Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T14:15:27.101Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Oeconomy and Ecology in Early Modern England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Peter Remien
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The conceptual foundations of ecology were laid in the seventeenth century by the natural philosopher Kenelm Digby, when he developed the idea of “the oeconomy of nature.” Digby transformed the practical agrarian discourse of “natural oeconomy” (household management), which links human beings to their environments, into the natural-philosophical concept of the oeconomy of nature. Using the oeconomic values of thrift, regularity, and efficient dispensation to conceptualize natural processes, Digby projected a human institution, with all its ideological baggage, onto the natural world. But, for Digby, closely observing nonhuman creatures in the framework of oeconomy opened up the more radical possibility of a decentered system, in which each creature is a potential householder, each the center of its own oeconomy of nature.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 132 , Issue 5 , October 2017 , pp. 1117 - 1133
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 The Modern Language Association of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Alaimo, Stacy. “SustainableThis, SustainableThat: New Materialisms, Posthumanism, and Unknown Fu tures.” PMLA, vol. 127, no. 3, May 2012, pp. 558–64.Google Scholar
Anderson, Perry. Lineages of the Absolutist State. Verso, 2013. Aristotle. Degeneratione animalium. Translated by Arthur Platt. The Complete Works of Aristotle, edited by Jona than Barnes, vol. 1, Princeton UP, 1995, pp. 1111–218. Politica. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. The Basic Works of Aristotle, Random House, 2001, pp. 1127–324.Google Scholar
Arnold, Jean. Contribution to “Forum on Literatures of the Environment.” PMLA, vol. 114, no. 5, Oct. 1999, pp. 1089–90.Google Scholar
Bate, Jonathan. Romantic Ecology: Wordsworth and the Environmental Tradition. Routledge, 1991. Bennett, Jane. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Duke UP, 2010.Google Scholar
Borlik, Todd. Ecocriticsm and Early Modern Literature: Green Pastures. Routledge, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Botkin, Daniel. Discordant Harmonies: A New Ecology for the Twenty-First Century. Oxford UP, 1992.Google Scholar
Bowerbank, Sylvia. Speakingfor Nature: Women and Ecologies in Early Modern England. Johns Hopkins UP, 2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyle, Robert. The Christian Virtuoso Shewing That by Being Addicted to Experimental Philosophy, a Man Is Rather Assisted than Indisposed to Be a Good Chris-tian. London, 1690.Google Scholar
Brayton, Dan. Shakespeare's Ocean: An Ecocritical Explo-ration. U of Virginia P, 2012.Google Scholar
Bunworth, Richard. The Doctresse: A Plain and Easie Method, of Curing Those Diseases Which Are Peculiar to Women, Whereunto Are Annexed Physicall Para-doxe; or, A New Discovery of the Aeconomy of Nature in Mans Body. London, 1656.Google Scholar
Burnet, Thomas. The Theory of the Earth: Containing an Account of the Original of the Earth. London, 1684.Google Scholar
Charleton, Walter. The Immortality of the Human Soul, Demonstrated by the Light of Nature in Two Dia-logues. London, 1657.Google Scholar
Cohen, Jeffrey. “Ecology's Rainbow.” Introduction. Pris-matic Ecology: Ecotheory beyond Green, edited by Co-hen, U of Minnesota P, 2014, pp. xv-xxxv.Google Scholar
Collins, Samuel. A Systeme of Anatomy, Treating of the Body of Man, Beasts, Birds, Fish, Insects, and Plants. London, 1685.Google Scholar
“Conspire, v.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, 2017, www.oed.com/view/Entry/39777?redirectedFrom=conspire#eid.Google Scholar
Crosbie, Christopher. “Oeconomia and the Vegetative Soul: Rethinking Revenge in The Spanish Tragedy.” English Literary Renaissance, vol. 38, 2008, pp. 3–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daly, Herman. Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sus-tainable Development. Beacon Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Daly, Herman, and John Cobb, Jr. For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future. Beacon Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Darwin, Charles. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection; or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. John Murray, 1859.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“Definition of Ecology.” Cary Institute of Ecosystem Services, www.caryinstitute.org/discover-ecology/definition-ecology.Accessedon30Oct.2015.Digby,Kenelm.ADiscourseconcerningtheVegetationofPlantsSpokenbySirKenelmeDigbyatGreshanCol-legeonthe23ofJanuary,1660.London,1661.Google Scholar
