Renaissance Quarterly
Shakespeare and New Historicist Theory and Shakespeare and Ecofeminist Theory,
review by Emmerichs
--Manuscript Draft-Manuscript Number:
Full Title:
Shakespeare and New Historicist Theory and Shakespeare and Ecofeminist Theory,
review by Emmerichs
Article Type:
Book Review
Corresponding Author:
Sharon Emmerichs, Ph.D.
University of Alaska Anchorage
Anchorage, Alaska UNITED STATES
Corresponding Author's Institution:
University of Alaska Anchorage
First Author:
Sharon Emmerichs, Ph.D.
Order of Authors:
Sharon Emmerichs, Ph.D.
Author Comments:
Thank you for this opportunity!
Powered by Editorial Manager® and ProduXion Manager® from Aries Systems Corporation
Book Review
Parvini, Neema. Shakespeare and New Historicist Theory. London: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare,
2017.
Laroche, Rebecca and Jennifer Munroe. Shakespeare and Ecofeminist Theory. London: Bloomsbury
Arden Shakespeare, 2017.
These two texts, Shakespeare and New Historicist Theory by Neema Parvini and Shakespeare and
Ecofeminist Theory by Rebecca Laroche and Jennifer Munroe, are recent additions to the Arden
Shakespeare and Theory series. They both explore the state of Shakespeare studies through theoretical
analyses of the recent past and immediate present. Parvini takes us through the history of New
Historicism while Laroche and Munroe examine the theoretical framework of Ecofeminism as they
pertain to Shakespeare, his work, and the theoretical criticism (as well as critical responses to these
theories) of Shakespeare scholarship. In the Editor’s Preface—which is the same in both texts—Evelyn
Gajowski states that the aim of the series is to “fill a yawning gap” and provide a “comprehensive
scholarly analysis of [the] crucial development” regarding how Shakespeare scholars have affected the
development of theory from about 1980 to the present, and both texts add significant contributions to
this ongoing conversation.
Neema Parvini’s text, Shakespeare and New Historicist Theory, consists of a table of contents, editor’s
preface, acknowledgements, an introductory note, seven chapters, notes, a bibliography, and an index.
Parvini’s intent, she tells us in the Introductory Note, is to “problematize, if not completely dismantle”
the current state of New Historicism that she defines as an “edifice” that has been “text-bookised” (x).
She cites a failure on the part of scholars who, despite expressing a desire to avoid constricting
categorizations, have fallen into what she defines as an overly-conventional narrative and asks us to
view this narrative as a “crude shorthand” (x) that deserves more sustained attention. This book, she
tells us, gives her the space to do just that, which makes it an appropriate resource for new scholars and
more experienced critics alike.
The nuts and bolts of the book are useful, if somewhat bare in places. The bibliography is robust but the
index is thin and mostly full of names rather than ideas or concepts. The notes are organized by chapter
at the end of the volume and are informative and helpful. The writing is clear and engaging, and if the
authorial voice at times breaks conventions of formality and professionalism—at one point she remarks
upon an essay that was written “two years before I was born too!” (133)—such moments remind us that
theory isn’t just fact or history or methods of analysis, but it is also people and passion and a form of
representation that can become deeply personal.
Parvini’s chapters provide a logical progression of well-researched information and analysis that begin
with basic definitions, move through examinations of the differences between “old” and “new”
historicism, and examine the effect of new historicism and its legacy on theoretical discourse. All these
points of discussion are useful, informative, and serve to paint a more complete picture of how new
historicism has influenced and changed the way we think, talk, and write about Shakespeare. The text
easily answered most of my questions regarding Parvini’s choices for these chapters. When I wondered
why she had chosen Measure for Measure as her single Shakespearean textual focus, the first page of
that chapter gave the answer: “because few plays have felt the impact of new historicist readings quite
as readily” (75). When I questioned why she had chosen feminism as a point of comparison for new
historicism, she quickly explained the connection between them. When I wondered, “Why didn’t she
write about the future of new historicism?” the answer arose in the final chapter when she discusses the
death of “new” historicism and the rise of post-theory historicists and the new materialism that Parvini
argues take its place and continue its legacy.
Ultimately, the book becomes a eulogy for new historicism, a story told at its open grave chronicling the
highlights of a contentious but fascinating life. Parvini isn’t afraid to speak ill of the dead, but neither
does she shy away from emphasizing the indelible and ultimately valuable impact new historicism has
had on Shakespearean discourse. New historicism had a life well lived, she ultimately determines, but
one that also did some very real damage to other literary approaches in Shakespeare studies. For
example, her claim that “new historicism’s central concern with power…marginalizes other concerns,
specifically feminist concerns” (105) speaks to the larger issues of power, representation, and
marginalization with literary scholarship itself.
If Parvini’s text is a eulogy, Laroche and Munroe’s text, Shakespeare and Ecofeminist Theory can be read
as an epithalamion, an examination and celebration of unions, collaborations, and alliances. In the
preface, the authors give some insights into the process of the book, stating that “co-authoring this book
was not simply an accident; it is the realization of what lies at our theoretical and practical core—that
valuing collaboration and polyvocality best illustrates what we believe is one of the greatest
contributions of ecofeminism” (xvii). They examine these connections and shared spaces on a
microcosmic and macrocosmic level, arguing that “uniting the interests of ‘eco’ and ‘feminist’
scholarship will help us understand something that we cannot by investigating either of these
approaches independent of one other” (xvi). The authors talk about ecocriticism and feminist and
gender criticism as both overlapping and independent, linked and unfettered, collective and
autonomous. How, the authors ask, can theory be a partnership while at the same time maintain its own
unique identity? The answer, the rest of the book tells us, lies in intimacy and connectivity.
This book is structured like the others in the series, with an editor’s preface, acknowledgements, an
author’s preface, table of contents, an introduction, four chapters, conclusion, appendix, notes,
bibliography, and index. The text works hard to answer the immediate questions, laying out the purpose
of the book in the introduction—to demonstrate that ecofeminism “offers a way to talk about…multiple
forms of subjugation in ways that are unique” (5). The chapters have intriguing titles that capture the
imagination (“Of mouseholes and housefires” and “Petrarch in the produce aisle”); however, a first
glance makes one wonder if Shakespeare really is the focus of this text, as the only remotely
Shakespearean chapter heading is a single quote from Macbeth. The chapters themselves, however,
make the connection between ecofeminist theory and Shakespeare abundantly clear. Analysis of the
natural world (mice, worms, plants, etc) and feminist issues (domesticity, gender, the blazon, bodyshaming) demonstrate the necessity of an ecofeminist approach in Shakespeare. They also successfully
situate ecofeminism as an historically essential and traditionally ignored body of scholarship, arguing
that scholars who write on race, class, and gender have failed to cite ecofeminist theory despite its
decades-long examination of these concepts.
Laroche and Munroe redirect attention from “broad arcs of history” (134) that have dominated both
ecocriticism and feminist theory to the familiar, the intimate, the homely, the domestic in order to
subvert the fetishization of materialism and find narratives of resistance, evidence of close relationships
between human existence and the natural world. Ultimately, the authors’ text offers hope for a
reconciliation between what they regard as unequal representations within these unities and alliances,
giving ecofeminism equal status in theoretical scholarship and lifting it from its subjugated state.
Sharon Emmerichs, University of Alaska, Anchorage