| Back to Nature: The Green and the Real in the Late Renaissance Contributor(s): Watson, Robert (Author) |
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ISBN: 0812220226 ISBN-13: 9780812220223 Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press OUR PRICE: $37.95 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: December 2007 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | Renaissance - Literary Criticism | English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh |
| Dewey: 820.936 |
| Physical Information: 1.2" H x 6.1" W x 9.1" (1.55 lbs) 448 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - British Isles |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Selected by Choice magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title Sweeping across scholarly disciplines, Back to Nature shows that, from the moment of their conception, modern ecological and epistemological anxieties were conjoined twins. Urbanization, capitalism, Protestantism, colonialism, revived Skepticism, empirical science, and optical technologies conspired to alienate people from both the earth and reality itself in the seventeenth century. Literary and visual arts explored the resulting cultural wounds, expressing the pain and proposing some ingenious cures. The stakes, Robert N. Watson demonstrates, were huge. Shakespeare's comedies, Marvell's pastoral lyrics, Traherne's visionary Centuries, and Dutch painting all illuminate a fierce submerged debate about what love of nature has to do with perception of reality. |