Definition:
A form of creative nonfiction in which the natural environment serves as the dominant subject. See also:
- The Battle of the Ants, by Henry David Thoreau
- The Land of Little Rain, by Mary Austin
- Rural Hours, by Susan Fenimore Cooper
- In Mammoth Cave, by John Burroughs
- Barry Lopez's "Migration"
Observations:
- "Gilbert White established the pastoral dimension of nature writing in the late 18th century and remains the patron saint of English nature writing. Henry David Thoreau was an equally crucial figure in mid-19th century America . . ..
"The second half of the 19th century saw the origins of what we today call the environmental movement. Two of its most influential American voices were John Muir and John Burroughs, literary sons of Thoreau, though hardly twins. . . .
"In the early 20th century the activist voice and prophetic anger of nature writers who saw, in Muir's words, that 'the money changers were in the temple' continued to grow. Building upon the principles of scientific ecology that were being developed in the 1930s and 1940s, Rachel Carson and Aldo Leopold sought to create a literature in which appreciation of nature's wholeness would lead to ethical principles and social programs.
"Today, nature writing in America flourishes as never before. Nonfiction may well be the most vital form of current American literature, and a notable proportion of the best writers of nonfiction practice nature writing."
(John Elder and Robert Finch, Introduction, The Norton Book of Nature Writing, Norton, 2002) - "By cordoning nature off as something separate from ourselves and by writing about it that way, we kill both the genre and a part of ourselves. The best writing in this genre is not really 'nature writing' anyway but human writing that just happens to take place in nature."
(David Gessner, "Sick of Nature," The Boston Globe, Aug. 1, 2004)
