%0 Journal Article %A Rock, Jan %T Econscience. Op bezoek bij Hendrik Conscience in de wildernis van Eenige bladzijden uit het Boek der Natuur %D 2022 %J Nederlandse Letterkunde, %V 27 %N 3 %P 343-364 %@ 2352-118X %R https://doi.org/10.5117/NEDLET.2022.3.005.ROCK %K ecology %K Hendrik Conscience %K Flemish literature %K Book of Nature %K romanticism %K horizontal ontology %I Amsterdam University Press, %X 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. %U https://www.aup-online.com/content/journals/10.5117/NEDLET.2022.3.005.ROCK