ABSTRACT
In all of its definitional spikes—the colonialization of the Americas, the advent of industrial fossil fuel use, and dramatic acceleration of carbon emissions in mid-twentieth century—the Anthropocene revolves around energy. Energy, though, is not an inert tool for reshaping the world; energy and culture are co-constitutive. This chapter examines that interplay between culture and energy through a few works of Anglophone literature in the early modern, romantic, and postmodern periods. Through a brief study of energy and literature, this chapter shows how energy can be traced through the cultures of this proposed geological epoch.
