Description

Why has psychoanalysis long been kept at the margins of environmental criticism despite the theories of ecoMarxism queer ecology and ecodeconstruction available today What is unique possibly even traumatic about ecopsychoanalysis The Environmental Unconscious addresses these questions as it provides an innovative and theoretical account of environmental loss focused on the counterintuitive forms of enjoyment that early modern poetry and psychoanalysis jointly theorize

Steven Swarbrick urges literary critics and environmental scholars to rethink notions of entanglement animacy and consciousness raising Through close readings of Edmund Spenser Walter Ralegh Andrew Marvell and John Milton he reveals a world of matter that is not merely hyperconnected as in the new materialism but porous and offkilter And yet the loss these poets reveal is central to the enjoyment their works offerand that nature offers

The Environmental Unconscious offers a provocative challenge to ecocriticism that a new theory of disconnection is desperately needed Tracing the propulsive force of the environmental unconscious from the early modern period to Freudian and postFreudian theories of desire Swarbrick not only puts nature on the couch in this book but also renews the psychoanalytic toolkit in light of environmental collapse