Dramas of solitude : narratives of retreat in American nature writing / Randall Roorda.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Roorda, Randall, 1952-

Series:

SUNY series, literacy, culture, and learning

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American literature--History and criticism.

American literature.

Wilderness areas in literature.

Solitude in literature.

Nature in literature.

Narration (Rhetoric).

Self in literature.

Literacy.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xix, 283 p.)

Place of Publication:

Albany : State University of New York Press, c1998.

Summary:

What do stories of nature tell us about the social or ethical purposes of solitude? And what do stories of solitude reveal of the "character" of nonhuman nature? Dramas of Solitude brings the insights of narrative theory to bear upon the genre of nature writing, to explore the social or ethical purposes of solitude in stories of retreat in nature. Through discussions of texts by Henry D. Thoreau, John C. Van Dyke, Wendell Berry, and student writers, among other, this book complicates social views of literacy with depictions of a solitude held in dynamic relation to a not-only-human community. It will inform the efforts of literary critics and writing teachers alike who hope to reintegrate English studies upon ecological terms.

Contents:

Genre and narrative in nature writing

Going out, going in: narrative logic in Thoreau's "Ktaadn"

The subject of The Desert

Familiar mysteries: the exemplary Wendell Berry

Sites and senses of writing in nature

Writer or rhapsode? Iconic metaphors for literate identity

Keeping it simple: reinvention and recovery of nature in general education.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. 261-272) and index.

ISBN:

1-4384-1769-1

0-585-06232-3