“Out of Doors”

This chapter considers the value of Forest School methodologies to the teaching of Shakespeare in undergraduate and graduate contexts. It explores the environmental sources of Shakespeare's nature writing, both real and imagined, and the relationship of forest settings to the cultural production of his plays. Woodlands provided the base material for writing and printing but they also supplied early modern playhouses with their architectural structures and imaginative spaces. Studying Shakespeare's As You Like It outdoors allows students to engage interrogatively with the relationship between writing and the environment. The chapter also considers whether the students' exposure to rurality affects their reading of the play and whether it can be said to develop their often-nascent environmentalism. It assesses the importance of outdoor learning to the rapidly growing field of spatial literary studies and examines whether place within literature can ever be taught without spatializing, and mobilizing, the student experience.