Romanticism and the materiality of nature / Onno Oerlemans.

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Oerlemans extends current eco-critical views by synthesizing a range of viewpoints from the Romantic period.

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CHOICE Review

That many Romantic writers expressed interest in the natural world has always been obvious. Recently, Jonathan Bate, Lawrence Buell, Alan Bewell, and Karl Kroeber have made connections between Romanticism and contemporary versions of the environmental imagination. What distinguishes the present book is Oerlermans's focus on the problematic relationship between Romanticism and environmentalism. Oerlemans (Hamilton College) provides a systematic examination of this relationship. Chapter 1 focuses on the elegiac moments in Wordsworth's poetry that reflect the poet's ability to confront the materiality of nature. Subsequent chapters examine the representation of animals in the Romantic period and the way animal life linked human beings to the natural world, Shelley's vegetarianism and its relationship to the natural world, and the classification and categorization of the natural world. The final chapter surveys how the popular genre of travel writing reflects an interest in the physical world. Readers familiar with the works of the scholars mentioned above and with the work of Jerome McGann, David Simpson, and Alan Lieu will want to read this book for its unusual approach to the subject of eco-Romanticism and the way it challenges traditional views on Romanticism. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. M. S. Johnston Minnesota State University, Mankato