In this block seminar (winter school), we will examine literary texts from three major American nineteenth-century writers engaging with nature. The proseminar starts with Ralph Waldo Emerson, who is a key figure in American Romanticism, and who is at the core of American Transcendentalism. We will then move on to Henry David Thoreau and Margaret Fuller who were both strongly influenced by Emerson’s writing and thinking. These three authors were not only writers, but also political reformers. As such, they advocated social and political changes like abolitionism, women’s rights, and environmentalism.
With a special focus on Emerson’s, Thoreau’s, and Fuller’s writing about nature, we will investigate how their texts mirror the evolution of social and cultural visions of nature in the nineteenth century. We will examine how the three writers describe the natural environment in their texts, and how they define nature. In this proseminar, we will engage with questions such as: Which ideas and concepts of nature manifest in the texts? Which literary devices do the authors use to translate their ideas about nature into writing?
Moreover, we will analyze how the three authors’ writings about the natural environment has shaped the discourse of the proper relationship between humans and the non-human natural world. Finally, we will try to explore in how far their nineteenth century ideas about nature and the environment echo in or differ from contemporary ecocriticism.
Literary texts:
· Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature (1836)
· Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)
· Margaret Fuller, Summer on the Lakes (1843)
- Enseignant·e: Corin Kraft