Description
When Gary Snyder’s long poem Mountains and Rivers Without End was published in 1996, it was hailed as a masterpiece of American poetry, yet it has not hitherto been the subject of a book-length critical study. Now, Anthony Hunt offers a detailed historical and explicative analysis of this complex work using, among his many sources, Snyder’s personal papers, letters, and interviews. Hunt traces the work’s origins, as well as some of the sources of its themes and structure, including Nô drama; East Asian landscape painting; the rhythms of storytelling, chant, and song; Jungian archetypal psychology; world mythology; Buddhist philosophy and ritual; Native American traditions; planetary geology, hydrology, and ecology. His analysis addresses the poem not merely by its content but through the structure of individual lines and the arrangement of the parts, examining the personal and cultural influences on Snyder’s work. Hunt’s benchmark study of Mountains and Rivers Without End, which he considers a “fundamental wisdom text for the modern ecological movement,” is a perceptive work of analysis, written in a clear and straightforward style but completely sensitive to the subtleties, nuances, and intricacies of the poem. It will be rewarding reading for anyone who enjoys the contemplation of Snyder’s artistry and ideas and, more generally, for those who are intrigued by the workings of artistic composition, as well as those readers of poetry—whether ecologists, Buddhists, philosophers, or backpackers—who are interested in cultural and intellectual affairs.

Reviews
“Mountains and Rivers Without End is a four-part, thirty-nine-poem sequence. To help us enter such a work, what we need is a scholar who has followed the work over the decades of its creation, researched the wide range of allusions and influences, established a relationship with the author that gives us special access to the work, and pored through letters and journals at archives in order to present a reading that enables and invites further studies and divergent interpretations. We are fortunate to have such a scholar in Anthony Hunt, and his book will be the foundation for all future examinations of this important literary work.” —David Landis Barnhill, Western American Literature, Summer 2005

“Suggestive, and rich in lore and ideas, Anthony Hunt’s explications will open the poems up for readers but at the same time—in my opinion—leave plenty of territory for them to find their own insights. These are informed, playful, creative commentaries that don’t impose themselves on the text, but complement it.” —Gary Snyder

“Anthony Hunt’s book will certainly become the standard against which all other discussion of Gary Snyder’s poetry will be measured. Hunt has provided a thorough, multidisciplinary study. He knows Mountains and Rivers Without End better than anyone else besides Snyder.” —Patrick D. Murphy, author of A Place for Wayfaring: The Poetry and Prose of Gary Snyder

“Hunt has produced a thorough, careful overview of Snyder’s underappreciated ecological epic. . . . The greatest strength of this volume is its phenomenal range and tenacious search after the riddles and allusions of Snyder’s difficult work.” —J. Whalen-Bridge, CHOICE, October 2004