The Road to Egdon Heath
The Aesthetics of the Great in Nature
Description
Bevis examines a wide range of English, European, and North American texts, literary works as well as religious, scientific, and travel writing. He surveys the literature on mountain climbing, sea voyages, desert travel, and polar exploration, and its metaphorical uses in poetry and fiction. Relying on Addison's term "the Great" rather than "the sublime," he shows how works such as Darwin's journals, Lyell's studies in geology, and de Saussure's books on the Alps helped form an outlook on nature that also found frequent literary expression. A wide-ranging, interdisciplinary work in the history of ideas, The Road to Egdon Heath traces the growth of an aesthetic sensibility that is now ubiquitous but which would have been incomprehensible prior to the Renaissance. This sensibility underlies not only much of modern literature but also our modern ideas about conservation, ecology, and environmentalism.
Reviews
Elizabeth Dearnley, Times Literary Supplement
"Bevis has chosen a critical moment in the history of thought, encompassing the Enlightenment and the rise of modern science. While the book derives its merit in part from the extraordinary scope, it derives its power from the originality of its perspective. It is a testament to thirty years of thought, reading, and careful integration of material. I find Bevis's reading thorough, his analysis sound, and his thinking independent and innovative." Anne Godlewska, Department of Geography, Queen's University "I enjoyed reading The Road to Egdon Heath, which is clearly the fruit of immense labour and bottomless enthusiasm for the topic. There is a lot to interest readers here." Jonathan Lamb, Department of English, Princeton University