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Introduction to The Student's Tale

• In “Introduction,” the author compares her book to a “Wunderkammer” (vii) or Cabinet of Curiosities.

• In the 1600s, Cabinets of Curiosities would hold objects like coral, fossils, artifacts, cloaks, miniature paintings, musical instruments, mirrors, preserved specimens of birds and fish, insects, rocks, or feathers.

• Macdonald writes that her book is “full of strange things and it [was] concerned with the quality of wonder” (vii).

• She believea that the underlying subject in the essays and all of her writing is love.

• She comments that these are terrible times for the environment.

• People need to consider how they view and interact with the natural world.

• People are living through the world’s sixth great extinction, which is caused by humans.

• Science needs to establish the rate and scale of the declines, figure out why they are happening, and what mitigation strategies can be used.

• Literature...

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