“Definition of Ecology.”. A Late Discourse… Touching the Cure of Wounds by the Powder of Sympathy.. . London, 1658.Google Scholar
“Definition of Ecology.” Private Memoirs of Sir Kenelm Digby, Gentleman to the Bedchamber of King Charles the First. Saunders and Otley, 1827.Google Scholar
“Definition of Ecology.” Two Treatises: In the One of Which, the Nature of Bodies, in the Other, the Nature of Man's Soul, Is Looked Into: In Way of Discovery of the Immortality of Reasonable Souls. London, 1658.Google Scholar
Dubrow, Heather. Shakespeare and Domestic Loss: Forms of Deprivation, Mourning, and Recuperation. Cambridge UP, 1999.Google Scholar
Economou, George. The Goddess Natura in Medieval Literature. U of Notre Dame P, 2002.Google Scholar
“Economy, n.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, 2017, www.oed.com/view/Entry/59393?redirectedFrom=economy#eid.Google Scholar
Egan, Gabriel. Green Shakespeare: From Ecopoetics to Ecocriticism. Routledge, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Estok, Simon. Ecocriticism and Shakespeare: Reading Ecophobia. Palgrave, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feerick, Jean. “Economies of Nature in Shakespeare.” Shakespeare Studies, vol. 39, 2011, pp. 32–42.Google Scholar
Foster, John Bellamy. Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature. Monthly Review Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. The Use of Pleasure. The History of Sexuality, vol. 2, translated by Robert Hurley, Vintage Books, 1990.Google Scholar
Fudge, Erica. Brutal Reasoning: Animals, Rationality, and Humanity in Early Modern England. Cornell UP, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gott, Samuel. The Divine History of the Genesis of the World. London, 1670.Google Scholar
Haeckel, Ernst. Generelle Morphologie der Organismen. vol. 2, Berlin, 1866.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hale, Matthew. The Primitive Origination of Mankind, Considered and Examined according to the Light of Nature. London, 1677.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrison, Robert Pogue. Forests: The Shadow of Civilization. U of Chicago P, 1993.Google Scholar
Hawkes, David. Shakespeare and Economic Theory. Bloomsbury, 2015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hiltner, Ken. Milton and Ecology. Cambridge UP, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hiltner, Ken, editor. Renaissance Ecology: Imagining Eden in Milton's England. Duquesne UP, 2008.Google Scholar
Hiltner, Ken. What Else Is Pastoral? Renaissance Literature and the Environment. Cornell UP, 2011.Google Scholar
Horkheimer, Max, and Adorno, Theodor. Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Translated by Jephcott, Edmund, Stanford UP, 2002.Google Scholar
Hutson, Lorna. The Usurer's Daughter: Male Friendship and Fictions of Women in Sixteenth-Century England. Routledge, 1997.Google Scholar
Janacek, Bruce. Alchemical Belief: Occultism in the Religious Culture of Early Modern England. Pennsylvania State UP, 2011.Google Scholar
Keller, Lynn. “Beyond Imagining, Imagining Beyond.” PMLA, vol. 127, no. 3, May 2012, pp. 579–85.Google Scholar
Knoppers, Laura Lunger. Politicizing Domesticity from Henrietta Maria to Milton's Eve. Cambridge UP, 2011.Google Scholar
Korda, Natasha. Shakespeare's Domestic Economies: Gender and Property in Early Modern England. U of Pennsylvania P, 2002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laroche, Rebecca, and Munroe, Jennifer, editors. Ecofeminist Approaches to Early Modernity. Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.Google Scholar
Latour, Bruno. Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy. Translated by Porter, Catherine, Harvard UP, 2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern. Translated by Porter, Catherine, Harvard UP, 1993.Google Scholar
Le Roy, Loys. Aristotles Politiques; or, Discourses of Government. London, 1598.Google Scholar
