Shakespeare / Nature sets new agendas for the study of nature in Shakespeare’s work. Offering a rich exploration of the intersections between the human and non-human worlds, the chapters focus on the contested and persuasive language of nature, both as organic matter and cultural conditioning.
Rooted in close textual analysis and historical acuity, this collection addresses
Shakespeare’s works through the many ways in which ‘nature’ performs, as a cultural category, a moral marker and a set of essential conditions through which the human may pass, as well as affect.
Addressing the complex conditions of the play worlds, the chapters explore the assorted forms through which Shakespeare’s nature makes sense of its narratives and supports, upholds or contests its story-telling.
Over the course of the collection, the contributors examine plays including Macbeth, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, The Taming of the Shrew, Othello, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Hamlet, Timon of Athens and many more. They discuss them through the various lenses of philosophy, historicism, psychoanalysis, gender studies, cosmography, geography, sexuality, linguistics, environmentalism, feminism and robotics, to provide new and nuanced readings of the intersectional terms of both meaning and matter.
Approaching ‘nature’ in all its multiplicity, this collection sets out to examine the divergent and complex ways in which the human and non-human worlds intersect and the development of a language of symbiosis that attempts to both control and create the terms of human authority. It offers an entirely new approach to the subject of nature, bringing together disparate methods that have previously been pursued independently to offer a
shared investment in the intersections between the human and non-human worlds and how these discourses shape and condition the emotional, organic, cultural and psychological landscapes of Shakespeare’s play worlds.
Edited by:
Charlotte Scott (The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust UK)
Series edited by:
Dr. Farah Karim Cooper (Shakespeare's Globe London UK),
Professor Gordon McMullan (King's College London,
UK),
Lucy Munro (King's College London,
UK),
Professor Sonia Massai (Sapienza,
University of Rome,
Italy,
and King’s College,
London,
UK)
Imprint: The Arden Shakespeare
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Spine: 25mm
Weight: 454g
ISBN: 9781350259836
ISBN 10: 1350259837
Series: Arden Shakespeare Intersections
Pages: 312
Publication Date: 08 February 2024
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
List of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Series Preface Acknowledgements 1. Nature/Natural Charlotte Scott (The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK) 2. Human/Trees Kristen Poole (University of Delaware, USA) 3. Weather/Phenomena Sophie Chiari (Clermont Auvergne University, France) 4. Creations/Recreations Randall Martin (University of New Brunswick, Canada) 5. Nature/Interrupted Shankar Raman (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA) 6. Herbs/Flowers Rebecca Bushnell (University of Pennsylvania, USA) 7. Cultivation/Body Rebecca Laroche (University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, USA) 8. Contamination/Transcorporeality Jennifer Munroe (University of North Carolina, Charlotte, USA) 9. Monstrous/Bestial Michela Compagnoni (University of Genoa, Italy) 10. Animal/Fable Abigail Shinn (Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK) 11. Skin/Aberrance Anna Kowalcze-Pawlik (University of Lodz, Poland) 12. Hunting/Prey Catherine Bates (University of Warwick, UK) 13. Enclosures/Echoes Delilah Braatas (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) 14. Mining/History Chris Thurman (University of Witwatersrand, South Africa) Index
Charlotte Scott is Director of Knowledge and Engagement at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, UK, and was formerly Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK. Her publications include The Child in Shakespeare (2018), Shakespeare's Nature: From Cultivation to Culture (2014) and Shakespeare and the Idea of the Book (2007), as well as book chapters, journal articles and reviews. She was textual editor for the RSC Complete Works and pedagogical advisor for the New Oxford Shakespeare.
