Nature’s Renaissance: Ecostudies and Early English Literature (Pre-1800) (I)

In this course we will study a wide variety of literary and non-literary texts (from lyric poetry to proto-scientific and philosophical essays) that highlight both traditional and changing conceptions of “nature” pre-dating the genre of nature-writing as it has evolved over the last two hundred years. We will read these works using the tools of modern ecocriticism (with an emphasis on class, race, gender, ecology, and environmental justice) while also striving to understand these works in historical context. Topics include the microscopic and the macrocosmic, “freaks” of nature, the human/animal, bestiaries and early zoography, angling, hunting, hawking, the pastoral, country houses, harvest festivals, fair land use and enclosure, poetic inspiration, human anatomy, biological determinism, and artifice. Readings may include Spenser, Jonson, Marvell, Lanyer, Herrick, Walton, Milton, Finch, Montaigne, and Bacon, among others. 3 hrs. lect.