Description:
A corrective to the prevailing interpretation of pastoral poetry that shows the value of reading literature ecologically.
Brief description: Ken Hiltner is Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of Milton and Ecology and the editor of Renaissance Ecology: Imagining Eden in Milton's England.
Review Quotes:
For Hiltner a preoccupation with mimesis as the defining element of nature writing has blinded ecocritics to 'what else is pastoral in the Renaissance.' Chapters on 'Air Pollution in Early Modern London' and 'Environmental Protest Literature of the Renaissance' lead to 'Empire, the Environment, and the Growth of the Georgic'. The latter, in particular, is typical of the radical rethinking demanded by... [this] challenging extension of ecocritical achievement.
--Terry Gifford "Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism"