1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910795118603321

Titolo

Ground-Work : English Renaissance Literature and Soil Science / / edited by Hillary Eklund

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania : , : Duquesne University Press, , [2017]

©2017

ISBN

0-271-09352-8

0-271-09353-6

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (305 pages)

Collana

Medieval and Renaissance Literary Studies

Disciplina

820.9003

Soggetti

English literature - Early modern, 1500-1700 - History and criticism

Nature in literature

Soil and civilization

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: -- 1. Compost/Composition -- 2. Richard Carew and the Matters of the Littoral -- 3. Visions of Soil and Body Management: -- 4. Unsoiled Soil and "Fleshly Slime": -- 5. Groping Golgotha: -- 6. Winstanley and Postrevolutionary Soil -- 7. Fertility versus Firepower: -- 8. Wetlands Reclamation and the Fate of the Local in Seventeenth Century England -- 9. Manuring Eden: -- Afterword -- Notes -- Bibliography -- About the Contributors -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

How does soil, as an ecological element, shape culture? With the sixteenth-century shift in England from an agrarian economy to a trade economy, what changes do we see in representations of soil as reflected in the language and stories during that time? This collection brings focused scholarly attention to conceptions of soil in the early modern period, both as a symbol and as a feature of the physical world, aiming to correct faulty assumptions that cloud our understanding of early modern ecological thought: that natural resources were then poorly understood and recklessly managed, and that cultural practices developed in an adversarial relationship with natural processes. Moreover, these essays elucidate the links between



humans and the lands they inhabit, both then and now.