Shakespeare and the Climate

About the lecture

In this module, we contextualise Shakespeare's work with regard to the Little Ice Age, and its relevance to the climate change we are facing now, focusing especially on: (i) the Globe's 2019 adaptation of Titania's speech in A Midsummer Night's Dream, (ii) how Shakespeare lived through the Little Ice Age, and what that would have looked like for him, (iii) Dipesh Chakrabarty's theory of the collapse of the distinction between human and natural history, and Lewis and Maslin's pointing to 1610 as the start of the 'anthropocene', (iv) how Sonnet 18 reflects the poor weather due to the Little Ice Age, and (v) how Titania's speech in Act 2, Scene 1 grapples with the changing climate.

About the lecturer

Dr Todd Borlik is Senior Lecturer in Renaissance Drama at the University of Huddersfield. His research focuses on Shakespeare and the pre-history of environmentalism. His publications include Literature and Nature in the English Renaissance: An Ecocritical Anthology (2019) and Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature (2011).