Course: Ecocritical Approaches to Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern Literature

HC 221H

Professor: Helen Southworth

This course is both a survey style class and an introduction to the field of environmental literature.  We will explore some of the main questions, issues and methods of ecocriticism in terms of a set of ancient, medieval and early modern works of literature. We will trace key tropes of ecological thought in literary and cultural texts ranging from the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh to Euripides’ ‘The Bacchae,’ Basho’s Narrow Road to the Deep North and Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’ and ‘The Tempest.’