Ecocriticism, Literary Theory, and the Truth of Ecology
Author(s): Dana Phillips
Source: New Literary History, Vol. 30, No. 3, Ecocriticism (Summer, 1999), pp. 577-602
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20057556
Accessed: 14/01/2010 13:55
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.
Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=jhup.
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
The Johns Hopkins University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
New Literary History.
http://www.jstor.org
Ecocriticism,
Literary
Theory,
and the Truth of Ecology
Dana Phillips
I. Literary Theory
and the Truth of Ecology
his classic
Eco
Umberto
1975 essay "Travels in Hyperreality,"
still waiting for a good answer after twenty-five years:
asks a question
the truth of ecology
lie?"1 The
last word of this
"Where does
one
more
can
mean
its
than
but
is scarcely
ambiguity
thing;
question
in the Eco spirit. That spirit was
and seems very much
coincidental,
strangely moved by a visit to the San Diego Zoo, famous for its animal
in accord with the strictest ecological
rectitude. Of
habitats designed
and a theme park, where
the
course, the Zoo is both a living museum
resident grizzly bear at the time of Eco's visit was known not as Ursus
as "Chester." The San
less dauntingly
horribilis but much
Diego Zoo thus
to disperse
of hyperreality
the atmosphere
did nothing
through which
Eco made his way during his American
travels. In fact, it heightened
that
so Eco had to wonder:
one
if
in
of
the
and
shrines
nation's
atmosphere,
seems obscure,
to ecology
the truth of ecology
then where
is that truth
located? And how should we react when we find ecology present but
into a lie, as seems to be the case at the San Diego Zoo, given its
made
In
and its conflicted
natural yet man-made
alle
apparently
labyrinths,
to
science
and
the
entertainment
both
Eco
giance
suggests
industry?
nature of the Zoo is a definitive
that the double
instance of how our
desire for the real can give rise to the hyperreal,
to a culture in which
imitations are the dominant
form of reality. As his essay makes clear, the
is not just a bad idea or the product of a lapse in taste, but a
hyperreal
cultural
condition.
You cannot
full-blown
the hyperreal
escape
by
more
be
could
than
authentic
things
wishing
they are. It is too
to be dealt with that way.
substantial
The paradox of the hyperreal
is that while it is not quite real, neither is
it unreal. This paradox
is particularly frustrating with regard to the truth
and the potential untruth of ecology. Discovering
the truth of ecology is a
lot more difficult than its popularizers
have led us to believe, both because
of the obscuring
well:
(1) Nature
New Literary History,
reasons
effects of hyperreality,
and for two additional
is complex;
is thoroughly
(2) Nature
implicated
1999, 30: 577-602
as
in
578
NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
in nature. By virtue of my
culture, and culture is thoroughly
implicated
own disciplinary
the
this
all
raises for me are these:
training,
questions
in so far as that truth is addressed
what
is the truth of ecology
by
literature? How well does literature address that truth? These questions
a new
of English by ecocriticism,
have begun to be asked in departments
the blas? attitude toward the
variety of critical thinking which opposes
I share their negative
in literary studies. While
natural world predominant
I
this
blas?
about
doubt
whether
the
ecocritics' preferred
attitude,
feelings
counter
to
it?a
the
nature
of
of
renewal
at
realism,
a response,
is all that powerful
based
the
and
representation
least
nature
where
is concerned?
as it is on some dubious
ideas about
nature.
of
representation
I would
to the ecocritical
like, then, to add a third question
agenda, a question
lie in literature?
Eco: does the truth of ecology
inspired by Umberto
one
concerns
is
of the chief
of literary
The nature of representation
of
is
else
ecocritics
but
the
theory
theory,
something
preponderance
dislike about current literary studies. Many of them do not want its help.
in part because
is unfortunate,
This
its
and
excesses
rumored
a
were
about
complaints
feature
central
of
theory
literary
neoconservative
the cultural debates
of the 1980s and early 1990s.
alarm over theory in a new and
the
have
been
they
sounding
Although
run
a different
risk of being labeled reaction
ecocritics
the
also
register,
the
neoconservatives.
with
ary and getting
They claim to be
lumped
on behalf of tradition, of which
not
however,
they are often
speaking,
1980s and 1990s neo
critical, but on behalf of nature. And unlike
conservatives,
they are not suspicious of theory's political
implications,
an interest in
or of its attack on canonical Western
literature; politically,
rhetoric
the
during
by
The
poststructuralism,
and
already
inadequate.
understandable,
volatile,
quite
even
nature
that
common
The
impatience
the
considering
of
is
by
culture.
of postmodernism,
sharing the same feeling of
of ecocritics
hubris
They
canon
are bothered,
tenet
that
conviction
the
and
is constructed
of nature
is a basic
and other forms of theory
the
radical,
like to see changed.
contention
theory's
constructedness
belatedness
be
also would
ecocritics
something
though,
can
world
natural
the
is
representation
with
regard
always
to theory
is
nature-as-culturally-con
dislike of theory among ecocritics
structed claim. Still, the prevailing
not only with theory but
of impatience
often seems like an expression
is to
in
traffic
which
with any intellectual
abstractions,
activity entailing
some
bite
and
force.
with
intellectual
say any
activity
philosophical
after all, albeit in its own way.
Ecocriticism
may be reactionary
has
antitheoretical
spirit of ecocriticism
use
an
a
of
fresh
air?to
breath
laudable,
expression
entirely
In a 1995 article in The New York
is overdetermined.
which in this context
the formal debut of this new kind
Times Magazine, Jay Parini celebrated
To
seemed
some
observers
the
ECOCRITICISM,
AND
THEORY,
579
ECOLOGY
held that summer at Colorado
State and
of critique at a conference
would-be
He
hundred
included.
several
attended
ecocritics, myself
by
a
of
ecocriticism
it
the
that
"marks
provenance
by suggesting
explained
it also signals a dismissal of
return to activism and social responsibility;
From a literary aspect, itmarks a re
theory's more solipsistic tendencies.
of rocks, trees and
with realism, with the actual universe
engagement
is
the wilderness
of signs."2 This description
rivers that lies behind
on what he learned in inter
effusive, but accurate: Parini is reporting
of ecocriticism,
views with well-known
practitioners
John
including
and Lawrence Buell of Harvard University,
Elder of Middlebury
College
whose work I address below.
