Landscape Poetics - by Monika Szuba (Paperback)

About the Book

Reassesses Scottish textual practice in the context of the natural and post-natural landscapes

Book Synopsis

Landscape Poetics is an interdisciplinary study that seeks to place Scottish writers in relation to their landscape, by investigating how the self is entwined in place. By examinining the writing and practice of particular modern and contemporary authors in the light of environmental thought, the study explores their lived, organic connection to the landscape. Landscape Poetics presents an argument that the relationship between author and world is expressed through the language of vibrant and engaged experience. Shepherd, MacCaig, Jamie, Clark and Finlay are seen as reinventing the perception of the landscape by proposing that the subject is no longer involved in the act of objectification, but is instead an embodied self that enters place, perceiving it more fully.

Review Quotes

A compelling contribution to Scottish ecocriticism by the leading academic in the field, Monika Szuba's new monograph offers an insightful and inspiring reassessment of the idea of landscape in the works of some of Scotland's most celebrated modern writers. A must-read for anyone interested in Scottish nature writing!--Camille Manfredi, University of Brest

Monika Szuba's perceptive close readings of five key Scottish writers mark an important contribution to the study of Scottish literature and landscape. Informed by phenomenology, this lucid and engaging work opens new paths in understanding modern Scottish writing on landscape, with dynamic embodied experience at the core of our relationship with the more-than-human world.--Louisa Gairn, author of Ecology and Modern Scottish Literature