Modern British Nature Writing 1789 2020

This first full-length study of modern British nature writing is timely and invaluable for literary scholarship in the environmental crisis.

Why do we speak so much of nature today when there is so little of it left? Prompted by this question, this study offers the first full-length exploration of modern British nature writing, from the late eighteenth century to the present. Focusing on non-fictional prose writing, the book supplies new readings of classic texts by Romantic, Victorian and Contemporary authors, situating these within the context of an enduringly popular genre. Nature writing is still widely considered fundamentally celebratory or escapist, yet it is also very much in tune with the conflicts of a natural world under threat. The book's four authors connect these conflicts to the triple historical crisis of the environment; of representation; and of modern dissociated sensibility. This book offers an informed critical approach to modern British nature writing for specialist readers, as well as a valuable guide for general readers concerned by an increasingly diminished natural world.

This book explores a wide selection of island-themed creative non-fiction, offering new insights into the ways in which authors negotiate existing cultural tropes of the island while offering their own distinctive articulations of "islandness." The book represents an important intervention into both island literary studies and ecocriticism.

'A generous book, offering the small stories - of childhood, family, place, of growth and falling away and regrowth - that enable the big connections with the flow of the world.' - Mark Goldthorpe, Climate Cultures 'A meander through the seasons that is filled with lyrical gifts and new ways of seeing the world. This is new nature writing - as diverse, original and ceaselessly surprising as the wild world it celebrates.' Patrick Barkham, Natural History correspondent for The Guardian and author of Islander, Badgerlands, The Butterfly Isles and Wild Child: Coming Home to Nature. 'A wonderfully diverse collection of poetry and long-form prose, celebrating the four seasons of the year in a fresh and ultimately life-affirming way.' Stephen Moss 'These essays urgently reimagine what nature writing can be-and whose stories belong in that canon. Gifts of Gravity and Light is generous, unsentimental, and bursting with talented voices that will shape this genre for decades to come.' Jessica J. Lee, author of Two Trees Make a Forest and Turning, and editor of The Willowherb Review *** 'I learned something new from each enjoyable essay and by the end realised that nature is integral to how we live on this planet, not a subsidiary to life, but at the heart of it.' - Bernardine Evaristo The changing seasons of the year are an endless source of strangeness and wonder. Gifts of Gravity and Light invites you to experience Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter through fourteen different voices. Greet the arrival of spring in East London with a Cambodian new year's dance; watch sea otters at play in the summer sun; gather armfuls of hops in a Romany song to the autumn; yield to the icy stillness of winter in the Cairngorms or pine for 'sun drunk' days of a Jamaican childhood. With a foreword by Bernardine Evaristo and contributions from Jackie Kay, Kaliane Bradley, Pippa Marland, Testament, Michael Malay, Tishani Doshi, Jay Griffiths, Luke Turner, Anita Roy, Raine Geoghegan, Zakiya McKenzie, Alys Fowler, Amanda Thomson and Simon Armitage, this almanac reflects not only the diversity of the writers featured, but the endlessly changing natural world itself.

From catastrophe to utopia, the most comprehensive survey yet of how literature can speak to the 'Anthropocene'.

This is the first ecocritical book on the works of D. H. Lawrence and also the first to consider the links between nature and gender in the poetry and the novels. In his search for a balanced relationship between male and female characters, what role does nature play in the challenges Lawrence offers his readers? How far are the anxieties of his characters in negotiating relationships that might threaten their sense of self derived from the same source as their anxieties about engaging with the Other in nature? Indeed, might Lawrence’s metaphors drawn from nature actually be the causes of human actions in The Rainbow, for example? The originality of Lawrence’s poetic and narrative strategies for challenging social attitudes towards both nature and gender can be revealed by new approaches offered by ecocritical theory and ecofeminist readings of his books. This book explores ecocritical notions to frame its ecofeminist readings, from the difference between the ‘Other’ and ‘otherness’ in The White Peacock and Lady Chatterley’s Lover, ‘anotherness’ in the poetry of Birds, Beasts and Flowers, psychogeography in Sea and Sardinia, emergent ecofeminism in Sons and Lovers, land and gender in The Boy in the Bush, gender dialogics in Kangaroo, human animality in Women in Love, trees as tests in Aaron’s Rod, to ‘radical animism’ in The Plumed Serpent. Finally, three late tales provide a reassessment of ecofeminist insights into Lawrence’s work for readers in the present context of the Anthropocene.

Out of the Shadows demonstrates the importance of the role of women in the French Revolution. It traces the growth of female political awareness and depicts the determination of women of the working class to participate in the life of the new nation despite their government's obstinate denial of the rights of citizenship. The author examines in detail the grassroots involvement of women in the affairs of the country right up until the avalanche of repressive legislation passed in the spring of 1795.

"The author traces, first, the emergence of a new interest in the possibility of gestural communication within the philosophy, theater, and pedagogy of the last decades of the Old Regime. She then explores the varied uses and significance of a variety of semiotic experiments, including the development of a sign language for the deaf, within the language politics of the Revolution.".

