Exhausted Ecologies

Overview

This book evaluates twentieth century British and Global Anglophone literature in relation to the growth of ecological thinking in the United Kingdom.

Restless Modernists

Restless modernists such as D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Djuna Barnes, and Jean Rhys developed a literary aesthetic of slowness and immediacy to critique the exhausting and dehumanizing aspects of modern urban and industrial life.

Environmental Groups

At the same time, environmental groups such as the Society for the Promotion of Nature Reserves and the Smoke Abatement League moved from economic registers of value and trust to more cultural terms of recovery and regeneration to position nature as a healing force in the postwar era.

Emerging Environmental Movement

Through a variety of literary, scientific, and political texts, an environmental movement emerged alongside the fast, fragmented, and traumatic aspects of modernization in order to sustain place and community in terms of lateral influence and ecological dependence.