Georgic Literature and the Environment: Working Land, Reworking Genre

This edited collection explores the georgic genre and its connections to the natural world, demonstrating how it has been reworked by writers throughout modern and early modern English-language literary history to address human relationships with the environment. It provides an overview of the myriad ways georgic has been reworked and offers case studies on individual texts and authors.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 252 pages
Publication date: 18 November 2022
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

This extensive edited collection delves into the rich tapestry of the georgic genre, shedding light on its profound connections to the natural world. Through a collective effort, the chapters within this book unveil that georgic, a literary genre rooted in two classical poems about farming, Virgil's Georgics and Hesiod's Works and Days, has been reimagined and reworked by writers across modern and early modern English-language literary history. This reworking serves as a lens through which to explore the intricate dynamics between humans and their environment.

The book is structured into three distinct sections: Defining Georgic, Managing Nature, and Eco-Georgic for the Anthropocene. By centering the georgic genre within the realm of ecocriticism, it achieves equal prominence alongside pastoral, elegy, and lyric as a prominent example of 'nature writing' that has the capacity to address pressing environmental concerns throughout the span of literary history and into the present day. This comprehensive overview provides a sweeping account of the diverse ways in which georgic has been reworked to address human-environment interactions, through in-depth case studies on individual texts and authors. These authors include renowned figures such as James Grainger, William Wordsworth, Henry David Thoreau, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Seamus Heaney, Judith Wright, and Rachel Blau DuPlessis.

This book serves as a vital resource for literary critics, academics, and students engaged in the fields of ecocritical studies, environmental humanities, and literature. It fills a significant gap by shedding light on an often overlooked environmental literary genre, offering valuable insights and perspectives that enrich our understanding of the intricate relationship between humans and the natural world.

Weight: 422g
Dimension: 156 x 234 x 19 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032148250