Dido, Queen of Kinship? Biophilic Marlowe in the Anthropocene

Alys Daroy

What can Marlowe’s Dido, Queen of Carthage teach us about our species’ complex ecological relationships within the Anthropocene? Biophilia is the partially innate tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes based on human co-evolution with other species and environments. Since introduced by E.O. Wilson in 1984, biophilia has evolved into an ecological design pattern analysis of human-nature connection. This paper applies an original biophilic framework to a presentist reading of the play’s classical and early modern nature references, finding innumerable biophilic patterns couched in poetic devices, allusions and imagery. This includes patterns unconsciously or consciously nested within language, revealing human psychophysiological enmeshment with biodiverse environments and more-than-human kinship. Rather than implying authorial intent, this bio-historic analysis therefore takes a postcognitive perspective grounded in ecological cognition to consider how and why the text may affect the reader/audience psychophysiologically and what ecological possibilities may follow. Research utilises a new system of literary biophilic pattern analysis distilled from 847 biophilic cues drawn from wider studies into biophilic cues eliciting attention and affective response. Instead of considering the play’s thematic nature references through an aestheticised lens tending to separate human/nature, this biophilic analysis views the text materially as a system of exchange. Dido’s lively material interactions between biotic and abiotic components are brought forward, offering currently potential new pathways for ecological criticism, pedagogy and performance. How, then, might Dido be reimagined as Queen of Kinship, offering a palette of ecological possibilities for more-than-human readings in the current age of ecological crisis?

Dido, Queen of Kinship? Biophilic Marlowe in the Anthropocene

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