Shakespeare and Ecocriticism Reconsidered

Organized around a set of principles rather than a unified theoretical approach, ecocriticism considers the relationship between humans and nonhumans, especially as expressed in texts. Despite calls from some for ecocritics to rally around a unified theory, ecocritics have embraced the inclusivity that such broad definition has allowed. Thus, practitioners have come to ecocriticism with a range of interests. Such interests vary from an earlier focus on how the human/nonhuman relationship was fractured (and its recuperation in nature writing in particular) to a later emphasis on how it is always-already interconnected. Along the way, and especially in light of concerns about our current environmental crises, many ecocritics have cited a political dimension to the field, bringing concerns of the past and present together and examining intersections between such things as environmental degradation, misogyny, racism, homophobia, and speciesism. Early modern ecocriticism, especially in Shakespeare studies, has become a steadily growing field over the past decade. But early modern ecocritics' focus on the "nonhuman" tends to be more focused than that category might suggest, ranging from (nonhuman) animals, to plants, to minerals - challenging the distinction between animate and inanimate as well as asking us to rethink the integrity (let alone the exceptionalism) of the category of the human. This essay reviews the state of the field of Shakespeare and ecocriticism and offers a pathway for its future development, especially to suggest that it retains its political roots and focus on the implications of the material interactions between humans and nonhumans related to gender, race, and class.