Environmental literacy and ecocriticism refer to the work of educators, scholars, and writers to foster a critical understanding about environmental issues. Environmental literacy includes educational materials and programs designed to provide lay...

Ecocriticism is the study of the relationship between literature and the natural environment. Ecocriticism was officially heralded by the publication of two seminal works, both published in 1996: The Ecocriticism Reader, edited by Cheryll Glotfelty and...

It all began with a bit of a panic to describe itself, and even now, the question about what constitutes ecocriticism remains a priority.1 Although ecocriticism began in the 1990s,2 its roots stretch far down into the soil of history. From ancient times to...

A Century of Early Ecocriticism, edited by David Mazel. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2001. 370 pp. $50 cloth. $25 paper. THE SCHOLARLY STUDY OF ENVIRONMENTAL themes and issues in literature has become an important new edge in the dynamic, protean fields...

In the following essay, Van Noy presents the work of three mappers—Henry David Thoreau, Clarence King, and John Wesley Powell—as representing various nineteenth‐century responses to the spirit of the western landscape.

In the following excerpt, Bate examines William Wordsworth's use of the pastoral, arguing that there is a continuity between the poet's love of nature and his revolutionary politics. Bate also discusses the critical response to Wordsworth's ecological writing.

In the following essay, Branch surveys the evolution of ideas about nature before the nineteenth century and goes on to discuss the contributions by three important nineteenth‐century American naturalists whose thematic concerns became central to subsequent environmental literature.