Romantic Sustainability

Reviews / Votes

Robertson offers a diverse collection of applied ecocritical essays, written by an international group of contributors from five continents, that focus on both traditional and less-known Romantic texts. One of the primary strengths of ecocriticism is its adaptability to a wide variety of purposes and strategies, and these essays forge innovative links between environmental sustainability and considerations such as race, gender, religion, and identity, and also 19th-century developments in science and technology. Robertson, who also edited The Travel Writings of John Moore (4v., 2014), organizes the collection around broad themes that range from the environment as imaginative inspiration to nightmares of extinction and apocalypse. Notable contributions include Molly Hall's ecofeminist reading of Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and Denys Van Renen's analysis of the intersection of race and the environment in the anonymously written The Woman of Colour. Marked by theoretical sophistication and including meticulous scholarly apparatus, this accessible, groundbreaking collection should strongly influence the next generation of Romantic scholarship. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. * Choice Reviews * [These essays] offer some striking new approaches to familiar texts and introduce us to hitherto overlooked or neglected ones. . . .[The book] move[s] Romantic ecocriticism into generative theoretical territory, and...point[s] to one thing for certain: Erasmus Darwin's star is rising. * European Romantic Review * Romantic Sustainability: Endurance and the Natural World encompasses a diverse and eclectic range of approaches to the understanding of sustainable and unsustainable practices in the British Romantic period. This groundbreaking collection of essays brings together both established and emerging voices in the field of ecocriticism, and it offers fascinating new insights into the complex relationship between Romantic-era writers and their lived environments. This collection is especially perceptive in its exploration of Romantic literature and science, and it unflinchingly examines how several writers of this period envisioned the fate of humankind in a world threatened by environmental apocalypse. Each of the essays in this important collection makes a significant contribution to the understanding of ecological theory and practice in the British Romantic period. -- James C. McKusick, University of Missouri-Kansas City