Ecocriticism, a field of study that has expanded dramatically over the past decade, has nevertheless remained--until recently--closely focused on critical analyses of nature writing and literature of wilderness. Karla Armbruster and Kathleen R. Wallace push well beyond that established framework with this groundbreaking collection of essays by respected ecocritics and scholars from the literary and environmental arenas. Together, their work signals a new direction in the field and offers refreshingly original insights into a broad spectrum of texts.

Ecocriticism, a field of study that has expanded dramatically over the past decade, has nevertheless remained--until recently--closely focused on critical analyses of nature writing and literature of wilderness. Karla Armbruster and Kathleen R. Wallace push well beyond that established framework with this groundbreaking collection of essays by respected ecocritics and scholars from the literary and environmental arenas. Together, their work signals a new direction in the field and offers refreshingly original insights into a broad spectrum of texts.

From its earliest days, the Virginia landscape has elicited dramatically contradictory descriptions. The sixteenth-century poet Michael Drayton exalted the land as -earth's onely paradise, - while John Smith, in his reports to England, summarized the area around Jamestown as -a miserie, a ruine, a death, a hell.-

Drawing upon both familiar history and lesser-known material from deep geological time through the end of the seventeenth century, Stephen Adams focuses on both the physical changes to the land over time and the changes in the way people viewed Virginia. The Best and Worst...

From its earliest days, the Virginia landscape has elicited dramatically contradictory descriptions. The sixteenth-century poet Michael Drayton exalted the land as -earth's onely paradise, - while John Smith, in his reports to England, summarized the area around Jamestown as -a miserie, a ruine, a death, a hell.-

Drawing upon both familiar history and lesser-known material from deep geological time through the end of the seventeenth century, Stephen Adams focuses on both the physical changes to the land over time and the changes in the way people viewed Virginia. The Best and Worst...

Recent decades have witnessed an explosion of interest in both autobiography and environmental literature. In Refiguring the Map of Sorrow, Mark Allister brings these two genres together by examining a distinct form of grief narrative, in which the writers deal with mourning by standing explicitly both outside and inside the text: outside in writing about the natural world; inside in making that exposition part of the grieving process.

Building on Peter Fritzell's thesis in Nature Writing and America that the best American nature writing blends Aristotelian natural history and...

Recent decades have witnessed an explosion of interest in both autobiography and environmental literature. In Refiguring the Map of Sorrow, Mark Allister brings these two genres together by examining a distinct form of grief narrative, in which the writers deal with mourning by standing explicitly both outside and inside the text: outside in writing about the natural world; inside in making that exposition part of the grieving process.

Building on Peter Fritzell's thesis in Nature Writing and America that the best American nature writing blends Aristotelian natural history and...

The work of John Charles Fremont, Richard Byrd, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, John Wesley Powell, Susan Cooper, Rachel Carson, and Loren Eiseley represents a widely divergent body of writing. Yet despite their range of genres--including exploration narratives, technical reports, natural histories, scientific autobiographies, fictional utopias, nature writing, and popular scientific literature--these seven authors produced strikingly connected representations of nature and the practice of science in America from about 1840 to 1970. Michael A. Bryson provides a thoughtful examination of the...

The work of John Charles Fremont, Richard Byrd, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, John Wesley Powell, Susan Cooper, Rachel Carson, and Loren Eiseley represents a widely divergent body of writing. Yet despite their range of genres--including exploration narratives, technical reports, natural histories, scientific autobiographies, fictional utopias, nature writing, and popular scientific literature--these seven authors produced strikingly connected representations of nature and the practice of science in America from about 1840 to 1970. Michael A. Bryson provides a thoughtful examination of the...

One of the most vexing problems facing American modernist poets was how to find a place for poetry and religion in a culture that considered science its most reliable source of truth. By the time Robert Frost began writing, the Emersonian concept of nature as an analogue for a benevolent deity had been replaced among the scientifically educated by the view that nature's mechanisms were based solely upon accident, competition, and survival. Immersed in his mother's peculiar blend of Emersonian and Swedenborgian mysticism, and already inclined by age sixteen toward a career in poetry, Frost...

One of the most vexing problems facing American modernist poets was how to find a place for poetry and religion in a culture that considered science its most reliable source of truth. By the time Robert Frost began writing, the Emersonian concept of nature as an analogue for a benevolent deity had been replaced among the scientifically educated by the view that nature's mechanisms were based solely upon accident, competition, and survival. Immersed in his mother's peculiar blend of Emersonian and Swedenborgian mysticism, and already inclined by age sixteen toward a career in poetry, Frost...