15 How Shakespeare Blurred the Lines Between Humans and Nature – Emilee Engle

Emilee Engle is a second year student majoring in English secondary education.  This paper is a research paper she completed in her Introduction to Shakespeare class, and it is about how Shakespeare blurred the lines between humans and nature in his works.  Emilee’s professor Alisa Clapp-Itnyre said, “I really appreciated Emilee tackling a new angle with Shakespeare’s plays, eco-criticism, and doing it so well with details and good research. And Emilee won our Kahoots game on Shakespeare, too!” 

How Shakespeare Blurred the Lines Between Humans and Nature

In recent times, there has been a heightened interest in environmental issues such as climate change, deforestation, and pollution. One wouldn’t think that they could find much ecocriticism in old literary works but, upon further analysis, many authors were environmentally aware. Throughout his plays, Shakespeare finds many ways to blur the lines between humanity and nature, making them inter-connected. Ultimately, Shakespeare challenged the “Great Chain of Being” which was the hierarchy that was most commonly thought of during the Elizabethan era. In “The Great Chain of Being” God, angels, humans, animals, plants, and minerals. Animals and other aspects of nature are seen as below man but, in many of Shakespeare’s plays, he seems to put animals, nature, and humans on the same playing level, equalizing them. Shakespeare shows eco-sensitivity in many of his plays. I will focus on three of them: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It, and The Tempest.

In Shakespeare’s time, there were a lot of things happening that would have affected how he felt about nature. In Shakespeare and Ecology by Randall Martin, Martin explores the reasons that Shakespeare would have felt a sensitivity towards nature. Because of the deforestation in the English woodlands, the price of wood rose by 96 percent. When the lease on Shakespeare company’s theater was about to expire, the owner, Allen, wanted to tear it down and put the lumber to other uses. But, because of a clause in the original agreement, Shakespeare’s friends were able to claim partial ownership and when Allen was out of town, Shakespeare and the theater group got together to dismantle the theater and recycle the wood to make what we know today as “The Globe” (Randall 1). As wood continued to deplete, the government tried to handle it in other ways, creating a fuel crisis that can be compared to global warming today. Wood shortages led to increased coal usage, causing air pollution. Along with the changing times came a boom in industrialism. With the increase of factories also came an urban population increase. During this time, ecologists were struggling to define the relationship humans should have with the natural world with the ever budding degrading biodiversity and climate change. “Shakespeare was able to imagine these double aims of ecology-epistemological and political-because the pressure of modernity just mentioned…” (Martin 4). Shakespeare watched his world transform into one of industrialism and over-population which came with many environmental issues. “More people-burgeoning towns, and capitalized production and consumption emerged for the first time in sixteenth and seventeenth century England” (Martin 4). By understanding what was going on in Shakespeare’s world, it is easier to understand why he was being eco-critical and may have felt a sensitivity towards nature.

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare takes the narrow definition of the human self, and in the wilds of nature, creates a more flexible and biologically inclusive one. The play opens up with Hippolyta and Theseus waiting on the lunar cycle to get married, the moon often being linked with fertility. In Ecocritical Shakespeare, it is said that Theseus obviously does not want to be controlled by a woman, but, as it happens, especially in this time period, “woman is really a marker for nature itself, for an undifferentiated life force that is under no one’s voluntary control” (Brucker and Brayton 38). To further blur the lines between human and nature, Brayton and Bruckner argue that “Puck’s disguises are similes that animals and people alike mistake for realities, and throughout the play, the vacillation between simile and metaphor in describing such transformations suggests that in one sense we sometimes resemble, in another sense truly are, non-human forms of life: “When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile, / Neighing in likeness of a filly foal” (Brayton and Brucker 39). This is basically suggesting that animals and humans are alike in the way that they confuse what is real and not real. He continues to blur lines between human and animal with his next lines: “And sometimes lurk I in a gossip’s bowl, / In very likeness of a roasted crab, / And when she drinks, against her I bob / And on her withered develop pour the ale “ (II, i, 47-50). The crab here is probably alluding to a crab apple. The dewlap of the gossip will be “matched by those of the dogs and bulls in Theseus’s praise of his hunting pack” (Bruckner and Brayton 39). Shakespeare is trying to tell us through Oberon to Puck that “love in idleness grows amid a tangle of species, where ‘once I sat upon a promontory, / And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back’ and saw the winged boy-god cupid’s arrow miss its human target and hit a flower “now purple with love’s wound.” He erases the boundary between love, humanity, and animals. Love is simply a bridge across species and not only part of the human identity. (Bruckner and Brayton 39). While men in this play are often likened to fauna, the women are compared to flora. Oberon views Titania as a flower or “perhaps flowers are extensions or expressions of the qualities of the wild, canopied, luscious, sweet Titania…” (Bruckner and Brayton 40). As Titania is sleeping, Oberon describes a bank “where the wild thyme blows/ where oxlips and the nodding violet grows/ quite over canopied with luscious woodbine, with sweet musk roses and with eglantine…Lulled in these flowers with dances and delights…” (II. i. 249-256). Later on in the second scene, Helena complains that she is “ugly as a bear” (II. ii. 94). This is another instance where the line is blurred between human and animal.  However, here, the comparison is negative. The fairies themselves are little bits of nature with names such as Peasebottom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustard seed. The way Shakespeare makes analogies between humans and nature may make some readers feel that he is trying to degrade humans since nature is “below them”. However, seeing from a naturalistic perspective, It can be argued that Shakespeare felt that humans and animals were the same or equal. He blurred the lines between humans and nature in order to challenge the common Elizabethan view that humans were far superior to nature. There is a passage where Titania suggests that she and the other fairies are unable to go about their normal routine because the arguments that Oberon and the other humans are having are affecting nature. Each of the issues she brings up, correlates to real issues that would have been going on in Shakespeare’s time. She describes there being “contagious fogs” (II.i.75) that rise up from the sea and flood the river. This causes the farmers’ crops to flood and fail. She says that the “green corn hath rotted…and the folds stand empty in the drowned field” (II.i.79-82). As I previously discussed, Shakespeare was experiencing overpopulation which caused food shortages. Furthermore, Titania goes on to explain circumstances that are very similar to what we know of today as climate change. She says that “through this distemperature we see the seasons alter” (II.i.91-92). With the seasons changing and mixing up, “now knows not which is which” (II.i.98-99). All of this happening to the weather is a direct result of the fairies and humans actions. Shakespeare is suggesting here that the cause behind environmental issues is human related and they are in fact, interrelated.

