Sign-In
Cart
What Else Is Pastoral?
Hardcover
Literary CriticismTheater History
ISBN13: 9780801449406
Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr
Published: Mar 18 2011
Pages: 200
Weight: 0.92
Height: 0.90 Width: 6.10 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Pastoral was one of the most popular literary forms of early modern England. Inspired by classical and Italian Renaissance antecedents, writers from Ben Jonson to John Beaumont and Abraham Cowley wrote in idealized terms about the English countryside. It is often argued that the Renaissance pastoral was a highly figurative mode of writing that had more to do with culture and politics than with the actual countryside of England. For decades now literary criticism has had it that in pastoral verse, hills and crags and moors were extolled for their metaphoric worth, rather than for their own qualities. In What Else Is Pastoral?, Ken Hiltner takes a fresh look at pastoral, offering an environmentally minded reading that reconnects the poems with literal landscapes, not just figurative ones.
Considering the pastoral in literature from Virgil and Petrarch to Jonson and Milton, Hiltner proposes a new ecocritical approach to these texts. We only become truly aware of our environment, he explains, when its survival is threatened. As London expanded rapidly during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the city and surrounding rural landscapes began to look markedly different. Hiltner finds that Renaissance writers were acutely aware that the countryside they had known was being lost to air pollution, deforestation, and changing patterns of land use; their works suggest this new absence of nature through their appreciation for the scraps that remained in memory or in fact. A much-needed corrective to the prevailing interpretation of pastoral poetry, What Else Is Pastoral? shows the value of reading literature with an ecological eye.
Also in
Literary Criticism
An Empire of Air and Water: Uncolonizable Space in the British Imagination, 175-185
Carroll, Siobhan
Hardcover
Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times
Sachs, Aaron
Hardcover
Queer Faith: Reading Promiscuity and Race in the Secular Love Tradition
Sanchez, Melissa E.
Paperback
Ancient Rome at the Cinema: Story and Spectacle in Hollywood and Rome
Theodorakopoulos, Elena
Paperback
How to Be a Cat: (Cat Books for Kids, Cat Gifts for Kids, Cat Picture Book)
Swerling, Lisa
Lazar, Ralph
Hardcover
Hidden Hemingway: Inside the Ernest Hemingway Archives of Oak Park
Elder
Vetch, Aaron
Cirino, Mark
Hardcover
Script Analysis for Theatre: Tools for Interpretation, Collaboration and Production
Knopf, Robert
Paperback
Dante's Vita Nuova, New Edition: A Translation and an Essay
Alighieri, Dante
Pitavy, Francois
Paperback
How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines (Large Print Edition)
Foster, Thomas C.
Paperback
Much ADO about Nothing: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Sparknotes
Shakespeare, William
Paperback
Twelfth Night: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Shakespeare, William
Sparknotes
Paperback
Penelope's Bones: A New History of Homer's World Through the Women Written Out of It
Hauser, Emily
Paperback
Romeo and Juliet: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Sparknotes
Shakespeare, William
Paperback
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
Saunders, George
Paperback
Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise
Rundell, Katherine
Hardcover
Mythology (75th Anniversary Illustrated Edition): Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes
Hamilton, Edith
Hardcover
The Language of the Night: Essays on Writing, Science Fiction, and Fantasy
Le Guin, Ursula K.
Paperback
But Have You Read the Book? Romance Edition: 40 Love Stories That Inspired Our Favorite Films
Lopez, Kristen
Hardcover
Mean Dads for a Better America: The Generous Rewards of an Old-Fashioned Childhood
Shillue, Tom
Paperback
Darkness Becomes Bright: On the Brief Life and Immortal Art of Edgar Allan Poe
Ogden, Emily
Hardcover
Jane Austen's Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector's Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend
Romney, Rebecca
Paperback
Women of the Fairy Tale Resistance: The Forgotten Founding Mothers of the Fairy Tale and the Stories That They Spun
Harrington, Jane
Hardcover
A Midsummer Night's Dream: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Sparknotes
Shakespeare, William
Paperback
Somewhere, a Boy and a Bear: A. A. Milne and the Creation of Winnie-The-Pooh
Brandreth, Gyles
Hardcover
Julius Caesar: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Sparknotes
Shakespeare, William
Paperback
The Odyssey: An Illustrated Guide: A Character-By-Character Guide to the Story of Odysseus
Metzger, Doug
Hardcover
As You Like It: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Sparknotes
Shakespeare, William
Paperback
Cicero's Tongue: The Life of Rome's Greatest Orator and the End of the Republic
Edwards, Catharine
Hardcover
The Jane Austen Insult Guide for Well-Bred Women: Serving Tea with a Side of Scorn
Reed, Emily
Hardcover
The New Lifetime Reading Plan: The Classical Guide to World Literature, Revised and Expanded
Fadiman, Clifton
Major, John S.
Paperback
The Greek Tragedies: Seventeen Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides
Euripides
Aeschylus
Sophocles
Paperback
The Art and Craft of Stephen King: The Story Behind Every Novel, Novella, and Short Story
LaFond, Frank
Astic, Guy
Hardcover
The Dream Factory: London's First Playhouse and the Making of William Shakespeare
Swift, Daniel
Hardcover