Econscience. Op bezoek bij Hendrik Conscience in de wildernis van Eenige bladzijden uit het Boek der Natuur

Abstract

In this article, I create a place-centered and relational context for reading Eenige bladzijden uit het Boek der Natuur (Some pages from the Book of Nature), a didactical dialogue on natural history from 1846, written by Flanders’ national novelist from the nineteenth century, Hendrik Conscience (1812-1883). This context does not focus on his biography or his contributions to a pedagogical Flemish national identity, but relates the work to our present (urban) environment. By doing so, often overlooked aspects in Conscience’s Romantic thought come to the fore: the limitations he put to nationalist frameworks for understanding nature and his attempt at opening up the capacities of literary imagination. For Conscience, literary imagination – rather than religious tradition or empirical precision from physics –, even in a wild and chaotic text, appeared most suitable to convey the Humboldtian idea of the interconnectedness and unity of nature.