Shakespeare on the Ecological Surface uses the concept of the ‘surface’ to examine the relationship between contemporary performance and ecocriticism. Each section looks, in turn, at the 'surfaces' of slick, smoke, sky, steam, soil, slime, snail, silk, skin and stage to build connections between ecocriticism, activism, critical theory, Shakespeare and performance. While the word ‘surface’ was never used in Shakespeare’s works, Liz Oakley-Brown shows how thinking about Shakespearean surfaces helps readers explore the politics of Elizabethan and Jacobean culture. She also draws surprising parallels with our current political and ecological concerns. The book explores how Shakespeare uses ecological surfaces to help understand other types of surfaces in his plays and poems: characters’ public-facing selves; contact zones between characters and the natural world; surfaces upon which words are written; and physical surfaces upon which plays are staged. This book will be an illuminating read for anyone studying Shakespeare, early modern culture, ecocriticism, performance and activism.

Shakespeare and Ecology is the first book to explore the topical contexts that shaped the environmental knowledge and politics of Shakespeare and his audiences. Early modern England experienced unprecedented environmental challenges including climate change, population growth, resource shortfalls, and habitat destruction which anticipate today's globally magnified crises. Shakespeare wove these events into the poetic textures and embodied action of his drama, contributing to the formation of a public ecological consciousness, while opening creative pathways for re-imagining future human relationships with the natural world and non-human life. This book begins with an overview of ecological modernity across Shakespeare's work before focusing on three major environmental controversies in particular plays: deforestation in The Merry Wives of Windsor and The Tempest; profit-driven agriculture in As You Like It; and gunpowder warfare and remedial cultivation in Henry IV Parts One and Two, Henry V, and Macbeth. A fourth chapter examines the interdependency of local and global eco-relations in Cymbeline, and the final chapter explores Darwinian micro-ecologies in Hamlet and Antony and Cleopatra. An epilogue suggests that Shakespeare's greatest potential for mobilizing modern ecological ideas and practices lies in contemporary performance. Shakespeare and Ecology illuminates the historical antecedents of modern ecological knowledge and activism, and explores Shakespeare's capacity for generating imaginative and performative responses to today's environmental challenges.

How can we tune into the ecological dynamics of Shakespeare's plays? How can we adapt those plays to address current environmental crises? This is the first book to fuse Shakespearean ecocriticism with adaptation studies. It is a single critical and contextual resource for students embarking on an in-depth exploration of ecological approaches to Shakespeare and adaptation, providing both critical insight into adaptive performance practices and accessible contextual information on the field of ecocriticism and early modern environmental cultures. This guide offers: - Primary texts from the early modern period to the present, covering themes such as weather, botany, agriculture, fertility, land rights, animal and human relationships, metamorphosis and adaptation; - A focus on 3 of the most studied and adapted plays, A Midsummer Night's Dream, King Lear and The Tempest, as a basis for the wider application of ecological adaptive principles to Shakespeare; - A full range of environmental references in each play through innovative Eco-Tables; - Concise summaries of literary ecocriticism in relation to each key text; - Sustained attention to performance and creative writing as ecocritical interventions; - The first dedicated chapter in the field offering conceptual and practical resources for staging your own Shakespearean eco-adaptation; - A glossary of key terms and links to resources; - An accompanying companion website featuring additional resources. Shakespeare, Ecology and Adaptation: A Practical Guide provides a pedagogic pathway and a ready-made syllabus for teachers. It is also an indispensable resource for theatre directors, designers and dramaturgs seeking inspiration for the environmentally engaged productions and adaptations the future demands of us.

While our physical surroundings fashion our identities, we, in turn, fashion the natural elements in which or with which we live. This complex interaction between the human and the non-human already resonated in Shakespeare's plays and poems. As details of the early modern supra- and infra-celestial landscape feature in his works, this dictionary brings to the fore Shakespeare's responsiveness to and acute perception of his 'environment' and it covers the most significant uses of words related to this concept. In doing so, it also examines the epistemological changes that were taking place at the turn of the 17th century in a society which increasingly tried to master nature and its elements. For this reason, the intersections between the natural and the supernatural receive special emphasis. All in all, this dictionary offers a wide variety of resources that takes stock of the 'green criticism' that recently emerged in Shakespeare studies and provides a clear and complete overview of the idea, imagery and language of environment in the canon.

The first comprehensive history of Byzantine warfare in the tenth century

The first comprehensive history of Byzantine warfare in the tenth century.