Engaging With Nature Essays on the Natural World in Medieval and Early Modern Europe

Hanawalt, Barbara A. (Editor)/ Kiser, Lisa J. (Editor)

ISBN 10: 0268206082 / ISBN 13: 9780268206086

Edité par Univ of Notre Dame Pr, 2022

246 pages. 9.02x6.00x0.63 inches. In Stock. N° de réf. du vendeur x-0268206082

Synopsis :

Historians and cultural critics face special challenges when treating the nonhuman natural world in the medieval and early modern periods. Their most daunting problem is that in both the visual and written records of the time, nature seems to be both everywhere and nowhere. In the broadest sense, nature was everywhere, for it was vital to human survival. Agriculture, animal husbandry, medicine, and the patterns of human settlement all have their basis in natural settings. Humans also marked personal, community, and seasonal events by natural occurrences and built their cultural explanations around the workings of nature, which formed the unspoken backdrop for every historical event and document of the time.

Yet in spite of the ubiquity of nature's continual presence in the physical surroundings and the artistic and literary cultures of these periods, overt discussion of nature is often hard to find. Until the sixteenth century, responses to nature were quite often recorded only in the course of investigating other subjects. In a very real sense, nature went without saying.

As a result, modern scholars analyzing the concept of nature in the history of medieval and early modern Europe must often work in deeply interdisciplinary ways. This challenge is deftly handled by the contributors to Engaging with Nature, whose essays provide insights into such topics as concepts of animal/human relationships; environmental and ecological history; medieval hunting; early modern collections of natural objects; the relationship of religion and nature; the rise of science; and the artistic representations of exotic plants and animals produced by Europeans encountering the New World.

À propos des auteurs:

Barbara A. Hanawalt is King George III Professor of British History at Ohio State University.

Lisa J. Kiser is professor of English at Ohio State University.

Détails bibliographiques

Titre : Engaging With Nature Essays on the Natural...
Éditeur : Univ of Notre Dame Pr
Date d'édition : 2022
Reliure : Hardcover
Etat : Brand New