The essays in this volume interrogate the unique and often problematic relationship between early modern cultural studies and ecocriticism, providing theoretical insights and models for a future practice that successfully wed the two disciplines.

PART I: ECOCRITICISM AND EARLY MODERN EUROPE: NEW APPROACHES, MATURING DISCIPLINES 'Slow Shakespeare; or, Reversing our Crimes Against Nature'; S.O'Dair 'Mute Timber? Environmental Stichomythia in the Old Arcadia'; T.Borlik 'Defining Nature Through Monstrosity'; G.Brown 'Doing Ecocriticism with Shakespeare'; S.Estok 'How to Do Things with Animals: Thoughts on/with the Early Modern Cat'; K.Raber 'Utopian Ecocriticism: Naturalizing Nature in Thomas More's Utopia'; I.Kamps & M.L.Smith 'Summer's Lease: Shakespeare (and Others) in the Little Ice Age'; R.Markley PART II: THE SPIRIT AND THE FLESH: THE IMPLICATIONS OF RELIGION FOR EARLY MODERN NATURE 'Anima-tion at Little Gidding: Life-Giving Across the Species Barrier in an Early Modern Bible Harmony'; N.Johnson 'An Ecocritical Evaluation of Book XI of the Florentine Codex'; M.Gimmel 'Meditation on the Creatures: Ecoliterary Uses of an Ancient Tradition'; J.Gatta 'The Pomology of Eden: Apple Culture and Early New England Poetry'; M.G.Ziser PART III: NATURE AND EMPIRE 'Delight Is a Slave to Dominion: Awakening to Empire with Richard Ligon's History'; A.Lioi 'Searching for De Soto: Narrative Scholarship, Ecocriticism, and the Problems of Place'; T.Hallock 'Imagining the Forest: Longleaf Pine Ecosystems in Spanish and English Writings of the Southeast, 1542-1709'; E.Thomson Shields 'Would Thomas More Have Wanted to Go To Mars? The Eco-economy of Colonial Promotion Literature'; T.Sweet