Nature and Narrative by Markku Lehtimki

Nature and Narrative by Markku Lehtimki

The book explores environmental issues in twenty-first-century Anglophone fiction and how those issues are dealt with by specific literary means. It proposes a reciprocal relationship between nature and narrative-the idea according to which nature both informs and inspires artistic creations, while literary designs and rhetoric also shape our ideas and perceptions of the natural environment. It is argued that in order to address design and rhetoric in environmental texts, we need a close analysis of those world-shaping functions of literary narratives that unite ecocritical and narratological interests. The author presents readings of contemporary novels and their varying ways of seeing nature through narrative devices and fictional minds. The novels discussed in the book are Hilary Mantel'sWolf Hall, Toni Morrison'sA Mercy, Ian McGuire'sThe North Water, Barbara Kingsolver'sThe Lacuna, Paul Harding'sTinkers and Enon, J. M. Coetzee'sElizabeth Costello, Ian McEwan'sSolar, and Jenny Offill'sWeather.

Markku Lehtimäki’s stimulating close readings help us see how the rhetoric of contemporary fiction grapples with a wide range of ecological questions, addressing the colonial roots of the climate crisis while imagining its destabilizing influence on everyday life

– Marco Caracciolo, Associate Professor, Ghent University, Belgium

Nature and Narrative: Rhetoric and Design in Contemporary Fiction is a timely and important contribution to the ecocritical and eco-narratological discussion. Combining environmental literary studies with rhetorical narrative theory and emphasizing humanist ecocriticism, the book sheds new light on a range of prominent novels from the 21st century.

– Alice Sundman,Postdoctoral Researcher, Stockholm University, Sweden

Markku Lehtimäki, PhD., is a professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Turku, Finland. His fields of expertise are narrative theory, visual culture, ecocriticism, American literature, and the contemporary novel. His research projects include Natural Narratology, Cognitive Poetics, and Ecocriticism (2009–2011), The Changing Environment of the North: Cultural Representations and Uses of Water (2017–2021), The Novel’s Knowledge: The Changing Roles of Author and Book in Society (2022–2024), and Authors of the Story Economy: Narrative and Digital Capital in the 21st Century Literary Field (2024–2028). He is the author or co-editor of several books, most recently Visual Representations of the Arctic: Imagining Shimmering Worlds in Culture, Literature and Politics (Routledge 2021) and Cold Waters: Tangible and Symbolic Seascapes of the North (2022). He has also published articles in journals such as Image [&] Narrative, Storyworlds: A Journal of Narrative Theory, and Style.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781032996950
ISBN 10	1032996951
Title	Nature and Narrative
Author	Markku Lehtimäki
Series	Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives On Literature
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Routledge
Year published	2025-05-22
Number of pages	246
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.