Nature writing: Features and functions

Kadri Tüür 
Department of Semiotics, University of Tartu, Estonia

Nature writing is a term frequently used in ecocritical studies. Ecocriticism, the study of representations of natural environment in literary texts, has mainly been practised in Anglophone tradition of literary criticism. Ecocriticism is not only a school of literary research, but may also certainly be considered a part of cultural studies (see Jordanova 1986) since it is on the more general level concerned with the ways natural environment is perceived and represented in the particular culture. 
As Lawrence Buell (1999: 700) indicates, ecocritical practise on the whole has been more issue-driven than methodology-driven: it is important to point out the values conveyed in a particular piece of writing; the choice of theoretical tools for the purpose often is not an object of primary concern. Thus, the actual content of ecocritical work may be highly variable; each researcher is more or less free to construct one’s own object of study as well as to choose a meta-language for describing it. In the following, an attempt is made to present the definitive features of a certain body of texts called nature writing (environmental non-fiction), founding the argument on semiotic conceptions. The notion of ‘third nature’ (Kull 1998: 356), the image created on the basis of semiotically (verbally and materially) interpreted nature proves useful in describing the nature of nature writing.
According to an American ecocriticist Thomas J. Lyon, nature writing must have three main dimensions to it, “natural history information, personal responses to nature, and philosophical interpretation of nature” (Lyon 1996: 276). His wide definition of nature writing includes virtually all instances of texts that contain the potential of merging scientifically correct information with a literary design, enabling the rise of a new, subjective interpretation of the ‘hard’ facts. Here the semiotically interesting feature of nature writing is its simultaneous usage of scientific as well as poetic language. As Juri Lotman has pointed out, it is a general quality of all border areas that new meanings tend to emerge rapidly there (Lotman 1999: 16). At the same time, border is a state of constant negotiation of identities (Lotman 1999: 14). Nature writing juxtaposes scientific and poetic discourses so that the result may seem suspicious both to naturalists and literary critics. As an Estonian naturalist and nature writer Viktor Masing has metaphorically put it; nature writing is as if an illegitimate child of Science and Literature whom none of the parents accepts (Masing 1999: 83). 
Arguing for a narrow definition of nature writing, my proposal for the main criteria of such texts would be as follows,
•	the text is based on immediate, scientifically apt observation of nature;
•	the first person narrator in the text coincides with the actual observer in natural environment;
•	the aim of the text is to direct the reader towards aesthetic appreciation of nature (see also Piiper 1975: 9). 
These criteria concern the condition, mode and function of a text classified as nature writing, or environmental non-fiction, to use the longer but perhaps more clear term. In conclusion, the function of nature writing in culture is dwelled upon more thoroughly. The act of directing the reader toward aesthetic appreciation of nature by means of a text (i.e., granting the actual object primacy over its literary representation) definitely is connected with the cultivation of the readers’ (national) identity (see Cohen’s Culture as Identity). Sharing the knowledge of one’s homeland’s natural conditions and phenomena promotes rootedness (Relph 1976) and generates a common ground of knowledge and values for the diversity of people inhabiting a certain area. 

References

Buell, Lawrence 1999. The ecocritical insurgency. New Literary History 30(3): 699-712. 
Cohen, Anthony P. 1993. Culture as identity: An anthroplogist’s view. New Literary History 24(1): 195-209.
Jordanova, Ludmilla (ed.) 1986. Languages of Nature. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Kull, Kalevi 1998. Different natures in the semiosphere. Sign System Studies 26: 344-371.
Lyon, Thomas J. 1996. A taxonomy of nature writing. In: Glotfelty, C.; Fromm, H. (eds.), The Ecocriticism Reader. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 276-281.
Lotman, Juri 1999. Semiosfäärist. Tallinn: Vagabund.
Masing, Viktor 1999. Sammud samblas ja liivas. Tartu: Vanemuise Seltsi Kirjastus.
Piiper, Johannes 1975. Pilte ja hääli Eesti loodusest. Tallinn: Eesti Raamat.
Relph, Edward 1976. Place and Placelessness. London: Pion.