In As You Like It, there is a certain interconnection between humans and nature that is found in the imagery throughout the play. The way that Shakespeare describes nature in this play definitely links it to pastoral literature. Abou-Agag argues that “The beauty, serenity, and purity of the environment in the forest make it an appropriate milieu for the flourishing of love, one prominent theme in the play” (5). Images of animals, plants, and other aspects of nature, create an idyllic setting for the characters to fall in love, flourish, and turn their lives around. Everyone that enters the forest leaves and goes back to society changed for the better. This idea is clearly set up at the beginning of the play by the wrestler, Charles as he describes the Duke being set up in the forest of Ardenne, having many “merry men ” who are with him and they all live like Robin Hood (I. i. 109-113). The play opens with one of the main characters, Orlando, complaining of being treated like an animal. When Oliver, his older brother enters, Orlando acknowledges that he is superior, but only in the reaches of society: “The courtesy of nations allows you my better…” (As You Like It I.i. 42-43). Gabriel Egan notes in Green Shakespeare that In this play, which has one of the happier endings in Shakespeare’s works, the two brothers decide to let nature, where they are physically and socially equals, take over so they can change their humanity and ignore the customs that come from their birth in society. Allusions to nature throughout the play relate back to the brothers’ conflict such as the line, “Begin you grow upon me, I will physic your rankness” (I. i. 81-2). This line is alluding to Oliver as a plant, choking Orlando with his vines. This image is similar to that of Prospero and what he thinks of his brother Antonio in The Tempest. “The ivy which hid my princely trunk / and sucked my verdue out of it” (The Tempest. I. ii. 82). Throughout the play, nature is looked to as a third party.  Touchstone says to Rosalind “You have said; but rather wisely or no, let the forest judge” (III.ii.117-18). The forest seems to be a place that the characters relate to as being, all knowing or they know what they do there isn’t a secret, as if nature itself is watching them. There is a lot of imagery that relates humans back to animals. The Duke describes Jacques as being “transformed into a beast” (II, vii, I), Orlando speaks of himself as if he is like “a doe” and says he is going to find his “fawn” (II, vii, 28). Orlando seems to undergo the biggest change while in the forest as he changes from a bitter, resentful younger brother, to a man that has fallen in love and is ready to forgive. By the end of the play, he has forgiven his brother who he started out hating, and married the woman he is in love with. Rosalind is another character that underwent a great change because of the forest. Not only does she change her physical appearance to look like a man, but she also changes the way she acts. She is able to take charge and be more involved, as well as do things that only men can do such as purchase land. She is the orchestrator of events and without the confidence she gained from being in the forest, she may have never married Orlando since she was the one that arranged the relationship. The Duke Senior is much happier in the forest, seemingly at ease. This is in stark contrast to the stress and melancholy back in court and civilization. Shakespeare seems to be suggesting that nature is a way to gain peace and contentment and that civilization is the cause of problems. 

Furthermore, Shakespeare seems to allude to the mistreatment of nature. One example of this is when Orlando carves his love messages into the trees. The character Jaques, who was a lord living in the forest with the Duke, was extremely sympathetic towards the mistreatment of nature. When he sees the messages in the trees, he says to Orlando, “I pray you, mar no more trees with writing love songs in their barks” (III.ii.230). This can be seen as a small message to the audience, warning against harming trees because of the deforestation that was going on at the time. Also in the play, Jacque is seen mourning the death of a deer. Jacques’ response to seeing the wounded deer raised the question of where a deer should be killed. There is touching imagery that depicts tears rolling down the animal’s face. Its leathered body seems to be anticipating what will happen to it and Jacque makes a metaphor of “a debtor’s wealth being seized to pay creditors” (Egan, 101). Jacques begins to rationalize or moralize the situation by imagining it in an urban or human setting. Through his diction of comparing the deer to a person deep in debt who had to pay up, Jacques suggests that he can’t understand the forest unless he looks at it through his societal perspective. The mere fact that Jacque mourns the deer is important because it suggests that animals are important and deserve to be grieved over. This goes against “The Great Chain of Being” in which animals would be below humans and therefore undeserving of their respect. Jacques seems to be a sort of advocate for nature, preaching to others about the unfair mistreatment of animals and the defacing of trees. Shakespeare shows great sensitivity towards nature by speaking through this minor character.

