Combining the latest scientific and philosophical understanding of humankind's place in the world with interpretative methods derived from other politically inflected literary criticism, ecocriticism is providing new insights into literary works both ancient and modern. With case-study analyses of the tragedies, comedies, histories and late romances, this book is a wide-ranging introduction to reading Shakespeare in the light of contemporary ecocritical theory.

From Titus Andronicus and Hamlet to A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Venus and Adonis, Shakespeare leads willing readers and forces the unwilling to rethink and re-see their world through his kaleidoscope of narrative and poetic sources. A wide variety of filmmakers including Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock, Jean-Luc Godard and Akira Kurosawa, Julie Taymor and Quentin Tarantino have tapped into the possibilities Shakespeare's work inspires. This study considers Shakespeare’s impact on our experience of words and the images they conjure and considers how this leads to a greater...

Shakespeare and Adaptation Theory reconsiders, after 20 years of intense critical and creative activity, the theory and practice of adapting Shakespeare to different genres and media. Organized around clusters of key metaphors, the book explicates the principal theories informing the field of Shakespearean adaptation and surveys the growing field of case studies by Shakespeare scholars. Each chapter also looks anew at a specific Shakespeare play from the perspective of a prevailing set of theories and metaphors. Having identified the key critics responsible for developing these metaphors...

Shakespeare and Adaptation Theory reconsiders, after 20 years of intense critical and creative activity, the theory and practice of adapting Shakespeare to different genres and media. Organized around clusters of key metaphors, the book explicates the principal theories informing the field of Shakespearean adaptation and surveys the growing field of case studies by Shakespeare scholars. Each chapter also looks anew at a specific Shakespeare play from the perspective of a prevailing set of theories and metaphors. Having identified the key critics responsible for developing these metaphors...