Nature writing
Encyclopedia
Nature writing is generally defined as nonfiction prose
writing about the natural environment. Nature writing often draws heavily on scientific information and facts about the natural world; at the same time, it is frequently written in the first person
and incorporates personal observations of and philosophical reflections upon nature.
In This Incomperable Land: A Book of American Nature Writing, Thomas Lyon suggests that nature writing encompasses a spectrum of different types of works, ranging from those that place primary emphasis on natural history facts (such as field guides) to those in which philosophical interpretations predominate. Some of the subcategories he identifies include natural history
essays, rambles, essays of solitude or escape, and travel and adventure writing.
Modern nature writing traces its roots to the works of natural history
that were popular in the second half of the 18th century and throughout the 19th, including works by Gilbert White
, William Bartram
, John James Audubon
, Charles Darwin
, Richard Jefferies
, and other explorers, collectors, and naturalists. Henry David Thoreau
is often considered the father of modern American nature writing. Other canonical
figures in the genre include Ralph Waldo Emerson
, John Burroughs
, John Muir
, Aldo Leopold
, Rachel Carson
, M. Krishnan, and Edward Abbey
(although he rejected the term for himself).
Prose
Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure...
writing about the natural environment. Nature writing often draws heavily on scientific information and facts about the natural world; at the same time, it is frequently written in the first person
First-person narrative
First-person point of view is a narrative mode where a story is narrated by one character at a time, speaking for and about themselves. First-person narrative may be singular, plural or multiple as well as being an authoritative, reliable or deceptive "voice" and represents point of view in the...
and incorporates personal observations of and philosophical reflections upon nature.
In This Incomperable Land: A Book of American Nature Writing, Thomas Lyon suggests that nature writing encompasses a spectrum of different types of works, ranging from those that place primary emphasis on natural history facts (such as field guides) to those in which philosophical interpretations predominate. Some of the subcategories he identifies include natural history
Natural history
Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
essays, rambles, essays of solitude or escape, and travel and adventure writing.
Modern nature writing traces its roots to the works of natural history
Natural history
Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
that were popular in the second half of the 18th century and throughout the 19th, including works by Gilbert White
Gilbert White
Gilbert White FRS was a pioneering English naturalist and ornithologist.-Life:White was born in his grandfather's vicarage at Selborne in Hampshire. He was educated at the Holy Ghost School and by a private tutor in Basingstoke before going to Oriel College, Oxford...
, William Bartram
William Bartram
William Bartram was an American naturalist. The son of Ann and John Bartram, William Bartram and his twin sister Elizabeth were born in Kingsessing, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia. As a boy, he accompanied his father on many of his travels, to the Catskill Mountains, the New Jersey Pine Barrens,...
, John James Audubon
John James Audubon
John James Audubon was a French-American ornithologist, naturalist, and painter. He was notable for his expansive studies to document all types of American birds and for his detailed illustrations that depicted the birds in their natural habitats...
, Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
, Richard Jefferies
Richard Jefferies
John Richard Jefferies was an English nature writer, noted for his depiction of English rural life in essays, books of natural history, and novels. His childhood on a small Wiltshire farm had a great influence on him and provides the background to all his major works of fiction...
, and other explorers, collectors, and naturalists. Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...
is often considered the father of modern American nature writing. Other canonical
Canonical
Canonical is an adjective derived from canon. Canon comes from the greek word κανών kanon, "rule" or "measuring stick" , and is used in various meanings....
figures in the genre include Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...
, John Burroughs
John Burroughs
John Burroughs was an American naturalist and essayist important in the evolution of the U.S. conservation movement. According to biographers at the American Memory project at the Library of Congress,...
, John Muir
John Muir
John Muir was a Scottish-born American naturalist, author, and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. His letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, have been read by millions...
, Aldo Leopold
Aldo Leopold
Aldo Leopold was an American author, scientist, ecologist, forester, and environmentalist. He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin and is best known for his book A Sand County Almanac , which has sold over two million copies...
, Rachel Carson
Rachel Carson
Rachel Louise Carson was an American marine biologist and conservationist whose writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement....
, M. Krishnan, and Edward Abbey
Edward Abbey
Edward Paul Abbey was an American author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues, criticism of public land policies, and anarchist political views. His best-known works include the novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, which has been cited as an inspiration by radical environmental...
(although he rejected the term for himself).
List of contemporary American nature writers
- Mary Austin
- Rick BassRick BassRick Bass is an American writer and an environmental activist.-Life:Bass was born in Fort Worth, Texas, U.S., the son of a geologist, and he studied petroleum geology at Utah State University. He grew up in Houston, and started writing short stories on his lunch breaks while working as a petroleum...
