Terms for Interpreting Nature Writing

“Nature,” “wild,” and “wilderness”

Transcendental dualism

Enlightenment, humanism, and mechanism

Romanticism

Ideology of progress

The new environmentalism of the 1960s

Anthropocentrism versus biocentrism/ecocentrism

Bioregionalism

Deep ecology

Anarchism and social ecology

Intrinsic/inherent value versus instrumental value

Preservation versus conservation

Seven elements of nature writing

1. Accounts of nature
>> Natural history information.
>> Descriptions of scenes in nature.

2. Accounts of personal experience in nature.

3. Philosophy of nature

4. Ecological psychology

5. The social experience of nature
>> The community
>> History
>> Cultural ecology

6. Ecosocial politics.
>> Critique
>> Ideal

7. Spirituality.

Nature as sacred

1. Nature as sacred other
2. Sacred place
3. Monistic

Themes in the spirituality of nature

• Organic interrelatedness:
• Vastness
• Vitalism
• Ongoing creation
• Mystery

Themes concerning spiritual awareness & the relationship between the nature writer & nature

• Focused attention and energy
• Receptivity (transparent eye-ball)
• Loss of sense of distinction between subject/object
• Direct perception
• Present only
• No meaning
• Tension: unity with world & otherness of nature

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