Toward a Blue Cultural Studies: The Sea, Maritime Culture, and Early Modern English Literature

This article explores the cultural meanings of the maritime world in early modern English literature. Placing English literary culture in the context of the massive ocean-bound expansion of European culture that began in the 15th century, it suggests that the sea's ancient meanings shifted in the early modern period as geographic experience and knowledge increased. The article examines some recent developments in maritime studies, sometimes called a 'new thalassology' (from the Greek thalassos, the sea); distinguishes these trends from now-traditional New Historicist and Atlantic studies; and suggests how these methods can contribute to a 'blue cultural studies'. The new maritime humanities speaks to a series of modern discourses, including globalization, post-colonialism, environmentalism, ecocriticism, and the history of science and technology. The article provides two examples of how these maritime discourses can change our interpretations of early modern English literature, first by examining a canonical poem - Milton's 'Lycidas' - and second through reconsidering a historical context, the 'Bermuda pamphlets' on which Shakespeare seems to have drawn in The Tempest.