Encompassing Nature: A Sourcebook [Hardcover]

Robert M. Torrance (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1998

The first anthology of nature writing to include representative works from the worlds myriad cultures--ancient and modern-- Encompassing Nature is a landmark work that will broaden the frame of reference through which nature writing is understood.. Encompassing Nature is a comprehensive collection of widely varied writings representing a host of the worlds cultures and their relation to nature. Tracing the development of ideas and attitudes about the natural world from the earliest narratives through works of the late 1700s, the anthology begins with childrens stories and tribal myths and contains generous selections from the civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia, Israel, India, China, and Japan. It ends in the eighteenth century with Western writers, including Gilbert White, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and William Bartram. A landmark work, Encompassing Nature will broaden the frame of reference through which nature writing is understood. The first anthology of nature writing to include representative works from the worlds myriad cultures--from the ancients through the Enlightenment-- Encompassing Nature is a landmark work that will broaden the frame of reference through which nature writing is understood.Since ancient times, human cultures have invented literary forms and traditions to express the mysteries and delights of living here on this earth, creating works that reveal experiences and concepts of nature that differ from culture to culture, epoch to epoch. Charting the history of these forms, Encompassing Nature opens deep wellsprings of tradition to us, proving that nature writing as a literary genre predates the influences we associate with Wordsworth and Thoreau. With broad vision and intellectual scope, Robert Torrance assembles a wealth of texts--many of them canonical, many too long overlooked--in an encyclopedic anthology that will stand both as an authoritative reference work and as an illuminating book of sheer joy. Encompassing Nature begins at the beginning, with the hymns, myths, and songs of ancient civilizations: Sumerian hymns to the stormy love goddess Inanna, the shamanistic Nine Songs of China, Hebrew psalms, and Homeric hymns to Demeter and Pan. There are invocations of divinities, tales of the origin of the universe, tribal myths, childrens stories, narratives of the travels and adventures of heroes, quiet poetic reveries, and songs of love, death, and seasonal changeall of which bring the intertwined human and natural realms into poignant conjunction. Through a host of historys civilizations, Torrance traces the development of ideas about the natural world, with generous selections representing the cultures of Mesopotamia, Israel, India, China, Japan, Europe, and America. The anthology concludes with writers in the Western tradition such as Gilbert White, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and William Bartram--the historical moment where other anthologies of nature writing only begin.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Robert Torrance, a literary scholar, gathers nature writing from all times and locales, ranging from the creation stories of Native American people to the lyrics of the Chinese T'ang dynasty poet Li Bai, from the letters of the ancient Roman poet Epicurus to the travel memoirs of the colonial American naturalist William Bartram. Torrance accompanies each selection with a headnote addressing such matters as the natural-symbolic representation of love in the Song of Solomon and the asceticism of the ancient Japanese poet Betsugen Enshi. The result is a literary reference work of the first order, one that should become a standard textbook for many years to come. --Gregory McNamee

Review

Definitive, canonical, Encompassing Nature will serve as a pedagogue's reference pony, an undergraduate's seminar compendium, the general reader's delightful browse. Indeed, it's so encyclopedic that it's hard to imagine a complete read-through without the colloquy and compulsion you'd get with a classroom tour.... [H]ere are materials to make everyman his own historian, every historian an explorer extraordinaire. -- The Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review, Eric Zencey

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1224 pages
• Publisher: Counterpoint (February 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1887178430
• ISBN-13: 978-1887178433
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 2.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,908,972 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is THE benchmark anthology of Nature Writing, May 26, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Encompassing Nature: A Sourcebook (Hardcover)

Unlike most of the titles one would find listed in the ever-growing "Nature Writing" sections of our bookstores, this one is truly 'foundational'--it begins with childrens's stories, includes selections from the very best of the anthropological literature, ranges from Mesopotamia to India, Japan to China, & then offers the most inclusive represtentative selection of writings (religious, epic, scientific, poetic) from the West, beginning with the ancient Greeks and ending in the early 18th century. Many of the translations are new and quite stunning (see especially the Petrarch and Dante), the historical introductions and commentaries are models of concision, and the volume is graced by the most complete and detailed index imaginable. This is a book that will reset the ways in which people think about "Nature Writing" for decades to come.