One of the most
traits of ecocritical
rhetoric is echoed by
interesting
of the jargon of ecology and environmentalism
Parini: its merger
with,
the jargon of literary theory. "The wilderness
of signs"
ironically enough,
with which many theorists would be perfecdy comfortable.
is a metaphor
Ecocritics
with such a metaphor,
but they
ought to be less comfortable
like to treat literary, ecological,
and environmental
concepts
vaguely
as if they were exactiy the same in their
similar in their rough oudines
of language, poetic
details. Thus the complexity
in particular,
language
is seen as expressive of or even determined
of nature.
the
by
complexity
texts
of
Ecocritical
then
analysis
literary
proceeds haphazardly,
by means
out of borrowed
terms: words
of fuzzy concepts
fashioned
like "ecosys
tem,"
"organism,"
and
"wilderness"
are
used
metaphorically,
with
no
of their metaphorical
status, as if literary, ecological,
acknowledgment
were
a lot more
of
and environmental
than
ways
speaking
compatible
as
and
if
their
differences
could
be
overlooked.
are,
they
safely
English
department
colleagues
who
do
not
use
the
same
metaphors,
those
who
see no
connections
between
"the wilderness
of
important or decisive
and
of
scorn.
wilderness
the
become
the
of
And
signs"
pines,
yet
objects
there are a number of assumptions
that ecocritics
share with their more
aware
theoretical
but less environmentally
chief among
colleagues,
them
assumptions
about
the
ontological
gulf
between
culture
and
and the metaphysics
of representation
to
required
supposedly
to
that
After
ecocritics
have
been
school.
But
all,
bridge
gulf.
graduate
they often treat literary theory as if it were a noxious weed that must be
more
it overwhelms
before
native and greener
forms of
suppressed
a
so
new
not
The
result
much
is
kind
of
untheoretical
speech.
blessedly
as it is a discourse
discourse
up here and there by some
propped
distincdy
shaky theory.
There
in their own gardens
than
are, then, more weeds
growing
ecocritics
have supposed.
The contradictions
of their antitheoretical
are already evident
in Glen A. Love's 1990 article "Revaluing
polemic
Nature: Toward An Ecological
Criticism." Love was one of the first to
nature,
580
NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
the new
trend, and in his article complains
bitterly about how
are. What he
remiss members
of English departments
environmentally
not
in
all
has
is
of
his
mind,
however,
really
only "the
colleagues,
over
fashionable
critics and theorists" who prefer "ego-consciousness"
identify
Love
"eco-consciousness."
to
kind
the
ignores
ego-consciousness,
that
fact
either.
For
theory
many
has
not
been
theorists
very
of
the
and
the ego?that
is, the
poststructuralist
persuasions,
postmodern
as
not
an
if
"dead"
effective
historical
too,
constructed,
"subject"?is
or
interest. Excessive
agent and object of critical
ego-consciousness
to
is
of
But
recall
the
Parini's
least
term,
"solipsism,"
theory's dangers.
to Love, for whom
then this sort of detail does not matter
very much
than fighting words. After a tide
"theory" and "theorists" are no more
of
he envisions
battle
"realist and other
and
ecocriticism,
theory
turning
nihilism."3 To
discourse which values unity rising over post-structuralist
on
to
from
the
ecocritical
what
has
the
Love
say
subject,
judge
not
does
entail an
of
"dismissal"
Parini's
term)
literary theory
(again,
a
as
of
of
it
demonization
"nihilism."
understanding
theory, only
to ignore the recent
ecocritics
Even more negligently,
have tended
of
history
to
and
ecology,
assume
that
its
of
representation
nature
has
truth?it
has. They often appeal to the
an
of
scientific
they then exploit
authority which
authority
ecology,
a
as
for
moral
sanction
their own dis
and
rhetorically
philosophical
as
and
for
does
he
Love
when
course,
"unity"
implies that it is an
plumps
been more
successful
It
value.
"ecological"
than?in
is not,
not
The
anymore.
historian
environmental
of unity,
Donald Worster notes that the ideal of the ecosystem as amodel
in recent ecological
has been supplanted
"of order and equilibrium,"
theory
by
colors,
"the
idea
be regarded
"should
changing
unceasing
barrage
of
the
lowly
as a landscape
continually
of
through
perturbations."4
"Nature,"
'patch.'"
of patches
time
and
Worster
of all sizes,
space,
Worster's
reports,
textures,
responding
characterization
and
to an
of
theory is supported by a similar sketch of the subject by
ecological
indetermin
B.
who
writes that the "new ecology emphasizes
Hagen,
Joel
It
constant
that
and
then,
ism, instability,
appears,
ecology
change."5
of development
for human
leaves us "with no model
society to emu
late."6 Ecology today thus might be said to be more like poststructuralism
recent
and
less
like
the
sort
of
values-rich,
restorative,
and
recuperative
have a knack for
it to be. Ecocritics
imagined
are
to
since acknowl
do
bound
this
they
irony, something
overlooking
a
seem
little hollow.
make
discourse
it
would
their
celebratory
edging
is
than
Love's
of ecology much more
A misprision
thorough-going
assumes
the
Earth.
Elder
in
for
Elder's
evident,
Imagining
example,
John
of both
of the world" is a phenomenon
that "the inextricable wholeness
as
and poetic
is, just
go about
ecologists
ecological
import.7 That
discourse
ecocritics
have
AND
THEORY,
ECOCRITICISM,
581
ECOLOGY
"the inextricable
wholeness"
of particular
ecosystems,
documenting
same
verse.
in
about
that
that
is not all.
wholeness
But
go
poets
praising
a
Elder
"becomes
manifestation
of
and
writes,
"Poetry,"
landscape
climate,
just
as
are we
pressure
and ecosystem?
and
climate,
in
the
flora
ecosystem's
and
fauna
are."8
How
much
to put on the "just as" of Elder's analogy between poem
Does he mean
that poetry tends to be about landscape
the
same
manner
that
an
flora
ecosystem's
and
fauna
that
are, in some loose sense, "about" the same things? Or does he mean
are
a
and
climate
of
of
deterministic
and
its
landscape
region's poetry
flora and fauna, too: that the relationship
land
between
and
poetry,
like the relationship
between
flora and fauna, and
scape and climate,
is also a causal one? Regrettably,
Elder seems to
landscape and climate,
in its stronger form.
intend the analogy between poem and ecosystem
He does not appear to be bothered
in his
inherent
by the determinism
according
analogy,
poet's
address.
