Opening with Hamlet’s instructions to the players to “hold a mirror up to nature,” this introduction explains how Shakespeare’s representation of nature draws on important debates in classical, medieval, and early modern theology and natural philosophy. Shakespeare’s re-centering of nature as a source of theatrical representation in a range of plays responds to efforts to understand nature as a source of knowledge and divinity, especially the divinely created order of nature (ordo creationis) that was not yet subjected to Enlightenment taxonomies. Following a brief reading of Hamlet’s understanding of drama as a mirror of nature, the introduction outlines some of the shifting views of nature and representation in early modern Europe; clarifies the book’s relation to existing works of the history of science, literary studies, and ecocriticism; and provides summaries of individual chapters.