This volume centers on the study of the relations between literature and the environment and poses important questions to an evolving field: why has ecocriticism focused on narrow, more recent historical periods? What has prevented or discouraged critics from extending environmentally-conscious readings further into the past, and what is lost as a consequence? Early Modern Ecostudies engages directly with such issues and advances a new practice that borrows from the methodologies of current ecocriticism, interrogates its problematic assumptions, and extends its reach and significance. Dealing with a range of subjects, these essays apply ecocritical methods to traditional authors such as Shakespeare, Sidney, More, and Milton; canonical texts such Edward Taylor's poetry and the Florentine Codex; and documents from the literature of discovery, medicine, and natural history.
Author(s): Ivo Kamps, Karen L. Raber, Thomas Hallock
Year: 2008
Language: English
Pages: 320
Contents......Page 6
List of Illustrations......Page 8
Series Editor’s Preface......Page 10
List of Contributors......Page 12
Introduction: Early Modern Ecostudies......Page 14
Part I: Ecocriticism and Early Modern Europe: New Approaches, Maturing Disciplines......Page 22
1 Slow Shakespeare: An Eco-Critique of “Method” in Early Modern Literary Studies......Page 24
2 Mute Timber?: Fiscal Forestry and Environmental Stichomythia in the Old Arcadia......Page 44
3 Defining Nature through Monstrosity in Othello and Macbeth......Page 68
4 Doing Ecocriticism with Shakespeare......Page 90
5 How to Do Things with Animals: Thoughts on/with the Early Modern Cat......Page 106
6 Utopian Ecocriticism: Naturalizing Nature in Thomas More’s Utopia......Page 128
7 Summer’s Lease: Shakespeare in the Little Ice Age......Page 144
Part II: The Spirit and the Flesh: The Implications of Religion for Early Modern Nature......Page 156
8 Anima-tion at Little Gidding: Thoughtful Inconsistency as Ecological Ethos in an Early Modern Bible Harmony......Page 158
9 An Ecocritical Evaluation of Book XI of the Florentine Codex......Page 180
10 Meditation on the Creatures: Ecoliterary Uses of an Ancient Tradition......Page 194
11 The Pomology of Eden: Apple Culture and Early New England Poetry......Page 206
Part III: Nature and Empire......Page 230
12 Delight Is a Slave to Dominion: Awakening to Empire with Richard Ligon’s History......Page 232
13 “The Archeologists Made Observations That Conjured Up Interesting Mental Pictures”: De Soto, Narrative Scholarship, and Place......Page 248
14 Imagining the Forest: Longleaf Pine Ecosystems in Spanish and English Writings of the Southeast, 1542–1709......Page 264
15 Would Thomas More Have Wanted to Go to Mars? Colonial Promotion and Bio-Power......Page 282
B......Page 304
E......Page 305
G......Page 306
L......Page 307
N......Page 308
S......Page 309
W......Page 310
Z......Page 311
