• Login
    View Item 
    •   DORA Home
    • Faculty of Art, Design and Humanities
    • School of Humanities
    • View Item
    •   DORA Home
    • Faculty of Art, Design and Humanities
    • School of Humanities
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Shakespeare and eco-criticism: the unexpected return of the Elizabethan world picture

    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    eco_compass.pdf (68.51Kb)
    Date
    2004-01
    Author
    Egan, Gabriel
    Metadata
    Show attachments and full item record
    Abstract
    In the early 1970s the Gaia hypothesis of James E. Lovelock and Lynn Margulis proposed that self-regulating processes of homeostasis have locked together the obviously living biosphere and the apparently dead environment so that one might usefully think of the whole Earth as a single organism. Although Lovelock and Margulis came from strictly scientific fields it is easy to see the appeal of their hypothesis for ‘alternative’ Western cultures of the New Age movement, complementary medicine, and holistic spiritualism, all of which have links with the broader anarchist and animal rights movements and with the emerging theory and practice of ecocriticism. At its best, ecocriticism builds upon post-structuralism’s rejection of the imaginary unified human subject previously dominant in literary studies to consider how Nature too is constructed as well as depicted in literary works. At the other extreme, however, ecocriticism shades off into a neo-Romantic spiritualism that merely asserts the healing power of living in the countryside or vicariously enjoying it through literature about rural idylls. This essay considers the materialist basis of the Gaia hypothesis, comparing it to ways of thinking about the world that were available to Shakespeare’s audiences and in particular its surprising parallels with the much-reviled Elizabethan World Picture described by E. M. W. Tillyard.
    Description
    Citation : Egan, G. (2004) Shakespeare and eco-criticism: the unexpected return of the Elizabethan world picture. Literature Compass, 1, pp.1-13
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/2086/7079
    DOI
    https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-4113.2004.00049.x
    Research Group : English Research Group
    Research Institute : Institute of English
    Collections
    • School of Humanities [1674]

    Submission Guide | Reporting Guide | Reporting Tool | DMU Open Access Libguide | Take Down Policy | Connect with DORA
    DMU LIbrary
     

     

    Browse

    All of DORACommunities & CollectionsAuthorsTitlesSubjects/KeywordsResearch InstituteBy Publication DateBy Submission DateThis CollectionAuthorsTitlesSubjects/KeywordsResearch InstituteBy Publication DateBy Submission Date

    My Account

    Login

    Submission Guide | Reporting Guide | Reporting Tool | DMU Open Access Libguide | Take Down Policy | Connect with DORA
    DMU LIbrary