- Wendell BerryWendell BerryWendell Berry is an American man of letters, academic, cultural and economic critic, and farmer. He is a prolific author of novels, short stories, poems, and essays...
- Christopher CamutoChristopher CamutoChristopher Camuto is an American nature writer, scholar and poet. He is the author of three books focused on the southern Appalachians--A Fly Fisherman's Blue Ridge , Another Country: Journeying Toward the Cherokee Mountains , Hunting from Home: A Year Afield in the Blue Ridge Christopher Camuto...
- Rachel CarsonRachel CarsonRachel Louise Carson was an American marine biologist and conservationist whose writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement....
- Archie CarrArchie CarrArchie Fairly Carr, Jr. was an American herpetologist, ecologist and a pioneering conservationist. He was a Professor of Zoology at the University of Florida. In 1987 he was awarded the Eminent Ecologist Award by the Ecological Society of America...
- Jan DeBlieuJan DeBlieuJan DeBlieu is an American writer whose work often focuses on how people are shaped by the landscapes in which they live. Her own writing has been influenced by her adopted home in the Outer Banks of North Carolina....
- Annie DillardAnnie DillardAnnie Dillard is an American author, best known for her narrative prose in both fiction and non-fiction. She has published works of poetry, essays, prose, and literary criticism, as well as two novels and one memoir. Her 1974 work Pilgrim at Tinker Creek won the 1974 Pulitzer Prize for General...
- Gretel EhrlichGretel EhrlichGretel Ehrlich is an American travel writer, poet, and essayist.Born in 1946 in Santa Barbara, California, she studied at Bennington College and UCLA film school. She began to write full time in 1978, living on a Wyoming ranch, after the death of a loved one. Ehrlich debuted in 1985 with The Solace...
- Robert FinchRobert Finch (nature writer)Robert Finch is an American nature writer and essayist. He was born in West Virginia and grew up in Newark, New Jersey. He has lived in Cape Cod since 1971 and has written several books about the nature, natural and human histories of Cape Cod...
- Gordon GriceGordon GriceGordon Grice is an American nature writer and essayist.-Life:Grice grew up in rural Oklahoma, a setting that has figured in much of his writing. He graduated from Oklahoma State University with a BA in English and the University of Arkansas with an Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. He is...
- Edward HoaglandEdward HoaglandEdward Hoagland is an author best known for his nature and travel writing.-Life:...
- Bernd HeinrichBernd HeinrichBernd Heinrich, Ph.D , is a professor emeritus in the biology department at the University of Vermont and is the author of a number of books about nature writing, behavior, biology, ecology, and evolution. Heinrich has made major contributions to the study of insect physiology and behavior, as...
- Linda HoganLinda Hogan (writer)Linda K. Hogan is a Native American poet, storyteller, academic, playwright, novelist, environmentalist and writer of short stories.She is currently the Chickasaw Nation's Writer in Residence.-Early life:Linda Hogan is Chickasaw...
- Sue HubbellSue HubbellSue Hubbell is an American author. Her books A Country Year and A Book of Bees were selected by the New York Times Book Review as Notable Books of the Year. The author has also written for The New Yorker, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Smithsonian and Time...
- Don L. JohnsonDon L. JohnsonDon L. Johnson was among Wisconsin's best known outdoor writers. His career included widely acclaimed nature writing, groundbreaking investigative reporting on environmental issues, and traditional outdoor writing about hunting, fishing, and related pursuits.In 2000, Wisconsin Outdoor Journal...
- William KittredgeWilliam KittredgeWilliam Kittredge is an American writer from Oregon, United States. He was born in Portland, Oregon, and grew up on a ranch in Southeastern Oregon's Warner Valley in Lake County where he attended school in Adel, Oregon, and later would attend high school in California and Oregon...
- Barry LopezBarry LopezBarry Holstun Lopez is an American author, essayist, and fiction writer whose work is known for its environmental and social concerns.-Biography:...
- Peter MatthiessenPeter MatthiessenPeter Matthiessen is a two-time National Book Award-winning American novelist and non-fiction writer, as well as an environmental activist...
- Bill McKibbenBill McKibbenWilliam Ernest "Bill" McKibben is an American environmentalist, author, and journalist who has written extensively on the impact of global warming. He is the Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College...
- John McPheeJohn McPheeJohn Angus McPhee is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, widely considered one of the pioneers of creative nonfiction....