On
to which
this
account,
the poet's
all
poets
subject matter
must
be
is given
regionalists
by
the
because
are poets. That such is not the case seems only too
only regionalists
obvious;
literary history and natural history are, in this respect, disjoint.
not a "manifestation"
is
of anything,
apart from the conscious
Poetry
and unconscious
decisions
of poets, and the structural and
motivations
aesthetic
effects of the genres and languages
in which
they write. To
suppose otherwise
Elder's
analogy
is occult.
as well as literary grounds.
is faulty on scientific
the
the organismal
Earth, he conflates
Throughout
concept of
Imagining
the ecological
with that of the ecosystem.
The organismal
community
was discredited
as long ago as 1935, when A. G. Tansley
concept
the
landmark
article in which the concept of the "ecosystem"
published
was first put forward. Tansley intended
to be understood
the ecosystem
not as organistic,
as
but
The organismal
mechanistic.9
of the
concept
to Elder because
him with
it provides
community
appeals
an
like
something
objective correlative for his concept of poetry in a way
that the concept of the ecosystem
does not. Elder simply runs the two
as follows:
concepts
together. He characterizes
contemporary
ecology
"The science of ecology
confirms
of natural process:
the indivisibility
each feature of a landscape must be understood
to the
with reference
whole, just as the habits of each creature reflect, and depend upon, the
of life around
it" {IE 150). What Elder does not seem to
community
realize is that the science of ecology has not been able to confirm
"the
of natural process."
Since the 1960s, ecology has had to
indivisibility
divest itself, one after another, of vague concepts of this sort, of which
the classic example
is "everything
to everything
is connected
else." Such
not
have
to
amenable
scientific
however
confirmation,
concepts
proved
for
be
affirmation.
ripe they may
poetic
ecological
582
NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
it counts as science
tends to be a lot more
reductive
Ecology when
than Elder allows. If things were truly "inextricably" or indivisibly whole,
less any ecology. Thus many of the
there would be no science, much
core concepts
of ecology once notable
for their expansiveness
have in
recent
years
been
cut
down
to size,
made
more
particular,
or
abandoned
It now appears that even the ecosystem
concept may not be
altogether.
is primarily a
valid biologically.10 But valid concept or not, an ecosystem
never
and
therefore
could
be
the
theoretical
that
somehow
entity,
reality
even
of
is
if
that
the
underwrites
poetry,
poetry
good old-fashioned,
of
"organic" sort. Elder's attempt to found his hermeneutic
on what he takes to be bedrock
seems
truths
thus
ecological
even quixotic. He writes that "culture too may be understood
mistaken,
it is the field of relationship
between
and, as
organisms
organically:
a
own
in
its
But
assertion
this
such,
right" (IE 169).
complex organism
supposedly
wholeness
can be organisms,
that humans
the difficulty
and their
overlooks
can produce
culture
without
itself
interactions
culture,
being an organ
is crucial?without
culture
like an organism.
ism and?this
itself being
the organic
of the ecological
argument
concept
Tansley's
against
a
in
of
the
similar logic. Even
and
favor
followed
ecosystem
community
or ecosystems
if literary form and the form of ecological
communities
as it is to imagine in what, precisely,
such a similarity
so
as
to have
be
broad
would
little
similarity
might
a
It
would
be
coincidence.
just
significance.
diagnostic
In their flight from literary theory, ecocritics have ignored an inconve
nient fact: a considerable
body of what has to be called "theory" must be
one can speak sensibly about ecology. Good
at
the
before
least,
surveyed,
do not
and a receptive attitude while out hiking or canoeing
intentions
a
read
does
enable one to make ecological
judgments.
good
Enjoying
a
not make one a literary critic. It should follow, then, that enjoying
or
in
one's
enthusiasm
about
and
read
canoeing
sharing
hiking
good
realities are
lecture or print does not make one an ecocritic. Ecological
not necessarily more
obvious
than literary values, and they may be?
less so most of the time. It is unfortunate,
are?much
then,
probably
to date
to spend their efforts
in
have elected
ecocritics
that many
were
similar?hard
consist?that
with
the issues raised for them by their disgrundement
addressing
a
little
conceived
and
"ecology" bearing
theory
celebrating
spuriously
name.
to
to
that
has
notice
which
One
the science
resemblance
goes by
has come in the form of
that a lot of work calling itself "ecocriticism"
preliminary,
exploratory,
accusatory,
hortatory,
and
celebratory
essays.11
to write
have made
sustained
attempts
in defining
this
his work has been most important
ecocritically.
a
a close examination
now
turn
of
to
to
want
I
of
field
study,
emerging
in order to give the reader as clear a
recent book by Lawrence
Buell,
Only
a few
literary
Because
scholars
THEORY,
ECOCRITICISM,
AND
583
ECOLOGY
I will close
current state of play in ecocriticism.
picture as possible of the
to
the
A
Field
Guide
a
Peterson's
of
with
discussion
Birds, a
Roger Tory
as
and
Buell
of
and
defined
ecocriticism
critical
discussion
by
practiced
a
own
as
in
of
its
ecocriticism
intended
others, but nonetheless
piece
right.
II. The Claims
of Realism
to lay the
The Environmental
attempts
Imagination
aware
and to
of
for
texts,
literary
environmentally
readings
groundwork
in
take
that
the
research
ecocritical
the
program might
suggest
shape
of
of
nineteenth
and
those
works
the future. As a wide-ranging
survey
should find of
American
literature
that ecocritics
twentieth-century
a
treat
Buell's
is
valuable
book.
