Jennifer Hamilton and Ecocriticism

In her lecture “Cosmic Ecology; Rethinking the Storm in King Lear” Jennifer Hamilton outlined her use of ecocriticism as her critical reading practise. Hamilton’s lecture focused on Shakespeare’s King Lear and Blasted, a reinterpretation of King Lear by Sarah Kane. Ecocriticism is concerned with the relationship between eco systems and society, nature and culture. Using ecocritical methodology Hamilton explores what she refers to as “the dramatic ecology” of King Lear. Quoting Barker to justify her use of eco criticism she stated that the storm in King Lear is not incidental but an integral aspect of the play’s makeup.

Ecocriticism is not to be confused with a “green” reading practise. Green readings tend to focus conflict between nature and humanity; a traditional green reading of King Lear would conclude that the storm is nature taking its revenge on humanity. Ecocriticism does not focus on a hierarchy or power play; rather it explores how the natural world and humanity influence each other. When reading King Lear Hamilton examines the impact the storm has on the human subjects. Hamilton said that a level of “ critical synesthesia” is required to engage with eco criticism. Hamilton focuses on the physical sensations of being in a storm. As blindness is a feature of the storm scene Hamilton explores the other sensations a storm can provoke in humans and considers how these influence the dramatic arc of the scene.

In an ecocritical reading of a play, references to the natural world are not read as being background information for the audience or directorial suggestions. The natural world becomes an integral feature of a play’s narrative. Hamilton gave the use of rain in Blasted as an example of an ecocritical interpretation of a stage direction. In Blasted the scenes end with descriptions of seasonal rain, for example “ spring rain’. In an ecocritical reading, the sound of rain is not merely background information for the audience. The story line of Blasted is erratic, making unrealistic jumps in place and time. The rain positions the dramatic action in space and time. Hamilton argues that the sound of rain provides a counterweight to the irrational story line by contrasting it with the ‘rational cyclical natural world”. The sound of rain makes the fantastic believable.

Early in her lecture Hamilton quoted Donna Haraway, who called for artists to find a new way of representing nature and humanity, one which does not show the two as being in opposition. Ecocriticism answers this call by considering the constantly shifting interactions between humans and their environments. Ecocriticism focuses on the agency of the natural world, thus the storm in King Lear or the rain in Blasted are not supplements to the dramatic action but dramatic actions in their own right, one audience member suggested that ecocriticism casts the storm in King Lear as an independent character. The strength of ecocriticism lies in its ability to shift nature from being an object to a subject allowing the critic to give the same level of attention to the complexities and contradictions of nature as they do to humanity.