Nature's Comfort and Superiority: insights from Early Modern Literature

Did the likes of Shakespeare merely portray nature a source of beauty or was it more to them? This is an issue I began to dwell upon when I was working on an assignment for an English module at Maynooth University. Of course, I knew about the modern version "eco fictions" whose place in the literary world has considerably grown in the last few decades. But if it is true that the genre now flourishes, it does not come out of nowhere but builds upon an old literary tradition. In early modern England already, one can identify the premises of these nature-oriented narratives as many well-known authors, voluntarily or not, present nature as a self-relying force offering solace. Today, I aim at looking at a series of early modern works to reveal how some early modern writers depict nature, revealing an eternal and superior force that provides healing and solace.

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Nature As an Eternal and Superior Force Providing Healing and Solace in Early Modern Liter.

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Edward Mitchell Bannister (American, born in Canada, 1828–1901), Untitled (Walking Through a Field), ca. 1870s, oil on canvas, 22 x 42 1/4 in. | The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.

Let us first have a look at Shakespeare’s Richard II. The play shows the downfall of King Richard II, whose extravagance and inability to rule provoke criticism, notably coming from John of Gaunt, his uncle. Ultimately, the king is deposed by Henry Bolingbroke (who becomes Henry IV), leaving Richard to reflect upon the fragility of his kingship. In the play, Gaunt’s confrontation with the king highlights the comfort to be found in England’s nature. Indeed, John of Gaunt gathers his remaining strength from his thoughts about this “demi paradise” (2.1.42). Despite his sickness, contemplating nature gives him enough strength to stand against Richard and say that his kingdom is now “bound in with shame” (2.1.63). Furthermore, Gaunt also portrays nature as superior. He describes the English soil as a “forteress built by nature for herself” (2.1.43). Through this metaphor, he depicts the natural world as strong and independent. Similarly, Richard’s death also emphasises Mother Nature’s strength. She is the true ruler as all humans eventually obey her when dying. Even kings are nature’s subjects, even they are part of nature’s eternal cycle. When he foreshadows his death, Richard touches upon this cycle of rebirth as he talks about “worms”, “rainy eyes” and the earth’s “bosom” (3.2.140-141). Moreover, this shows that like John of Gaunt, he copes with death by thinking about nature. Consequently, the play’s thematic concern is not only limited to kingship and Englishness but also shows how human authority eventually yields to nature.

Likewise, Spenser’s The Faerie Queene also presents nature as a force offering solace. The narrative follows knights whose quests are allegories representing virtues. One of these is Britomart, the knight of chastity, who searches for her destined love, Arthegall. Just like Richard or Gaunt, it is through looking at nature that Britomart finds comfort. Unable to find Arthegall, she thinks that death is the only cure to the sadness she experiences (3.4.6.5). Once by the sea, however, the air of the shore evidently helps her to mentally heal as she then fights and defeats Marinell (3.4.16-17). Additionally, Spenser’s poem also emphasises nature’s dominance over life and death. Indeed, it is thanks to Belphoebe’s “tobacco” and other natural herbs that Timias recovers from his wounds (3.5.32-34). Moreover, Belphoebe was raised and “taught of the Nymphe [Diana]” (3.5.32.4), who is commonly associated with nature. Clearly, it is nature that prevents from him dying. Critic A.C. Hamilton notes that Spenser is “the first English poet to praise tobacco” (Hamilton 336). With tobacco then, Spenser does not draw on a literary tradition that ascribes healing quality to the plant. He deliberately does it and thereby reinforces human dependence on nature to heal.

Oil painting entitled 'Landscape: Sir Philip Sidney's Oak' by Patrick Nasmyth. Great Britain, ca. 1820s. 

Just like The Faerie Queene portrays nature as a superior force offering solace, Ben Jonson’s “To Penshurst” similarly highlights its self-sufficiency and healing power. “To Penshurst” is a country house poem celebrating Sir Philippe Sidney’s family’s estate. In the poem, there is no need of “polished pillars” nor of a “roof of gold” (3) for Penshurst to be full of life. “Soil”, “air” (7) “wood” and “water” (8) are sufficient to render it magnificent and naturally alive. Through these lines, Jonson depicts Mother Nature as a self-relying force, completely independent and autonomous. “[B]uilt for herself” as Gaunt would say. If nature might seem subdued to its host as animals are “willing to be killed” (30), this rather fortifies her superiority over human mortality. Instead of dying, she is in a constant state of rebirth or in other words: she is “new as the hours” (40). Unlike Sydney then, she is immortal. Furthermore, comparably to The Faerie Queene, the place’s healing “walks for health” (9), suggest that human healing is dependent on nature.

Like Richard II or The Faerie Queene, Aemilie Lanyer’s “The Description of Cooke-ham”, another country house poem, also explores the comfort derived from looking at nature. The poem praises the countess of Cumberland’s estate by explaining how wonderful and idyllic the place once was, highlighting its paradise like features that saw a total harmony between nature and females. Lanyer recalls departed ladies through the “sweet woods”, which revive pleasant memories of how they “walk[ed]” in them (81). The place then matches the writer’s sadness following “their [the ladies’] departure” (129): “everything retained a sad dismay” (130). This instance of pathetic fallacy, a literary technique of importance throughout the text (Greenstadt 67), exemplifies how nature offers Lanyer solace by accompanying her in her grief. Furthermore, although the place seems to deteriorate, nature’s superiority remains. Unlike humans, she is immortal as the wintery landscape brings life. The “cobwebs” (202), a synecdoche for spiders, symbolise the new life. Similarly to Richard II, or “To Penshurst” the poem demonstrates nature’s superiority by contrasting the ephemerality of human life with nature’s undying cycle.

As these examples show, early modern English writers do not present a lifeless and fixed natural environment that is merely part of a setting, but a source of comfort that transcends human power. In the four works discussed, nature provides solace to characters like Gaunt or Britomart when they are in times of distress, highlighting human’s reliance on the natural world. At the same time, these texts emphasise nature’s superiority by underscoring its independence, its eternal cycle and its dominance over human mortality. By performing an eco-critical reading of these works then, we are reminded of the relevance of eco fiction today as it turns out to be much more than a recent mode of writing.

© Liam Magin. All Rights Reserved.

This work is the intellectual property of the author. Do not copy or redistribute without permission.

Bibliography:

Greenstadt, Amy. “Aemilia Lanyer’s pathetic fallacy.” Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, vol. 8, no. 1, spring 2008, pp. 67–97, https://doi.org/10.1353/jem.0.0003.

HAMILTON, A.C. “Book 3 Canto V.” Spenser The Faerie Queen, second ed., Routledge, 2013.

Shakespeare, William. Richard II. Edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

Tigner, Amy L. Literature and the Renaissance Garden from Elizabeth I to Charles II: England’s Paradise. Routledge, 2016.