Wooden Os is a study of the presence of trees and wood in the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries – in plays set within forests, in character dialogue, and in props and theatre constructions. Vin Nardizzi connects these themes to the dependence, and surprising ecological impact, of London’s commercial theatre industry on England’s woodlands, the primary resource required to build all structures in early modern England.
Wooden Os situates the theatre within an environmental history that witnessed a perceived scarcity of wood and timber that drove up prices, as well as statute law prohibiting the devastation of English woodlands and urgent calls for the remedying of a resource shortage that was feared would result in eco-political collapse. By considering works including Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, the revised Spanish Tragedy, and The Tempest, Nardizzi demonstrates how the “trees” within them were used in imaginative ways to mediate England’s resource crisis.
Vin Nardizzi is Associate Professor of English at the University of British Columbia.
Table of Contents
Illustrations Acknowledgements Prologue: Evergreen Fantasies: Utopia’s Trees and Early Modern Theatre Introduction: Wood, Timber, and Theatre in Early Modern England Chapter 1: “Vanish the tree”: Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay at the Rose Chapter 2: “Come, will this wood take fire?” The Merry Wives of Windsor in Shakespeare’s Theatres Chapter 3: “Down with these branches and these loathsome boughs / Of this unfortunate and fatal pine”: The Composite Spanish Tragedy at the Fortune Chapter 4: “There’s wood enough within”: The Tempest’s Logs and The Resources of Shakespeare’s Globe Epilogue: The Afterlives of the Globe Notes Bibliography Index
What People are Saying About This
Garrett Sullivan
"Wooden Os is extremely impressive in many ways. Vin Nardizzi situates Renaissance drama in terms of an 'eco-material' history of the playhouse that takes us not only from woodland to theatre, but from England to Germany, Virginia, and elsewhere. Engaging, well-written, and well-researched, Wooden Os is imaginative, insightful, and a fresh contribution to the field of early modern ecocriticism."
