background of English Renaissance.Michel Foucault is a famous French historian and philosopher,whose theory focuses on the relationship between power and knowledge.In Discipline and Punish,his first major genealogical work,he elaborates that space plays an crucial rule in disciplining and punishments and the means of social control has transformed from the old ways of corporal punishments to the way of disciplining its people.From the angle of Michel Foucault's theory of disciplinary power,through analyzing the physical spaces in Shakespeare's four romances,this thesis is to interpret space's irrevocable influence on controlling and disciplining one's power and behavior,illustrating three technologies of the disciplinary power which are the hierarchical observation,the normalizing judgment and the examination.This thesis also interprets different spaces in Shakespeare's romances systematically,explaining the spatial similarities among these four plays,classifying physical spaces into two categories: enclosed space and open spaces,exploring how ruler's power is reinforced in enclosed spaces such as palace and prison,and how ruler's power is weakened in open spaces like pasture and wilderness.Further more,this thesis is to figure out the how one's power is shaped by three disciplinary technologies in various spaces and to make a conclusion on the themes of monarchical power and feminism in the Renaissance Period.