The Greenworld: English Literature and the Environment

Catalog description

A survey of prose, poetry, and drama, the focus of this course is on the "Greenworld" in early modern English literature. The Greenworld encompasses all visions of the natural world: forests, gardens, oceans, caves, parks, animals, etc., as represented in many different aesthetic forms. Students will be introduced to a number of environmental studies topics, including land dispossession, natural disasters, New World plantations, land stewardship, and animal rights, as these topics appear in literature. Course readings range broadly from Virgil, Montaigne, and Shakespeare to James Cameron's "Avatar," and from the philosophical transactions of the Royal Society to transcriptions of witchcraft trials.