Landscapes of Genius and the Transatlantic Origins of Environmentalism - Nineteenth-Century British and American Literary Cultures of Nature

"Scott D. Hess explores how British and American authors' "genius" became associated with natural landscapes during the nineteenth century, defining nature through fine arts and national high culture. His history traces the roots of a transatlantic environmental movement that was deeply shaped by social distinctions of race, class, and gender"--

List of contents

Introduction; 1. Genius: author, nature, nation; 2. From Wordsworthshire to Thoreau Country: paradigmatic landscapes of genius; 3. Landscapes of class and gender: John Clare, Robert Burns, Ann Yearsley, and Susan Fenimore Cooper; 4. Frederick Douglass's literary landscape and the racial construction of nature; 5. John Muir's Yosemite and the environmental politics of genius; Conclusion: beyond an environmentalism of genius; Coda: Walden pond in the anthropocene and a relational approach to the humanities; Endnotes; Bibliography; Index.

About the author

Scott D. Hess is Professor of English and Environmental Sustainability at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, where he teaches nineteenth-century transatlantic literature and cultural history and the environmental humanities. He is the author of William Wordsworth and the Ecology of Authorship: The Roots of Environmentalism in Nineteenth-Century Culture (University of Virginia Press, 2012) and Authoring the Self: Self-Representation, Authorship, and the Print Market in British Poetry from Pope through Wordsworth (Routledge, 2005). His essays have recently appeared in American Literature, Modern Language Quarterly, Studies in Romanticism, and Nineteenth-Century Literature, among other journals.

Product details

• Authors: Hess Scott
• Publisher: Cambridge Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 31.07.2025
• EAN: 9781009561259
• ISBN: 978-1-009-56125-9
• Illustrations: Worked examples or Exercises
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; Fiction: special features, Prose: non-fiction, California, Poetry, 19th century, c 1800 to c 1899, 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999, Biography and non-fiction prose, The countryside, country life, National parks and nature reserves: general interest, The Lake District, Narrative theme: Environmental issues / the natural world