If the Fall of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, marks the symbolic beginning of the French Revolution, then August 4 is the day the Old Regime ended, for it was on that day (or, more precisely, that night) that the National Assembly met and undertook sweeping reforms that ultimately led to a complete reconstruction of the French polity. What began as a prearranged meeting with limited objectives suddenly took on a frenzied atmosphere during which dozens of noble deputies renounced their traditional privileges and dues. By the end of the night, the Assembly had instituted more meaningful reform than had the monarchy in decades of futile efforts. In The Night the Old Regime Ended, Michael Fitzsimmons offers the first full-length study in English of the night of August 4 and its importance to the French Revolution. Fitzsimmons argues against Fran&çois Furet and others who maintain that the Terror was implicit in the events of 1789. To the contrary, Fitzsimmons shows that the period from 1789 to 1791 was a genuine moderate phase of the Revolution. Unlike all of its successor bodies, the National Assembly passed no punitive legislation against recalcitrant clergy or &émigr&és, and it amnestied all those imprisoned for political offenses before it disbanded. In the final analysis, the remarkable degree of change accomplished peacefully is what distinguishes the early period of the Revolution and gives it world-historical importance.

This biography of Dr Richard Bright presents him as the most outstanding English phsician of the first half of the 19th century. He contributed to many aspects of medicine, and in particular he was known for his work on clinico-pathological aspects of renal disorders - the eponymously titled Bright's Disease.

One of the most important results of the French Revolution was the destruction of the old feudal order, which for centuries had kept the common people of the countryside subject to the lords. In this book, John Markoff addresses the ways in which insurrectionary peasants and revolutionary legislators joined in bringing "the time of the lords" to an end and how, in that ending, seigneurial rights came to be central to the very sense of the Revolution. He traces the interaction of peasants and legislators, showing how they confronted, challenged, and implicitly negotiated with one another during the course of events. Contrary to many historians who see the source of revolutionary change in elite culture, Markoff argues that peasant insurrection was a crucial element of the transformation of France. Of particular importance to the study is Markoff's analysis of the unique cahiers de doléances, the lists of grievances drawn up in 1789 by rural communities, urban notables, and nobles alike. These documents are invaluable for understanding the Revolution, but until the pioneering work of Markoff and Gilbert Shapiro, they had not been studied systematically at the national level. In addition to an unprecedented quantitative analysis of the cahiers, Markoff traces the ebb and flow of peasant insurrection across half a decade of revolutionary turbulence. He also offers qualitative analysis through his use of the records of the legislative debates as well as the memoirs and journals of the legislators. The Abolition of Feudalism breaks new ground in charting patterns of grievance and revolt in one of the most important social and political upheavals in history.

Come celebrate the magic of fall. The leaves are falling--count them all!

The book provides the first comprehensive analysis of the election system in the thirteen colonies. It describes in clear-cut fashion what provincial politics was about, who ran for office and why, how candidates were nominated and elected, how balloting took place, who could and did vote, and why they did so.

Hilaire Belloc, in full Joseph-Hilaire-Pierre-René Belloc, (born July 27, 1870, La Celle-Saint-Cloud, Fr.--died July 16, 1953, Guildford, Surrey, Eng.), French-born poet, historian, and essayist who was among the most versatile English writers of the first quarter of the 20th century. He is most remembered for his light verse, particularly for children, and for the lucidity and easy grace of his essays, which could be delightfully about nothing or decisively about some of the key controversies of the Edwardian era. Belloc was educated at the Oratory School, Birmingham, and then worked as a journalist. After military service, as a French citizen, he entered Balliol College, Oxford, in 1894. He graduated with first-class honours in history, was president of the Union (debating society), and in 1896 married Elodie Hogan (1870-1914) of Napa, Calif. He became a naturalized British subject in 1902 and sat as a member of Parliament for Salford (1906-10), first as a Liberal and then as an Independent. Verses and Sonnets (1895) and The Bad Child's Book of Beasts (1896) launched Belloc on his literary career. Cautionary Tales, another book of humorous verse for children, which parodied some Victorian pomposities, appeared in 1907. His Danton (1899) and Robespierre (1901) proved his lively historical sense and powerful prose style. Lambkin's Remains (1900) and Mr. Burden (1904) showed his mastery of satire and irony. In The Path to Rome (1902) he interspersed his account of a pilgrimage on foot from Toul to Rome with comments on the nature and history of Europe. Born and brought up a Roman Catholic, he showed in almost everything he wrote an ardent profession of his faith. This coloured with occasional inaccuracy and overemphasis most of his historical writing, which includes Europe and the Faith (1920), History of England, 4 vol. (1925-31), and a series of biographies ranging in period from James II (1928) to Wolsey (1930). But he had the power of bringing history to life. Belloc engaged in much heated controversy, particularly with H.G. Wells, whose Outline of History he vigorously attacked, and with the Protestant scholar and historian G.C. Coulton. Belloc is one of the masters of modern English prose, a good poet, and a deeply interesting literary personality. (britannica.com)