| Popis: |
The emphasis on textual paradox throughout this book requires interpretive effort in a mediated route to interaction with nature, a brand of ecomimesis that makes textual difficulty both the catalyst of transformation and a source of hope, as evidenced in the work of the writers considered throughout this book. The precise vehicle of transformation is often that familiar literary trope, the moment of revelation or epiphany. Taken at face value, such moments constitute a strategy aimed at the perceived alienation of modern citizens from nature, in which the marvellous otherness of the nonhuman is easily laid bare. But the contemporary nature epiphany emphasizes the difficulty of the transformative experience and serves to heighten awareness of the complexity in the human relationship with the nonhuman. To illustrate these effects, Nature Prose concludes with a discussion of apparently transformative moments in the growing literature about the wild and ‘rewilding’, a mode which often posits a radical transformation of both environment and consciousness: some of these texts represent perhaps the most significant test of the claim that culture can be embraced as a conduit, not a barrier to productive understanding of nonhuman nature. |