Liddell, H.G., and Scott, Robert. Greek-English Lexicon. Oxford UP, 1935.Google Scholar
Linnaeus, Carl. The Oeconomy of Nature. Translated by Benjamin Stillingfleet. Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Natural History, Husbandry, and Physick. London, 1759.Google Scholar
Lobis, Seth. “Sir Kenelm Digby and the Power of Sympathy.” Huntington Library Quarterly, vol. 74, no. 2, 2011, pp. 243–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lobis, Seth. The Virtue of Sympathy: Magic, Philosophy, and Literature in Seventeenth-Century England. Yale UP, 2014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lovejoy, Arthur. The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea. Harvard UP, 1976.Google Scholar
Martin, Randall. Shakespeare and Ecology. Oxford UP, 2015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marx, Karl. A Critique of Political Economy. Capital, vol. 1, translated by Ben Fowkes, Penguin, 1992.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl. Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. Translated by Rodney Livingstone and Gregor Benton. Early Writings, Penguin, 1992, pp. 279–400.Google Scholar
McColley, Diane. Poetry and Ecology in the Age of Milton and Marvell. Ashgate, 2007.Google Scholar
Mentz, Steven. “After Sustainability.” PMLA, vol. 127, no. 3, May 2012, pp. 586–92.Google Scholar
Mentz, Steven. At the Bottom of Shakespeare's Ocean. Continuum Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Merchant, Carolyn. The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution. HarperCollins, 1989.Google Scholar
Morton, Timothy. Ecology without Nature: Rethinking Environmental Aesthetics. Harvard UP, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morton, Timothy. “An Object-Oriented Defense of Poetry.” New Literary History, vol. 43, no. 2, 2012, pp. 205–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moshenska, Joe. A Stain in the Blood: The Remarkable Voyage of Sir Kenelm Digby. Heinemann, 2016.Google Scholar
Nardizzi, Vin. Wooden Os: Shakespeare's heatres and England's Trees. U of Toronto P, 2012.Google Scholar
Petersson, R.T. Sir Kenelm Digby: The Ornament of England, 1603–1665. Jonathan Cape, 1956.Google Scholar
Renou, Jean de. A Medicinal Dispensatory, Containing the Whole Body of Physick Discovering the Natures, Properties, and Vertues of Vegetables, Minerals, and Animals. London, 1657.Google Scholar
Ricklefs, Robert. The Economy of Nature. 6th ed., W.H. Freeman, 2008.Google Scholar
Rogers, John. The Matter of Revolution: Science, Poetry, and Politics in the Age of Milton. Cornell UP, 1998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schabas, Margaret. The Natural Origins of Economics. U of Chicago P, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schabas, Margaret, and Marchi, Neil De, editors. Oeconomies in the Age of Newton. Duke UP, 2003.Google Scholar
Schmidgen, Wolfram. Exquisite Mixture: The Virtues of Impurity in Early Modern England. U of Pennsylvania P, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sidney, Philip. The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia. edited by Evans, Maurice, Penguin, 1977.Google Scholar
Sweet, Timothy. American Georgics: Economy and Environment in American Literature, 1580–1864. U of Pennsylvania P, 2002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sweet, Timothy. Contribution to “Forum on Literatures of the Environment.” PMLA, vol. 114, no. 5, Oct. 1999, p. 1103.Google Scholar
Theis, Jeffrey. Writing the Forest in Early Modern England: A Sylvan Pastoral Nation. Duquesne UP, 2010.Google Scholar
“Thinges Naturally Intelligible.” British Library, London, BL Add. MS 41,846, folios 169–75b.Google Scholar
Wall, Wendy. Staging Domesticity: Household Work and English Identity in Early Modern Drama. Cambridge UP, 2002.Google Scholar
Watson, Robert N. Back to Nature: The Green and the Real in the Late Renaissance. U of Pennsylvania P, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Raymond. The Country and the City. Oxford UP, 1975.Google Scholar
Worster, Donald. Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas. 2nd ed., Cambridge UP, 1994.Google Scholar
Wrightson, Keith. Earthly Necessities: Economic Lives in Early Modern Britain. Yale UP, 2000.Google Scholar
Xenophon. Oeconomicus. Translated by Hervet, Gentian, London, 1532.Google Scholar