Back to Nature : : The Green and the Real in the Late Renaissance / / Robert Watson.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Penn Press eBook Package Complete Collection
• VerfasserIn: Watson, Robert,
• Place / Publishing House: Philadelphia : : University of Pennsylvania Press, , [2013]; ©2006
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (448 p.) :; 51 illus.

Selected by Choice magazine as an Outstanding Academic TitleSweeping across scholarly disciplines, Back to Nature shows that, from the moment of their conception, modern ecological and epistemological anxieties were conjoined twins. Urbanization, capitalism, Protestantism, colonialism, revived Skepticism, empirical science, and optical technologies conspired to alienate people from both the earth and reality itself in the seventeenth century. Literary and visual arts explored the resulting cultural wounds, expressing the pain and proposing some ingenious cures. The stakes, Robert N. Watson demonstrates, were huge.Shakespeare's comedies, Marvell's pastoral lyrics, Traherne's visionary Centuries, and Dutch painting all illuminate a fierce submerged debate about what love of nature has to do with perception of reality.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Part I. Introduction The Green and the Real -- 1. Ecology, Epistemology, and Empiricism -- 2. Theology, Semiotics, and Literature -- Part II. Paradoxes Alienation from Nature in English Literature -- 3. As You Liken It: Simile in the Forest -- 4. Shades of Green: Marvell's Garden and the Mowers -- Part III. Reformations Protestant Politics, Poetics, and Paintings -- 5. Metaphysical and Cavalier Styles of Consciousness -- 6. The Retreat of God, the Passions of Nature, and the Objects of Dutch Painting -- 7. Nature in Two Dimensions: Perspective and Presence in Ryckaert, Vermeer, and Others -- Part IV. Solutions The Consolations of Mediation -- 8. Metal and Flesh in The Merchant of Venice: Shining Substitutes and Approximate Values -- 9. Thomas Traherne: The World as Present -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- Acknowledgments