Review by Choice Review
Ecocriticism is another of those postmodern literary-critical fads that despite achieving institutional dominance continues to imagine itself the perpetual outsider, marginalized by stodgy traditionalist straw men who apparently still dominate the calcified halls of academia. Such posturing allows ecowarriors to benefit from the narrative of victimhood they chronicle, while simultaneously enjoying the privilege and authority of institutional sanction and professional approval. Although moderated somewhat in this study, the book nevertheless suffers from the same tendentious tendencies of the genre. This is not really a study of Shakespeare, nor even of Renaissance culture. Brayton (Middlebury College) offers instead a familiar modern environmental manifesto situated--often loosely--in a variety of early modern texts and concluding with a coda calling for a "terraqueous ecocriticism" to balance the land-bias of "traditional" ecocritics. Thus, even within the marginal hegemonies of ecocriticism, there still exist veritable oceans of neglect. For Brayton, Shakespeare "persistently entertain(s) the idea that we are of the sea, not in the limited political or economic sense ... but at a more global level." Less historical criticism than environmentalist incitement for increased attention to bodies of water, this is a book for the like-minded. Summing Up: Optional. Specialists only. D. Pesta University of Wisconsin--Oshkosh
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
