Versed in Living Nature

Wordsworth’s Trees

Inbunden, Engelska, 2022

499 kr

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This is the first book to address William Wordsworth’s profound identification of the spirit of nature in trees. It looks at what trees meant to him, and how he represented them in his poetry and prose: the symbolic charm of blasted trees, a hawthorn at the heart of Irish folk belief, great oaks that embodied naval strength, yews that tell us about both longevity and the brevity of human life. Linking poetry and literary history with ecology, Versed in Living Nature explores intricate patterns of personal and local connections that enabled trees – as living things, cultural topics, horticultural objects and even commodities – to be imagined, theorized, discussed and exchanged. In this book, the literary past becomes the urgent present.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2022-09-12
Mått168 x 234 x 37 mm
Vikt768 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor360
FörlagReaktion Books
ISBN9781789146448

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Litteraturvetenskap inom Skonlitteratur

Peter Dale (Author) Peter Dale lives in Essex, UK. He has written extensively on literature, music and gardens, and his previous books include The Irish Garden: A Cultural History (2018) and (with Brandon Yen) Versed in Living Nature: Wordsworth’s Trees (Reaktion Books, 2022).Brandon C. Yen (Author) Brandon C. Yen divides his time between the UK and Taiwan. He is the author of ‘The Excursion’ and Wordsworth’s Iconography (2018).

“[In] Peter Dale and Brandon C. Yen’s new book, Versed in Living Nature: Wordsworth’s Trees . . . different trees take turns in complementing the poet at the centre. Here we find not only the living yews of Borrowdale and the birches at Dove Cottage, but also the symbolic Royal Oaks, Liberty Trees and Trees of Corruption that sprang up in the graphic satire of the 1790s . . . Dale and Yen’s previous project, the beautifully illustrated Wordsworth’s Gardens and Flowers, opened the way to this similarly attractive study . . . With the focus now on trees, those gardens are revisited for different reasons, with arboreal planting choices considered aesthetically, imaginatively, practically, politically . . . This book is a mine of information about trees, their origins, the growth of their cultural meanings. It also brings unexpected details into focus, transforming familiar poems into something new . . . Serious thoughts on the politics of tree-planting may be the best legacy of Peter Dale and Brandon C. Yen’s splendid book.