Placing sensibility in dialogue with classical and early-modern antecedents as well as contemporary animal studies,this book uncovers crucial connections between eighteenth-century poetry; theories of communication; and post- absolutist, rights-based politics.
Introduction : stratigraphic criticism -- "Earth trembled" : Paradise lost, the little Ice Age, and the climate of allegory -- "The works of nature" : descriptive poetry and the history of the earth in Thomson's The seasons -- Mine, factory, and plantation : the industrial georgic and the crisis of description -- Uncertain atmospheres : romantic lyricism in the time of the Anthropocene.