Abundance

Abstract

AbstractCreative reflections on nature often present images of abundance; but it is always a troubling topic. Abundance in nature can be evoked to inspire joy and reverence; but, at the same time, abundance now always brings with it the spectre of scarcity, in a more literal apprehension of the global predicament, and the travesty of the unequal distribution of resources. The extremity of these contrasting reflections stretches the principle of paradox in nature prose, the means through which apparently contradictory impulses and meanings are brought together in a layered mode of apprehension: nature prose treating of abundance is, potentially, a self-defeating form of ecomimesis, where the textual resonance leads inevitably back to a bleak comprehension of the world. Abundance, however, also connotes knowledge and understanding by association with the spiritual enlightenment of the elect in biblical parable. For the secular purposes of nature prose in the Western tradition, this association produces rich effects, in which cultural knowledge (rather than spiritual certitude) is assigned the a priori position of bestowing enlightenment, a dynamic that privileges knowledge as our resource of hope in otherwise complex and enigmatic moments of deliberation.