The
Environmental
interest,
Imagination
on
ment
he
and
has
of his subject matter
the
verges
encyclopedic,
a
to
and
about
his
about
Thoreau,
say
specialty,
things
interesting
diverse group of other writers,
too, including Susan Fenimore
Cooper,
Aldo Leopold, Annie Dillard, and Leslie Marmon
Silko.
the book's virtues as a survey of a neglected
aspect of literary
Despite
not
The
the
I
do
that
resolves
think
Environmental
history,
Imagination
can
is
That
of
ecocriticism.
that
be
theoretical
imbroglio
something
Lawrence
Buell's
if one approaches
the lingering
literary theory without
treatment
of
it
His
towards
Buell
still
feels.
theory initially
suspicion
seems less hostile
he is
than that of many of his ecocritical
colleagues;
some
to
at
He
there
consideration.
that
least,
argues
willing,
give theory
some of the basic analytical premises
is a need "to refine and reevaluate
used by 'trained' readers of literature," and that "an inquiry into the
forces us to question
the premises of literary
environmental
imagination
done
only
its resources
to expose
the limitations of literature's
insists
that
such
will enable
even-handedness
representations."
to break through the force field of formalist self-containment
ecocritics
which for so long cut texts off from the world, while avoiding
the plunge
into the universe of "intractable textuality" contemporary
literary theory
runs the risk of fence-straddling,
but
approach
posits.12 This balanced
Buell adopts it in a principled
way.
theory while
using
Buell
The
principle
"Environmental
to which
praxis"
he appeals most
is the
solvent
engendered
by a conflicted
paradoxes
texts. Buell writes: "'Ecocriticism' might
the relation
commitment
between
literature
to environmental
commitment
to environmental
that
strongly
allows
is not a literary one.
ecocritics
to undo
the
texts and
readers of
succinctiy be defined as study of
and environment
conducted
in a spirit of
to the "spirit of
praxis."13 Appealing
world
of
praxis" allows Buell
to reject out of hand
584
NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
as either unhelpful
or harmful,
or both. In
notions
theoretical
a
seems
to
be
this way, he disposes of what
for critics of the
shibboleth
of rep
and postmodern
"The conception
poststructuralist
persuasions:
as an ideological
nature
resented
"becomes
screen," Buell writes,
certain
if it is used to portray the green world as nothing more
than
or
to
Much
such
social
better
fantasy
projective
allegory."
reject
"typical
of academic
results of a metropolitan-based
criticism," and
enterprise
a sense of the "experiential
or referential
instead
seek to recover
or
With
referential
of
literature.
the
"experiential
aspects"
aspects" of
unfruitful
literature
in mind,
one
can
treat
literary
texts
not
as
detractions
from
to our interaction with the natural world: "Vision
but as contributions
can correlate not with dominance
but with receptivity, and knowledge
with ecocentrism,"
Buell writes. And he adds: "Contemporary
literary
it hard to see this side of the story?and
thus
theory, however, makes
the prospect of environmental
of awakening
from
reorientation,
more
to
it
the metropolitan
than
needs
be"
dream,
(El 430n20,
unlikely
36,82).
our capacity for intimate acquaintance
is right to emphasize
Buell
makes
with nature, over and against the tendency of some theorists to assume
the efforts of natural
the entire otherness
of nature and to question
about that otherness.
But though it may be
science to learn something
on disjunction
true that "the emphasis
text and world seems
between
to
me
a
at
to
not
it
all
is
how
clear
overblown,"
"spirit of commitment
to
is
what
has
sufficient
environmental
theory
join together
praxis"
that theory induces
(El 84). The dissociation
put asunder
supposedly
so
to
not
the
How
cured.
does
be
may
easily
"spirit of commitment
on
link
the
the
ecocritics
with
of
environmental
up
part
practice
praxis"
of environmental
activists and working
ecologists? Or is Buell speaking
case the "spirit of commit
in which
here only of ecocritical
practice,
or
more
Are
in the unenviable
the
ecocritics
ment"
is,
less,
"praxis"?
on
of
those
in
who are better
of
efforts
other
the
fields
cheering
position
activ
environmental
able to engage directly?that
is, professionally?in
If
ecocriticism
of ecological
then
ism and the production
so,
knowledge?
would seem to be just another variety of academic
agitprop.14
I do not think that this is all there is to Buell's position: he ismaking
can
a much
stronger claim. For him, literature and literary criticism
in
and
in
"environmental
propria persona.
praxis" directly
participate
he is not just
Here one notices a break or pivot point in his argument:
more
than "an ideological
screen,"
saying that nature itself is something
a
or
a "projective fantasy
with which one has
social allegory,"
proposition
as described
in
no trouble
that nature
is suggesting
agreeing.15 He
texts
at
also
and
in
is
texts
certain
least
is
often,
sometimes,
quite
literary
than "an ideological
screen," a "projective fantasy or
something more
ECOCRITICISM,
AND
THEORY,
585
ECOLOGY
should give one pause: it seems at
social allegory." And this proposition
are basic to
the fact that ideology,
odds with
fantasy, and allegory
are
or
not always the products of faulty style
literature. They
"homocen
as the projec
tric" and "egocentric"
values, nor can they be dismissed
tions of critics who have read too much
theory. Buell, however, claims
that the nature
and the nature in literature make
it possible
o/literature
to environmental
to work
in "a spirit of commitment
to do so without
irrelevance of
fretting about the possible
for ecocritics
praxis," and
their professional
behavior.
Buell
taps the vein of not just realism but
runs throughout
ecocriticism.
Its realism-cum
seems
a
to
sort of rescue
ecocriticism
often
be
positivism
explains why
to nature?to
mission:
both nonfictional
and fictional
the
references
habits of animals, the round of the seasons, the folkways of farmers, the
sense of place, and the like?are
characterized
by ecocritics as sweeping
a
in
the
of
obfuscation
(counter) revolutionary
away
(re)estab
theory
of realistic
lishment
Because
literary priorities.
literary theory made
seem doubtful,
those priorities
Buell
is eager to
like other ecocritics
this claim,
By making
outright positivism which
expose
own
theory's
and
shortcomings
overreachings.
Thus
one
gets
the
The Environmental
that Buell
has
feeling
reading
Imagination
a
in
embraced
to
Delilah-like
in
order
of
shear
it
its
fashion,
theory
one
can
This
is
when
he
that
the
utilize
strength.
suggests
implied
some of its "premises."
