In Common Things: Commerce, Culture, and Ecology in British Romantic Literature

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Synopsis
The hardness of stone, the pliancy of wood, the fluidity of palm oil, the crystalline nature of salt, and the vegetable qualities of moss – each describes a way of being in and understanding the world. These substances are both natural objects hailed in Romantic literature and global commodities within a system of extraction and exchange that has driven climate change, representing the paradox of the modern relation to materiality. In Common Things examines these five common substances – stone, wood, oil, salt, and moss – in the literature of Romantic period authors, excavating their cultural, ecological, and commodity histories. The book argues that the substances and their histories have shaped cultural consciousness, and that Romantic era texts formally encode this shaping. Matthew Rowney draws together processes, beings, and things, both from the Romantic period and from our current ecological moment, to re-invoke a lost heritage of cultural relations with common substances. Enabling a fresh reading of Romantic literature, In Common Things prompts a reevaluation of the simple, the everyday, and the common, in light of their contributions to our contemporary sense of ourselves and our societies.
Copyright:
2022

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
ISBN-13:
9781487543495
Related ISBNs:
9781487543471, 9781487543488
Publisher:
University of Toronto Press
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
University of Toronto Press
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
History, Nonfiction, Romance, Literature and Fiction, Outdoors and Nature, Language Arts
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.

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