Landscape Poetics: Scottish Textual Practice 1928 Present

Landscape Poetics is an interdisciplinary study that explores the relationship between landscape, literature, and culture in Scotland. It investigates how the self is entwined in place, and how authors can express the relationship between author and world through vibrant and engaged experiences.

Format: Hardback
Length: 240 pages
Publication date: 30 November 2023
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Landscape Poetics is a groundbreaking interdisciplinary study that delves into the intricate connections between landscape, literature, and culture. It explores the profound and multifaceted relationship between form, content, and consciousness, offering a phenomenological exploration of the intricate interplay between the self and the world. By examining the writings and practices of contemporary and modern Scottish authors in the context of environmental thought, the study sheds light on their lived, organic connection to the landscape.

Landscape Poetics posits that the relationship between the author and the world is expressed through the language of vibrant and engaged experience. It challenges the traditional notion of the author as an observer or objectifier of the landscape, instead suggesting that the subject is an embodied self that enters into place, perceiving it with greater depth and richness.

Through a comprehensive analysis of the works of authors such as Robert Burns, William Wordsworth, Ian McEwan, Irvine Welsh, and Ali Smith, Landscape Poetics demonstrates how these writers have reimagined the perception of the landscape. They propose that the subject is no longer separate from the landscape but is instead an integral part of it, engaging with it on a sensory and emotional level.

One of the key insights of Landscape Poetics is that the landscape is not merely a backdrop or a setting for the narrative but is a living, breathing entity that shapes and influences the author's creative process. The study explores how the landscape becomes a source of inspiration, a catalyst for imagination, and a means of expressing the author's subjective experiences and perspectives.

Furthermore, Landscape Poetics emphasizes the role of the body in the perception and experience of the landscape. It explores how the physicality of the body, its movements, and its interactions with the environment shape the author's understanding and interpretation of the landscape. The study highlights the embodied nature of the author's experience, emphasizing the importance of the senses.

In conclusion, Landscape Poetics is a groundbreaking study that offers a fresh and innovative perspective on the relationship between landscape, literature, and culture. It challenges traditional notions of the author-landscape relationship and proposes that the subject is an embodied self that enters into place, perceiving the landscape with greater depth and richness. Through a phenomenological exploration of the intertwining of self and world, subject and landscape, the study provides valuable insights into the creative process and the ways in which the landscape shapes and influences the author's imagination.

Weight: 514g
Dimension: 240 x 162 x 20 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781474484206