"resources" of literary theory while questioning
to rejecting
That seems to amount
the "premises" of theory, such as the
claim that a text can have no direct
it
with the world
relationship
some
while
of
the
abstruse
of
flavor
theoretical
represents,
retaining
rhetoric and even some of the intellectual
theorists have
framework
while
constructed.
needs a rationale
that will enable
Buell, I believe ecocriticism
the "resources" of literary theory while retaining
some respect
the force of theory's "premises," for it is surely the case that the
Unlike
it to use
for
"premises"
of
are
theory
its
"resources."
Unfortunately,
adopting
such
a
rationale means
letting go of, or at least relaxing one's grip on, the
central claim of Buell's book. This is the claim that ecocriticism
should
a sense of the "experiential
focus on recovering
or referential
aspects" of
literature. By pressing
that claim, Buell like other ecocritics
falls prey to
the false hope that there is some beyond of literature, call it nature or
or
wilderness
ecological
or
community
ecosystem
or
environment,
where
deliverance
from the constraints
of culture,
that
particularly
constraint known as "theory," might be found. Do not get me wrong: I
think there is a beyond of literature. There is, for
example, nature. I just
think that nature cannot deliver one from the constraints of culture, any
more
than
culture
can
deliver
one
from
the
constraints
of
nature.
586
NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
or referential
Buell means
What
by "the experiential
aspects" of
literature are its realistic aspects, and in The Environmental Imagination he
often calls for a return to realism both in the literature of nature and
in that literature. The most important
context
among critics interested
for Buell's
of realism
embrace
has always been
conducted
often
values?values
natural
is the study of American
literature, which
in a spirit of advocacy of democratic
and
as
regarded
identical?over
and
the
against
and
values of its European
artificial
counterpart
true of the study of the American
This is especially
Renais
forerunner.
in which Buell
is most expert, when
sance, the pre-Civil War period
writers cared about
values were the ones American
democratic/natural
and
hierarchical
the most.
Nature
and
themselves
in these writers'
centrally
figured
their
Buell's
Thus
country.
to
attempt
of
imagination
put
nature
once
more at the top of the cultural docket might be seen as the restatement
of a very old and familiar theme.16 He tries to generate an account of the
of a national
from within
the confines
environmental
imagination
as it so happens,
of its special relationship
literature long ago convinced,
to nature. He recognizes
has always been based on a
that this conviction
view
reductive
of
therefore
project
of
consequences
"America-as-nature"
involves filling
the
(El
15).
out the details
"America-as-nature"
Buell's
own
and working
expansive
out
the true
vision.17
if a new or a
To return to the most important point at issue, Iwonder
realism with regard to nature would be as restorative of clarity
texts
limits itself to reading
realistic
thinks. If ecocriticism
an
to
be
reduced
its
role,
may
umpire's
realistically,
practitioners
of a painted
trillium or a live oak
to see if a given description
squinting
and lively. I have read ecocritical
tree is itself well-painted
essays that
to little more
amount
than this kind of referee work. Literary realism
can seem inert
and even the sharpest description
privileges description,
or
if it does not occur in a narrative context heightened
by philosophical
recovered
as Buell
psychological
selves
be
or political
"realistic"
to have
or scientific
some
real
interests,
urgency.18
which
In other
need
not
cultural
them
arenas
a surfeit
of nature has produced
the pursuit of realism in the depiction
of kitsch. The best example of this is that school of wildlife art running
to depictions
deer and of leaping
whitetail
of heavily-antlered
mosdy
nature lover with a flat, fishy eye.
at
art
and
the
bass
gazing
largemouth
realist.
the eye of the dogmatic
The latter is an eye not unlike
is a creed
seems
of
the
that
realism
It also
literary variety
likely
a
for
the
unsuited
aesthetic
outworn,
production
nineteenth-century
of art at the turn of the millennium.
and the understanding
Literary
realism has always been oriented more toward the social?that
is, toward
toward the natural world. Realism
the artificial?than
is, in fact, a
"metropolitan"
form,
defined
in American
literature
by the New York
THEORY,
ECOCRITICISM,
and Boston
want
to
novels
promote
AND
of James, Howells,
environmental
587
ECOLOGY
and Wharton.19
literature
in
the
Do ecocritics
retrograde
and
really
poten
terms of realism? The result can only be a middle
tially contradictory
brow literature of nature informed only by middle-class
values, and too
nature
is
like
that
much
contemporary
writing
already.
of literature notbe
Buell, Iwant to urge that the "ecocentrism"
to hinge on how well literature represents
the natural world.
understood
is usually much weaker than visual representation,
Verbal representation
of scientific
the importance
for one thing; that iswhy scientists discount
and prefer whenever
their ideas using
they can to express
writing,
and new tech
differential
equations,
graphs, charts, tables, diagrams,
For another,
it seems to me that this way of putting
the case
nologies.
Unlike
sooner or later falls apart, just as it is said to do by the skeptics of modern
and literary theory alike. Pointing out that the predictions
of
philosophy
such skeptics are "overblown" does no good, since that result is one with
it is often
which
their whole
comfortable;
they are entirely
point.
are not moderates.
to be overblown,
to
Radical
intend
Skeptics
critiques
blow things apart: to deconstruct
them.
to the author of
Some of these worries and reservations have occurred
The Environmental Imagination, which helps to explain why, in the chapter
the Environment,"
he makes
entitled
his case for the
"Representing
in such an odd way.20 Buell's version of the
value of literary realism
realistic
representational
which he borrows from
scenario
the notion
involves
of ad?quation,
the French poet Francis Ponge. Buell comes to
nature
indirectly, by way of Sherman Paul's book on American
Ponge
For
as
Paul
Love
the
World.
describes
"a
of
writing,
ad?quation
literary
that respects the thing and lets it stand forth. Ad?quation is
equivalence
not to be confused with correspondence: It is not a symbolic mode but an
to the thing itself."21 Paul
activity in words that is literally comparable
as
an
to
understands
skirt
the edges of realism-as
attempt
ad?quation
without
it.
into
The
notion
of "a literary
correspondence
lapsing
that
the
and
lets
it
stands
forth," however,
respects
equivalence
thing
seems too indeterminate,
and vaguely Heideggerian,
overly metaphorical,
is very vague indeed. Paul's further qualification
which
of ad?quation as
"an activity in words that is literally comparable
to the thing itself is still
a bit murky,
largely because when Paul says that "an activity in words" is
to the thing itself," all he means by "literally" is that
"literally comparable
in
the "activity in words" to "the thing itself." He
can,
fact, compare
you
does not mean
that the activity is a literal representation
of the thing.
its
more
this
second
definition
is
somewhat
than
murk,
Despite
helpful
the first. What Paul
cites, as an example
description
is actually
suggesting becomes
entirely clear when he
of ad?quation, a passage from Thoreau's
Cape Cod, a
of rolling breakers composed
a
of
series of rolling periods:
588
NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
a variety of literary
Paul understands
the
ad?quation is
impressionism.
as
a
sort
of
in
imitation
of
the
which
the
mimesis
concept
entailing
not
at
in
certain
the
formal
inheres
present
necessarily
object
qualities
or
to
level of the individual word,
clause.
