Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on several Renaissance plays and a prose text by Francis Bacon. It discusses the interplay of self and world and the related implications for cosmopolitan thought in Shakespeare's Richard III. The book also focuses on the ecological significance of revenge tragedy, a subgenre that emphasizes the interplay of "self" and "world". It examines the concept of indistinction, the notion that "selves" are not neatly or discretely separated from various "others". The book seeks to demonstrate, the concept of indistinction is also relevant to Macbeth. The ecology of formis also described in the work of Steve Mentz, which has helped to inaugurate a "maritime turn" in Renaissance studies. The cosmopolitan theme is at the heart of Francis Bacon's utopian prose text The New Atlantis, written shortly before his death.