Clowning,Location and Mediterranean Drama

Abstract

This article explores the ways in which clowns disturb both spatial and generic decorum within early modern drama, and examines the ideological implications of those disturbances. With a particular focus on plays set in the Mediterranean, it demonstrates how clown-figures, through a variety of techniques, refocus attention on the performance space even at moments when plays seem most concerned with the real geographical locations they present. The article ends by considering the impact of clowning on plays' capacities to construct what John Gillies has influentially called a ‘geography of difference’.