Shakespeare Beyond the Green World: Drama and Ecopolitics in Jacobean Britain

Shakespeare Beyond the Green World explores how Shakespeare's plays at the Stuart court addressed environmental issues of his era, highlighting the contested nature of Crown policies and the humanization of beasts and monarchs. It re-wilds the Renaissance stage by combining deep dives into environmental history with close readings of Shakespearean wordplay, typography, and performance conditions, debunking fantasies of human exceptionalism and exposing monarchical dominion as ecological tyranny.

Format: Hardback
Length: 304 pages
Publication date: 19 January 2023
Publisher: Oxford University Press

Shakespeare's plays at the Stuart court offer a rich tapestry of ecopolitics, revealing his profound attention to the environmental issues of his era. As a court dramatist, Shakespeare crafted his works to captivate patrons deeply engaged in the conservation and exploitation of a burgeoning empire's natural resources. Fueled by James I's campaign to unify his kingdoms, Shakespeare ventured beyond the green and pleasant lowlands of England, exploring the rugged landscapes of an expanding Great Britain. In Macbeth, he depicted the blasted heath, in Timon of Athens, the caves and mines, in Pericles, the overfished North Sea, in Cymbeline, the Welsh mountains, in The Winter's Tale, the Arctic fur country, in The Tempest, the fens in The Tempest, overcrowded London, and empty Ulster in Measure for Measure and Coriolanus. These plays not only simulate a monarch's-eye view of the natural world but also reveal the fierce contests surrounding Crown policies from below.

In addition to traversing verdant landscapes, Shakespeare Beyond the Green World aims to counter the Anglocentric and anthropocentric bias of the archive by engaging in dialogue with texts that showcase the subaltern wild's voice. Through deep dives into environmental history and close readings of Shakespearean wordplay, original typography, and original performance conditions, this study re-wilds the Renaissance stage. It highlights Shakespeare's tendency to humanize beasts and bestialize allegedly godlike monarchs, debunking fantasies of human exceptionalism. By elucidating how the Jacobean plays expose monarchical dominion as ecological tyranny, this study remains scrupulously historicist while reasserting Shakespeare's enduring relevance in our contemporary world.

Weight: 636g
Dimension: 242 x 160 x 19 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780192866639