Paul,
phrase,
According
content,
ad?quation transpires when form becomes
thereby freeing what
is usually regarded as content from the gloomier prospects of referential
seem inadequate. Ad?quation gives you some
itmight
specificity, wherein
sense of the gist of the thing, without
about
itself overmuch
concerning
the
itself.
giving you
thing
Buell makes different hay of the concept, which he says he finds too
But his own gloss on ad?quation is, I think, more
idealistic
(E/464n31).
than Paul's, not less. Impressionism,
neutral
with regard to representation.
relatively
of
its
implications
impressionistic
ad?quation
it could
idealistic
into
concept
an
armature
a more
of
be
is
argued,
has to drain
to turn the
So Buell
in order
form
traditional
of
realism.
He
that
writes that adequate
involve "verbalizations
literary representations
are not replicas but equivalents
of the world of objects, such that writing
in some measure
the abyss that inevitably
yawns between
bridges
on
This
the concept
of
the
and
(?7 98).
gloss
object-world"
language
ad?quation
traces
bears
a
of
of
theory
lurking
some
correspondence,
as well as
thing Paul specifically rejects. And Buell shifts Paul's grammar
a
feature
of a
his meaning.
and
qualitative
general
"Equivalence,"
a more
in Paul's account, becomes
certain kind of literary performance
in Buell's:
it becomes
substantive and specific feature of "verbalization"
the "equivalent"
and the
between
The distinction
the "equivalent."
is a nice
"replica"
it?below.
words
are
Of
one,
course,
and
it may
As
near-synonyms.
I will
try
to
it cash
give
be no distinction
for
"the
abyss
that
value?to
"measure"
at all, given
that the two
yawns
inevitably
between
so dear
language and the object-world," why does Buell credit this idea,
to
wants
The
to those theories whose
he
challenge?
thought
"premises"
in touch with language, and by extension,
that we can be systematically
is
with nature,
with culture, and out of touch with "the object-world,"
mistakes
the
one that has broad currency
in ecocritical
and
it
circles,
character
language
of
is
both
essentially
culture
and
nature.
representational,
Once
however,
one
accepts
mistake
this
that
our
seems
a
it, ecocritics
spend their time trying to bridge
Having made
rift that does not exist. This last assertion will seem startling to some
readers. All I care to say in defense of it here is that I am persuaded
by
and
like Richard Rorty, Daniel Dennett,
of philosophers
the arguments
inevitable.
to the effect that traditional philosophical
worries about
Ian Hacking,
the world ultimately make no sense
the ability of language to represent
in the light of our evolutionary
history and our scientific practices. The
are bound to take seriously, along
latter are two things I think ecocritics
THEORY,
ECOCRITICISM,
AND
589
ECOLOGY
with the sort of antimetaphysical,
arguments Rorty, Dennett,
pragmatic
and Hacking
make. Ecocritics
have not been
taking those things and
in
those arguments
and
much
of
their
work to date, discred
seriously,
are never more than a
ited "correspondence"
theories of representation
or
synonym
two
away.22
Buell mentions
Roger Tory Peterson's A Field Guide to theBirds as a text
the
of theory on the possibility
animadversions
of its
which,
despite
a
vital relationship with the world and is adequate
in a
doing so, sustains
sense of the term. But appealing
to Peterson does not
fulsome, Pongean
allow Buell to make a case for the literary text's vital maintenance
of the
same relationship,
is not a literary text. All he does,
because Peterson's
on to
before moving
then, is invoke the Field Guide as a touchstone,
texts
same
consider
he
sort
the
of
which,
argues,
literary
perform
a
If
a
and
referential
work.
of
bird
in
representational
"stylized image"
. . . viewer
can
field guide
the
Peterson's
in
the
touch
with
"put
to expect that stylized
environment,"
then, Buell reasons, it is legitimate
same
do
the
may
(El
97).
literary images
thing
and Peterson,
Buell cites a few examples
of
invoking Ponge
he
considers
models
of
works
and
realism.
literary
ad?quation
Though
is highly problematic,
each of these examples
only a couple of them
need to be reexamined
here. Buell first discusses a passage from Gerard
After
Manley
Hopkins's
"Pied Beauty":
poem
Glory be to God for dappled
things,?
as a brindled
cow;
couple-colour
For rose-moles
trout
all in stipple
that
upon
Fresh-firecoal
finches'
chestnut-falls;
wings;
For
skies
Landscape
And
all
of
In the crucial moment
the poem's
noting
But
have
how
delicately
responsive
to see trout's
effectively,
environmental
the
aestheticist
pieced?fold,
and
landscape.
In short:
intended
fallow,
and
and
trim.
tackle
gear,
on
commentary
artfulness, he exclaims:
of Buell's
the poem
"rose-moles
bonding.
distortion
is to the
all
in
stimuli
stipple"?
the poet
plough;
this passage,
it registers!
this way,
In
Who
after
would
aestheticism
a
fish;
painted
its body
makes
this is a live trout
for an
shimmering
another
evokes
the
glance,
Hopkins
the mottled
look of the
agricultural
Literally,
animates
can be no
There
that
question
in Hopkins's
imaginary
pool. With
and
look of chestnut-falls,
with
another
palpable.
instant
feel
their
polished
thought
produces
and
plotted
trades,
swim;
the
trout
sees
and
(El 98)
It seems to me that if this commentary
is
"Spot-on, Hopkins!"
as ecocriticism,
then ecocriticism
may benefit from a strong
590
NEW
dose of formalism.
