Climate and Literature: Reflections of Environment

by Janet Pérez, Wendell M. Aycock, Janet Perez (Editor)

With the rise of a succession of sophisticated approaches that largely disregard literature's traditional role as a mirror of life, climate and other environmental factors have been generally disregarded in the interpretation of literary texts during recent decades. For that reason, it is only fitting that the climatological dimension be re-explored after a forty-year hiatus."Climate and Literature embraces a significant revision of the original telluric "notions" about the determinist relationship between climate and the attitudes and behavior of literary characters set in particular surroundings. In place of such vague notions, we find within these pages interesting and stimulating examples of true applied science and contemporary literary theory that more often than not treat literary depiction of climate not so much as a reflection of influence of particular geographic environments, but as a powerful symbol for psychological or textural processes undergone by the novels' characters, narrators or readers."—Dr. Thomas Franz, Ohio State University.

134 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1995