The View from Above in American Literature - by David Rodriguez

About the Book

Develops a new theory of literary imagination for the Anthropocene by analysing descriptions of the environment from above

Book Synopsis

Readers encounter the environment through literature in ways not available to everyday perception. This is especially clear when a text integrates the grand vistas of what is known as the bird's-eye view. In this welcome contribution to the contemporary theoretical discussion about storied environments and non-human perceptions, David Rodriguez presents an original interpretation of the aesthetics of the view from above. Focusing on fiction by twentieth-century American writers including Willa Cather, Paul Bowles and Don DeLillo, Rodriguez skilfully combines ecocriticism, narrative theory and phenomenological approaches to literature to develop the term 'form of environment'. This theory of literary fiction foregrounds the environment not as setting or historical context, but as an equal agent with the human figures and scales that are normally the focus of literary analysis.

Review Quotes

David Rodriguez ably demonstrates how 'aerial description' at once establishes and transforms the spaces of American literature in the work of Willa Cather, Paul Bowles and Don DeLillo, among others. The result is a superb study of literary cartography, disclosing the power of the imagination to alter the ways we understand our environment and its conditions today.

--Robert T. Tally Jr., Texas State University