Pagan Affectations and Archaecological Agencies in the Later Works of Richard Jefferies

Abstract

Abstract: This paper considers Richard Jefferies's later works, such as Wood Magic (1881), The Story of My Heart (1882), Amaryllis at the Fair (1887), and After London (1885), as sites wherein archaeology, ecological thinking, and pagan revivalism converge. I argue that we attain a nuanced reading of the convergence between archaeology, ecology, and affect in Jefferies by considering the ways in which he affiliates with paganism. Attending to the ways Jefferies deploys themes common to this pagan revivalism contributes to recent critical treatments of his place within Victorian ecological thought and literatures of the Anthropocene. I begin by establishing key themes of the Victorian pagan revival and Victorian archaeological discourses, then I elaborate how Jefferies imaginatively conjures Britain's own prehistoric pagan past. My final section is devoted to analyzing how this paganism informs After London , with specific reference to what I will refer to as its archa ecologies : two ecosystems that condense geological time and amplify mutually informing human-ecological entanglements.