William Wordsworth and the Ecology of Authorship: The Roots of Environmentalism in Nineteenth-Century Culture

William Wordsworth and the Ecology of Authorship: The Roots of Environmentalism in Nineteenth-Century Culture
ISBN-10
0813932319
ISBN-13
9780813932316
Category
Literary Criticism
Pages
304
Language
English
Published
2012-04-12
Publisher
University of Virginia Press
Author
Scott Hess

Description

In William Wordsworth and the Ecology of Authorship, Scott Hess explores Wordsworth’s defining role in establishing what he designates as "the ecology of authorship": a primarily middle-class, nineteenth-century conception of nature associated with aesthetics, high culture, individualism, and nation. Instead of viewing Wordsworth as an early ecologist, Hess places him within a context that is largely cultural and aesthetic. The supposedly universal Wordsworthian vision of nature, Hess argues, was in this sense specifically male, middle-class, professional, and culturally elite—factors that continue to shape the environmental movement today.

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