Travel drama and gender politics : real and imagined worlds

This study explores the use of allegory in Renaissance travel drama and further develops our understanding of the allegorical nature of colonial discourse by focusing on the negotiations between gender and monarchy in "geographic" drama.

Claire Jowitt argues that travel drama tells two stories, one about the "real" colony described in the text, and one about the desires of the colonizing nation.

She shows how gender behaviour, sexual appetite, piracy and other forms of anti-establishment activities in colonial and remote locations can be read as coded political allegories.

Travel dramas are read against English colonial ambitions and as expressions of carefully coded descriptions and evaluations of the foreign and domestic policies of English rulers.