German-Language Nature Writing from Eighteenth Century to the Present

Controversies, Positions, Perspectives

Gabriele Dürbeck, Christine Kanz

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9783031509094
• eBook ISBN: 9783031509100
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

This volume examines the topic of German-language nature writing in a broad historical context spanning more than two centuries. It brings together contributions on the debates of the category 'Nature Writing' by numerous renowned international scholars. It discusses literary texts of natural history, nature exploration, nature poetry perception and reflection by German-speaking authors since the 18th century, including texts by Ulrike Draesner and on Esther Kinsky's writing. The book asks whether the here discussed texts can, should, or may also be labeled as 'Nature Writing' and how this new perspective on German literary history might change traditional classifications such as "Naturlyrik" (nature poetry) in German literary history.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• Is There a German-Language Nature Writing? Broken Traditions and Transnational References
• Barthold Heinrich Brockes and Nature Writing
• Bringing Nature to Language: Novalis’ Novices of Sais
• Nature Writing in Transcendental Perspective: Friedrich Hölderlin and Henry David Thoreau
• Humboldtian Writing for the Anthropocene
• Fluid “Heimat”: Water and Nature Writing in Theodor Fontane’s Ramblings through Mark Brandenburg
• Water, Clouds, Rocks: Nonhuman Temporalities and Adalbert Stifter’s Poetics of Nature
• From Brehms Tierleben to “A Report to an Academy”: Franz Kafka’s Animal Story Read as a Critical Commentary on Writing About Nature
• Roses, Figs, and Gardens in Gertrud Kolmar’s and Ilse Langner’s Writings
• Wilhelm Lehmann: Nature Writing as a Behavioural Strategy
• On the Natural History of Nature Writing: Linnaeus’ Followers
• The Representation of Alaska in Peter Handke’s Slow Homecoming (1979) through the Lens of Nature Writing
• Terrain-Texts: Thinking Nature Writing in the Anthropocene with Esther Kinsky, Timothy Morton and Bruno Latour
• German Nature Writing: Notes on the German Tradition of the Popular Nature Book and on the Phenomenon of ‘Peter Wohlleben’
• From Both Sides Now: Nature Writing at Literary Festivals
• Das Zwitschern der Vögel im: (nichtnationalen) Wald