THE METAPHORICAL VISION IN THE LITERARY LANDSCAPE OF SHAKESPEARE,WILLIAM

Despite a considerable amount of research in literary geography since the 1970s, particularly upon 19th-century rural novels, relatively lit tle attention has been focused on Elizabethan literature, drama, and p oetry. This paper addresses the literary landscape of William Shakespe are with specific reference to the use of the body-landscape metaphor in his dramatic work. It is undertaken in the belief that by conductin g this type of investigation we are not merely exploring an intriguing aspect of the literary landscape of a highly creative Elizabethan, bu t we are also improving our understanding of the environmental percept ions of the culture in which these plays were written. The study begin s by exploring the origins of this particular metaphorical vision, and then examines how Shakespeare employs this concept by superimposing e lements of the celestial and the terrestrial landscape onto the human body and vice versa. Research reveals that although Shakespeare makes extensive use of this metaphorical device, some important types of bod y-landscape metaphors are absent in his work, and possible reasons for this are explored. The study concludes by noting that although this w ay of understanding the world was later superseded by other metaphors, some interesting parallels can be drawn between the body-landscape me taphor employed by the Elizabethans and the more recent Gaia hypothesi s.