The Song of the Earth Author:Jonathan Bate As we enter a new millennium ruled by technology, will poetry still matter? The Song of the Earth answers eloquently in the affirmative. A book about our growing alienation from nature, it is also a brilliant meditation on the capacity of the writer to bring us back to earth, our home. The model for an innovative and sophisticated ne... more »w "ecopoetics," The Song of the Earth is at once an essential history of environmental consciousness and an impassioned argument for the necessity of literature in a time of ecological crisis. "[This book] is the best of things, a book which will help its readers to think new thoughts—thoughts about poetry, about places, and about themselves." —Grevel Lindop, Times Literary Supplement "Building on a broad literature in philosophy and biology as well as literary studies, Bate defines ecological poetry as that which 'sees into the life of things' (Wordsworth) but also respects the integrity of the physical world … This book has a powerful impact … [Bate's] moral concerns, deeply held and deeply considered, never blur the sharp edges of literary or natural fact. His readings are compelling rediscoveries of poems we thought we knew already … The Song of the Earth fairly hums with intelligence and passion." —Tom D'Evelyn, Providence Journal« less