Otherwise,
formalism?and
after
mode
correct
and
improve
LITERARY
lapse into the merely
theory?was
originally
itmay
it,
HISTORY
appreciative
to
intended
upon.
that Buell's
of Hopkins's
is "merely
poem
reading
mean
to
I
that
it
itself
is
rather
than
suggest
poetic,
appreciative,"
critical. Such a reading invites quibbles
it cannot resolve. For example,
to interpret what
Buell's
consider
the poem
attempt
"registers" as
By
implying
terms like "all
list of categorical
and therefore
abstract
cannot
be
and
tackle
their
and
trim"
covered
trades,
gear,
by this rubric.
can
an
more
But neither
like "fresh-firecoal
ostensibly
specific phrase
sense. The
to make mimetic
of which
it is very difficult
chestnut-falls,"
is elusive,
"feel and look" of "fresh-firecoal
chestnut-falls"
given the
of what
undecidable
undecided,
question
they are: fallen
perhaps
"stimuli." A
chestnuts? fallen
limbs of chestnut
chestnut
leaves? firewood
scavenged from the dropped
trees? the coals remaining
from a fire built out of that
seems motivated
wood? The phrase "fresh-firecoal
chestnut-falls"
by
across his point about
to
desire
the
put
Hopkins's
glory of God by
for example?to
creating
"dappled" effects of language?alliteration,
of meaning;
suggest that glory, even if he has to do so at the expense
come
to enlist
also
here.
considerations
into
Buell
tries
rhythmic
play
sort in
self-referential
of
this
and
aesthetic
features
formal
highly
seem
to
realist
is why
of
the
militate
That
support
against.
reading they
he claims that the poet "literally" sees
trout in Hopkins's
is "painted"
poem
such twists of logic because he wants
can effect
artifice
that heightened
natural: "There can be no question
for an instant
questions
in Hopkins's
to ask
about
such
in fact, the
He
only metaphorically.
employs
his reader to accept the paradox
a heightened
of the
perception
that this is a live trout shimmering
imaginary pool."23 But there are a number of
a trout,
not
"a painted
least
the
trout" when,
question
of whether
an
"imaginary pool" is the sort of habitat in which "live trout" fare the best.
things in the
By trying to peg particular details in the poem to particular
notion
of
makes
the originally
"stimuli"?Buell
world?to
expansive
trout
seem
all
in
"rose-moles
that
reductive:
upon
stipple
ad?quation
a replica after all. It is
swim" is a Buellian
equivalent, which seems to be
not an instant of Pongean
ad?quation.
is not Buell's
It may be that the reading of poetry
strong suit. The
of the strengths of what
Environmental Imagination is chiefly a celebration
or "environmental
nonfiction"
he likes to call "environmental
prose."24
to the ghettos
is usually
of
that such prose
He complains
relegated
if his
and special-topics
freshman writing programs
courses; I wonder
some
to it does not afford
undertheorized,
contradictory
approach
so.
Consider
another
of
his
this
be
about
examples
why
might
suggestion
of ad?quation, this one from the natural history writer John Janovy Jr.'s
ECOCRITICISM,
AND
THEORY,
591
ECOLOGY
Keith County Journal. In a passage cited for its excellence
by Buell, Janovy
some of the habits of caddis flies living in a stream in western
describes
Nebraska:
One
has
to visualize
at a very
rapid
to the branches
lesser
branches
flies.
caddis
impressive
in a house,
a
senses
each
fly
of
colony
larva that
these
of
these
by
One
itself....
cliff
swallows,
chose
twigs
the
but
larvae
to build
no
sensed
My
many
covered
twigs
with
also
submerged,
on
for
homesites
twigs
a hand
lens. Each
larva
with
rather
in
large
mind
larvae.
were
colony
a set
sensed
of
of
caddis
of
cold
rushing-hard
that
creek
by these
. . . there
trapped
three.
and
dangling
flies'
dependence
at
looked
the
down
coming
being
Whitetail
the banks,
of
was
was
beneath
one
beneath
insects
food
and
rate,
along
. . .The
fact
only until
constructed
of
life
kind
back
amounts,
goes
and
the
some
three:
Whitetail
flies,
instructions
was
lived
as one
within
. . .25
a house.
it does not
this description
of caddis flies is entirely adequate,
to be so in a Pongean
it is also perfectly prosaic. But
sense, because
Buell treats it as if itwere as vivid and intense as Hopkins's
poem, and as
one
to
the
visualize"
that
"has
artful. He
saying
interprets Janovy's
life of the caddis flies, that his "mind goes back" to an earlier
underwater
of the river, and that one "senses" no collective
identity for
exploration
the caddis flies but only the working out of a genetic pattern, as evidence
While
seem
us that his image is a
that "Janovy disclaims
objectivity,
reminding
"the
that
little
narrative"
about the caddis flies
and
constructed
thing,"
Its being "a complete
not living colonially
is "a complete
fabrication."
is false, however;
that "the litde narrative"
does not mean
fabrication"
of the caddis flies "comports
Buell concedes
that Janovy's description
is symbiotic with the
facts: the inner landscape
with the entomological
outer." But since Janovy "could not possibly have seen" some of the
the scene," Buell argues,
"with
things he reports, he has "to portray
than we would see
much more vividness and intensity and magnification
But why does Buell think Janovy "could not
it in the field" (?7101,102).
he
have
what
describes?
of the
seen"
Surely his "magnification"
possibly
scene he describes
to the hand lens he used to view
is to be attributed
of those
the caddis fly larvae. Buell turns Janovy's literal magnification
of skepticism
and adopts an initial position
larvae into a metaphor,
about Janovy's
abandon
when
description
the
time
of
comes
the caddis
to
flies
celebrate
the
he
is only
passage's
too eager
to
realism.
In his readings of Hopkins
is intended,
and Janovy, Buell's skepticism
one supposes,
to be the more
it is only a
"theoretical"
But
position.
so
it nor the celebration
caricature.
Neither
of realism
that follows
are
seem
is
to
it
both
what
be
closely upon
convincing:
by
produced
as the literal and of the
of the metaphorical
deliberate
misreadings
literal as the metaphorical.
