Content area
Abstract
Biophilia, namely the partially innate and culturally mediated "tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes" (Wilson, 1984, p.1), tends to be understood ecocritically as 'nature love'. Over the course of its evolution, however, biophilia has evolved into a postcognitive conception of the mind-body-environment and ecological strategy for harnessing attention and affect. In particular, the subsequent biophilic design movement considers living, constructed and virtual landscape forms, or 'patterns', to elicit a state of 'open attention' or 'fascination', enhance positive affect and potentially generate empathy for other species. This dissertation is the first to apply biophilic patterns to literary landscapes and to William Shakespeare's plays. More specifically, it is concerned with the construction of a new method of biophilic 'ecoformalist' analysis for Shakespearean ecocriticism and ecotheatrical adaptation. Discussion borrows and builds upon the term "ecology of form" (Gruber, 2017, p.10) through developing an original biophilic framework. It asks whether a biophilic close reading of Shakespeare's textual landscape might reveal biodiverse multiplicities beyond those identified within the current literature. It seeks to contribute to affective ecomaterialism and prismatic ecology through further refracting 'green' arboreal, 'blue' nautical and even 'grey' atmospheric ecocritical foci into a more multi-hued kaleidoscopic encounter. It develops an original methodological framework incorporating cognitive ecology, ecological aesthetics and biophilic pattern analysis for 'gathering' Shakespeare's biophilic (positive) and biophobic (negative) patterns into a 'biophilic ecopalette'. These are sifted across a spectrum of affective human responses ranging from estrangement to enmeshment, with an emphasis on seeking both increased conceptual and decreased material ecological impact. The thesis is structured in three parts, traversing Part One's background, literature review, biophilia critique and methodology, Part Two's research and development and Part Three's application to ecocriticism and ecotheatre. Research is divided into two phases: firstly, the 'biophilic scansion' of thirty-eight individually or co-authored plays for their potential biophilic and biophobic content, which are then cross analysed with existing biophilic frameworks' 847 patterns. The resultant pattern trends are collated and distilled into an original 'ecopalette' and applied to ecocritical case studies of the Henry the Sixth trilogy and Timon of Athens and an ecotheatrical production of Twelfth Night. The thesis concludes by examining posthumanist possibilities for reading Shakespeare's landscape biophilically. In applying an updated postcognitive biophilic perspective, this thesis seeks to forage from Shakespeare's diverse textual landscape to explore the archaeology of language and reveal the embeddedness of word-within-world against the rapidly disintegrating backdrop of the Anthropocene.