- Gary Paul NabhanGary Paul NabhanGary Paul Nabhan is an agricultural ecologist, ethnobotanist, and writer whose work has focused primarily on the plants and cultures of the desert Southwest. He is considered a pioneer in the local food movement and the heirloom seed saving movement....
- Richard NelsonRichard Nelson (author)Richard K. Nelson is a cultural anthropologist and writer whose work has focused primarily on the indigenous cultures of Alaska and, more generally, the relationships between people and nature.He is the host to a public radio series called Encounters aired nationally.Nelson was born and raised in...
- Sigurd Olson
- Donald C. PeattieDonald C. PeattieDonald Culross Peattie was a U.S. botanist, naturalist and author. He was described by Joseph Wood Krutch as "perhaps the most widely read of all contemporary American nature writers" during his heyday.-Biography:...
- Sam PickeringSamuel F. Pickering Jr.Samuel F. Pickering is a professor of English at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. His unconventional teaching style was one of the inspirations for the character of Mr. Keating, played by Robin Williams in the film Dead Poets Society...
- Michael PollanMichael PollanMichael Pollan is an American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. A 2006 New York Times book review describes him as a "liberal foodie intellectual."...
- Richard ProennekeRichard ProennekeRichard Louis "Dick" Proenneke was a naturalist who lived alone in the high mountains of Alaska at a place called Twin Lakes...
- Robert Michael PyleRobert Michael PyleRobert Michael Pyle is a lepidopterist and author who has published twelve books and hundreds of papers, essays, stories and poems. He has a Ph.D. from the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University. He founded the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation in 1974...
- David QuammenDavid QuammenDavid Quammen is a science, nature and travel writer whose work has appeared in publications such as National Geographic, Outside, Harper's, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times Book Review....
- Janisse RayJanisse RayJanisse Ray is an American writer, naturalist, and environmental activist.She attended North Georgia College, 1980–82; Florida State University, B.A., 1984; and the University of Montana, M.F.A., 1997....
- Scott Russell Sanders
- Leslie Marmon SilkoLeslie Marmon SilkoLeslie Marmon Silko is a Native American writer of the Laguna Pueblo tribe, and one of the key figures in the second wave of what Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance...
- Gary SnyderGary SnyderGary Snyder is an American poet , as well as an essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist . Snyder is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry...
- Rebecca SolnitRebecca SolnitRebecca Solnit is a writer who lives in San Francisco. She has written on a variety of subjects including the environment, politics, place, and art....
- Sandra SteingraberSandra SteingraberSandra Steingraber is an American biologist, author, and cancer survivor in the tradition of Rachel Carson. Steingraber writes and lectures on the environmental factors that contribute to reproductive health problems and environmental links to cancer.-Awards and honors:* 1997 - Named a Ms...
- John TallmadgeJohn TallmadgeJohn Tallmadge Ph.D., is an author and essayist on issues related to nature and culture. He is currently in private practice as an educational and literary consultant after thirty year career in higher education, most recently as a core professor of Literature and Environmental Studies at Union...
- Edwin Way TealeEdwin Way TealeEdwin Way Teale was an American naturalist, photographer, and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer. Teale's works serve as primary source material documenting environmental conditions across North America from 1930 - 1980...
- Terry Tempest WilliamsTerry Tempest WilliamsTerry Tempest Williams , is an American author, conservationist and activist.Williams’ writing is rooted in the American West and has been significantly influenced by the arid landscape of her native Utah in which she was raised...
- E.O. WilsonE. O. WilsonEdward Osborne Wilson is an American biologist, researcher , theorist , naturalist and author. His biological specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants....
- Ann ZwingerAnn ZwingerAnn Haymond Zwinger is author of many highly-regarded natural histories noted for comprehensive detail and lyrical prose.-History:Ann Haymond Zwinger was born 1925 March 12 in Muncie, Indiana, the daughter of William and Ann Haymond....
- Ruskin BondRuskin BondRuskin Bond, born 19 May 1934, is an Indian author of British descent. He is considered to be an icon among Indian writers and children's authors and a top novelist....
Resources
- Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE)
- Graduate Programs in Nature Writing and Ecocriticism Literature
- Sitka Symposium
- Whole Terrain: Resources for Writers
- Whole TerrainWhole TerrainWhole Terrain: Journal of Reflective Environmental Practice is an environmentally-themed literary journal that's published approximately once a year by Antioch University New England . Each volume explores emerging ecological and social issues from the perspectives of practitioners working in the...
, journal of "reflective environmental practice"