The Transatlantic Eco-Romanticism of Gary Snyder (The New Urban Atlantic)

Tracing connections between Gary Snyder and his Romantic and Transcendentalist predecessors - Wordsworth, Blake, Emerson, Whitman, and Thoreau - this study explores the tension between urbanization and overindustrialization. The dialectical relationship between Snyder and his predecessors reminds readers that nature is never a simple concept. Tracing connections between Gary Snyder and his Romantic and Transcendentalist predecessors - Wordsworth, Blake, Emerson, Whitman, and Thoreau - this book explores the tension between urbanization and over-industrialization. Paige Tovey evaluates the eco-poetic workings of what Snyder himself calls "cross-fertilizations" and argues that his poetry reworks British Romantic as well as American Transcendentalist and modernist ideas and forms. This study examines the ways in which Snyder negotiates the urban and the natural, and traces the history of the Eco-Romantic poetic tradition as it is disseminated from 'Old World' to 'New World' across the Atlantic. Here, the Romantic ecopoetic tradition finds new life in Pulitzer Prize-winner Gary Snyder's poetry and poetics; and the dialectical relationship between Snyder and his predecessors reminds readers that nature is never a simple concept Front Matter....Pages i-xiii Introduction....Pages 1-25 The Romantic Pastoral: Snyder’s Ecological Literary Inheritance....Pages 27-47 Snyder’s Twentieth—Century Eco—Romanticism....Pages 49-68 Romantic Aspiration, Romantic Doubt....Pages 69-88 Snyder’s Post—Romantic Ecological Vision: The Shaman as Poet/Prophet....Pages 89-110 The Measured Chaos of Snyder’s Ecopoetic form....Pages 111-132 Snyder’s Experimentations with Post—Romantic Ecological Form....Pages 133-154 Mountains as Romantic Emblems of Revelation....Pages 155-181 Rivers as Romantic Emblems of Creation....Pages 183-207 Back Matter....Pages 209-244 Cover 1 Title 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 A Note on Texts 12 Abbreviations 14 Introduction 15 1 The Romantic Pastoral: Snyder’s Ecological Literary Inheritance 40 2 Snyder’s Twentieth-Century Eco-Romanticism 61 3 Romantic Aspiration, Romantic Doubt 81 4 Snyder’s Post-Romantic Ecological Vision: The Shaman as Poet/Prophet 101 5 The Measured Chaos of Snyder’s Ecopoetic Form 123 6 Snyder’s Experimentations with Post-Romantic Ecological Form 145 7 Mountains as Romantic Emblems of Revelation 167 8 Rivers as Romantic Emblems of Creation 194 Notes 219 Bibliography 238 Index 247