Shakespeare seems to be in awe of the ocean and takes joy in reminding us in his plays just how vast it is. Dan Brayton in Shakespeare’s Ocean, argues that Shakespeare imagined a “Creator God” that he and his fellow humans were made in the image of. This god also had complete control over the global “flood”, which was thought could rise again. His character Prospero is similar to this “Creator God” in the way that he possesses similar powers over the biophysical environment. Brayton says that “Shakespeare’s oceanic imagination can be labeled as ecological, then, in that it investigates the idea of the oikos as a matter of global positioning. In Shakespeare and the Natural World, Tom Macfaul describes the Island that The Tempest takes place on as both a purgatory and a paradise. It is a place with the “highest redemptive art” but also with the most “fallen nature” (Macfaul 179). It can be argued that the island is an allegory. It is a place with no name or discourse and it is completely natural in its entirety. Macfaul relates it to space of wonder, “with all the ambivalence about the emotion that characterizes Shakespeare’s attitude to the natural world” (179). When the sailors are first shipwrecked, Gonzolo tries to console them by saying others share their sorrow and their survival is a miracle. The state of mind that Gonzolo seems to get from the island is both low and also a wonder. It actually resembles that of pastoral literature (Macfaul 180). Much like in a pastoral setting, Gonzolo tries to read into nature and absorb some lessons from it about mankind or civilization; he creates a sort of “Utopia”. Much like in As You Like It, the island causes the characters to be transformed in some way except, not always for the better. Antonio and Sebastian suddenly become traitors, which comes out of nowhere and is almost involuntary, as if the island made them. The island causes Alonso to become sleepy which he also has no control over. The men’s betrayal of Alonso is almost a re-telling of Antonio’s betrayal against Prospero where an “evil nature” awakened and grew almost naturally (I. ii. 93). Ferdinand has a different reaction to the island and sees it as a “paradise”. He says he wants to “live here ever” (IV. i. 124, 122). Unfortunately, this isn’t possible for him since he is the king of Naples. He does, however, gain something positive from the island and that is Miranda. For Ferdinand, there seems to be a connection in Miranda between the island and herself, as it’s all she’s really ever known (MacFaul 182). She is the embodiment of all the redemptive qualities of the island. From the beginning, she is full of sympathy for others including the shipwrecked, her father, and her younger self. Prospero describes her as being “infused with the fortitude of heaven” (I. ii. 152-154). She is extraordinary in the way that she is “radically connected to both the order of nature and to that of grace” (Macfaul 182). Shakespeare seems to view nature as a beautiful or almost godly thing in The Tempest in the way that he uses the island to impact the characters, almost like it has a mind of its own. Also, Miranda seems to embody everything beautiful about nature which Shakespeare valued highly. Miranda is not the only character that seems to embody nature on the island.

Caliban is the only native on the island and therefore, would have a deeper connection to it. He seems to know everything about the island, telling the other men: “Be not afraid the isle is full of noises” (III.ii.135). Caliban also says that Prospero “keeps the island from him” (I.ii.343), alienating him from the natural world. As MacFaul suggests, Prospero caused a sort of separation between Caliban and nature. Caliban’s desire for Miranda can be seen as an “unfallen desire like his unfallen possession of land” (188). Caliban represents a double attitude for man toward nature. “He reflects a common fantasy of perfect connection to nature and to one’s own self…at the same time he is condemned for savagery” (MacFaul 188). Caliban is seen as having a great connection to nature and in that way is valuable. But, on the other hand, he is shamed for his savagery or his more animalistic side which is a direct result of his deep connection to nature. Another character that embodies nature in The Tempest is Ariel. Ariel is an inhuman being that came from the island and has mystical powers. He was rescued by Prospero after living in a tree for years. Ariel is seen as having human qualities but he is also a part of the island itself. The Tempest as the title gives away, is all about nature as “the tempest” means “the storm”. The nature in this play is physical in the way that the storms cause shipwrecks, and emotional in the way that it displays itself in the characters. Shakespeare seems to be suggesting that each person that lived or grew up on the island, became a part of it in a way. This further blurs the lines between humans and nature and how they are interconnected.

Shakespeare lived in a time that was experiencing a lot of new changes. Industrialism and deforestation caused overpopulation and pollution. There are lots of instances throughout Shakespeare’s works that prove his eco-sensitivity including him making allusions to nature and further blurring the lines between human and nature, making them on the same level, contradicting “The Great Chain of Being” that was largely recognized at the time. By understanding what was going on in Shakespeare’s time, it is easier to understand why he would have felt a sensitivity towards nature.