In this timely new study, Todd A. Borlik reveals the surprisingly rich potential for the emergent green criticism to yield fresh insights into early modern English literature. Deftly avoiding the anachronistic casting of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century authors as modern environmentalists, he argues that environmental issues, such as nature's personhood, deforestation, energy use, air quality, climate change, and animal sentience, are formative concerns in many early modern texts. The readings infuse a new urgency in familiar works by Shakespeare, Sidney, Spenser, Marlowe, Ralegh, Jonson, Donne, and Milton. At the same time, the book forecasts how ecocriticism will bolster the reputation of less canonical authors like Drayton, Wroth, Bruno, Gascoigne, and Cavendish. Its chapters trace provocative affinities between topics such as Pythagorean ecology and the Gaia hypothesis, Ovidian tropes and green phenomenology, the disenchantment of Nature and the Little Ice Age, and early modern pastoral poetry and modern environmental ethics. It also examines the ecological onus of Renaissance poetics, while showcasing how the Elizabethans' sense of a sophisticated interplay between nature and art can provide a precedent for ecocriticism's current understanding of the relationship between nature and culture as mutually constructive. Situating plays and poems alongside an eclectic array of secondary sources, including herbals, forestry laws, husbandry manuals, almanacs, and philosophical treatises on politics and ethics, Borlik demonstrates that Elizabethan and Jacobean authors were very much aware of, and concerned about, the impact of human beings on their natural surroundings.
Product Identifiers
Publisher
Taylor & Francis Ltd
ISBN-13
9780415636681
eBay Product ID (ePID)
115938551
Product Key Features
Book Title
Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature: Green Pastures
Author
Todd A. Borlik
Format
Paperback
Language
English
Topic
Literature
Publication Year
2012
Number of Pages
292 Pages
Dimensions
Item Height
229mm
Item Width
152mm
Item Weight
408g
Additional Product Features
Title_Author
Todd A. Borlik
Country/Region of Manufacture
United Kingdom
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