In Common Things

"In Common Things explores the implacable agency of five common substances--stone, wood, oil, salt, and moss--in the life and literature of the Romantic period. It argues that these substances and their histories have shaped cultural consciousness, and that Romantic era texts formally encode this shaping. Substance is both the natural object of Romantic literature and the commodity that has driven global climate change, and represents the paradox of the modern relation to materiality. In Common Things excavates the cultural, ecological and commodity histories of these substances, demonstrating qualities they share "in common" with literary form. What this book hopes to prompt in its readers is a reevaluation of the simple, the everyday, and the common in light of its contribution to our contemporary sense of ourselves and our societies."--