English Language and Literature ETDs

Publication Date

4-13-1973

Abstract

Several scholars have traced the Edenic myth through American thought and literature, but heretofore no one has traced the myth through American nature writing. In fact, the work of the nature writers, with the exception of Thoreau, has generally been neglected by scholars and critics. In this study, the works of five naturalist writers--William Bartram, Henry Thoreau, John Muir, Joseph Wood Krutch, and Rachel Carson-­were examined to determine what has happened in American nature writing from the Colonial Period to the present. Although a few of the early explorers in the New World compared America with Eden or Canaan, and the myth was drawn upon by both Bartram and Thoreau, the nature writers abandoned the myth in the second half of the nineteenth century at about the time the conservation movement began, and naturalists became concerned about the preservation of the remaining American wilderness. As Thoreau and Muir observed wild nature in decline, their writings became highly critical of society; and since their time, nature writers have attacked even more strongly the free enterprise system, the growth of technology, all the unnatural forces which have brought about the ecological decline of North America. The nature writing of Krutch, who called himself an 'unregenerate humanist,” expresses eloquently the dilemma of man and his relationship to nature in the twentieth century, while Rachel Carson's Silent Spring establishes a new trend for nature writing--a programmatic literature which uses scientific research in appealing for the control of various threats to wildlife and nature. In addition, the works of these five naturalists also record the ecological decline of North America and the awakening of what Aldo Leopold called the "ecological conscience." As these American nature writers have become more sensitive to ecological problems, their nature philosophies have evolved also, from the basically theistic philosophy of Bartram through the transcendentalism of Thoreau and Muir to the humanism of Krutch and finally to the essentially scientific philosophy which controls the work of Carson. As the influence of technology has had increasingly detrimental effects on nature, the nature writers have become increasingly pessimistic, not only about the future of wild nature but also of man himself. Contemporary nature writing often expresses fear that the earth is becoming a wasteland overrun by technology and that civilization itself is faced with decline, if not collapse. The ecological history of North America, as it has been recorded and responded to by our nature writers, is in effect a parable of the human species and its relationship to the entire earth.

Degree Name

English

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

English

First Committee Member (Chair)

David A. Remley

Second Committee Member

George Warren Arms

Third Committee Member

Robert E. Fleming

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

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