A Glance at the Whole: Nature, Earth and Subjectivity in Alexander von Humboldt’s Cosmos and Views of Nature

By sensing the fundamental ideas of space and place on earth, this collection seeks to negotiate with and react to the underlying semasiological or psycho-geographical principle of geopoetics that cuts across varied and at times conflicting schools. From reading some geopoetical texts to understanding the idea of the earth in Humboldt and Marx-Engels, topolitics in Tintin, reef-thinking and the geography of exile, the volume tries to understand how we poetically exist with the earth. Isn’t literature, taking a cue from Hölderlin, a symptom of the way “man lives poetically on the earth”? How is our psyche an integral part of the earth-thought? How does literature deal with the concepts of space and place? How does literature enable us to comprehend the underlying principle of geopoetics—the principle of finding art in earth? These are some of the pivotal questions which this volume seeks to explore. Literature exemplifies a geographical consciousness—an “intimate and subjective” experience of the earth. This book is an attempt to conceive this eclectic infusion of art and earth, so that we are able to ensure that the world of the art always remains in touch with the earth of the world. Let us, through this book, un-earth this deep-rooted spatiality in literature. Let us imitate earth through art, as this is the only place where we can live.