Ad?quation
will
not
bear
the construction
592
NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
that the power
Buell attempts to impose on it.He seems to be suggesting
in
the
it
skillful
of environmental
lies
way
writing
plays peek-a-boo with a
world it knows is there all along.
III. How To Use This Book
Let me
the problems with the idea that "representa
further unpack
and with the idea that
is the essence of environmental
writing,
is the narrative of discovery
it relates
what is exciting about such writing
even if that narrative
is ersatz, by discussing
the work of Roger Tory
"field-mark" system is widely regarded as the most
Peterson.
Peterson's
the poor
efficient
effective
and most
way to identify birds under
tion"
such
conditions,
as
often
glare,
color-obscuring
encountered
outdoors.
is any distinctive
feature setting one species of bird apart
barred tail feathers, eyebrow
its near congeners:
from others, especially
an
a
unusual
illustrations
decurved
bill,
flight pattern. Peterson's
ridges,
a
with
student
of the
arrows?and
field-marks?occasionally,
highlight
a bird in terms of its abstract patterns of
Field Guide learns to recognize
rather than in
in so far as those patterns differ from others,
marking
can be
terms of its overall body image or coloration,
both of which
as remarkably variable within
as
across
similar
well
species,
remarkably
birder is defacto also an experienced
"reader" of
species. An experienced
a
to
the
has
Such
birder
the Field Guide.
flitting
ability
identify juncos
in winter merely by catching a glimpse of
through a patch of underbrush
to
their white outer tail feathers, an ability which can seem inexplicable
A "field-mark"
that it derives from the
Buell understands
Lawrence
the uninitiated.
success
of the Field Guide
that
the
of
Peterson's
images, argues
adequacy
"the
demonstrates
viewer
in touch with
precisely
stylization
what
must
of
capacity
the
stylized
the environment,"
needs
stressing
somehow
work
as
a
against
to
image
and suggests
counter
outer
to
the
mimesis
put
the
or
reader
"is
that this capacity
assumptions
or
take
that
prece
dence over it" (?797-98).
I do not think that the example of Peterson's Field Guide makes Buell's
case, not in the way he says it does. Buell is right to claim that texts can
in touch with the world. But his brief account of
offer ways of getting
text
does that is too simplistic. First of all, it seems to me
how Peterson's
in
that Peterson's
illustrations do, in fact, "work against outer mimesis,"
the silhouettes
showing the
example,
forms of accipiters,
characteristic
falcons, and kites when viewed from
less than mimetic
below?are
by design. This point ismade by Peterson
in the "How To Use This Book" chapter of the Field Guide's first
himself
his illustrations, he writes: "As they are not intended
edition. Regarding
the sense
that many
of them?for
ECOCRITICISM,
THEORY,
AND
ECOLOGY
593
or portraits,
is
to be pictures
of form and feathering
all modelling
so that simple contour and pattern
eliminated where it can be managed,
if not, indeed, a confusing,
remain. Even color is often an unnecessary,
is
and
In
Field
Guide
other
the
factor."26
words,
numerically parsimonious,
are
not
so.
based
abstractions
illustrations
Peterson's
only
deliberately
on the illustrator's field experiences,
but on what might be called the
consensus
in the ornithological
image of a given species as recorded
are not
of observation:
the simple products
they
They
at
the
of
others
of
avian
certain
expense
aspects
physiology
emphasize
to an observer
but are less
in fact, may be equally visible
which,
a
have
of
formal
for
identification.
And
purposes
they
quality
significant
not observable
in the real world. Most of the birds in the Field Guide are
literature.
shown in side view, as if they had posed for police mug shots. Wild birds
not oblige you by turning to the right on request. Nor will they
or in
spread their tail feathers, erect their crests, flash their wing-bars,
sets
from
what
them
similar
birds?
indicate
other,
any way
apart
is considered
should you
"diagnostic,"
precisely why seeing a field-mark
be so lucky as to see it.27
I realize, and it invites a quarrel about the
This may seem picayune,
will
of the word "mimetic." A similar quarrel could be had about
meaning
the meaning
of "stylization," for that matter. Very well, then: this is the
claim about Peterson
second point Buell's
fails to consider. Mimesis
sameness
the represented
the
of
the
and
presumes
representation
object.
inferior
Earlier field guides, and the Peterson
guide's
contemporaries,
to the
and in their natural habitats, according
depict birds numerically
as
of
bird
like
refined
Audubon.
techniques
by painters
portraiture
Peterson's Field Guide is only incidentally mimetic,
precisely because his
were
to
his
innovations
base
field-mark
system on the diagnostic
great
one
to ignore many of the
and
and
between
bird
another,
difference
in the manner
of Audubon
of bird portraiture
conventions
and others,
more
to
I
instead
his
avian
portray
opting
subjects
schematically?and
would argue, in a notably
is synthetic;
the
less "stylized" way. Mimesis
images in the Field Guide are splendidly analytic. They are, to retranslate
the term Buell borrows from Ponge, merely adequate. And the
and modify
merely
adequate
image is not the same as a realistic image of the sort
Buell
the merely
celebrates;
adequate
image may eschew realism alto
a
seems
and
it
less
lot
The Field Guide
gether,
aesthetically.
exciting
as the Double
reduces the visual field and makes ornithology
portable,
Folio
of
edition
Birds
Audubon's
which
Elephant
of America,
might have
been a better text for Buell to ponder as an exemplary work of realism,
does not. Peterson's drawings are intentionally
less vivid than Audubon's,
in order to convey more
information
about each species, so that "live
birds may be run down by impressions,
patterns, and distinctive marks"
594
NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
(T^Gv-vi).
by birders in the field, as Peterson puts it in his 1934 preface
down live birds in this way means
that the Peterson-trained
Running
birder does not look for the whole bird or the bird-in-itself.
Field Guide in terms of its usefulness
Buell's celebration
of Peterson's
as a text also seems problematic
no
for a third reason: he provides
use.
so
of
its
further
status
actual
calls
into
its
description
Doing
question
as a touchstone
of realism. Using Peterson's
guide is not, after all, simply
a matter of
it and matching
in the
up a visual representation
perusing
text with the visual appearance
of a bird in the field: more
than that is
bird,
required to identify the bird in hand?the
a
in
the
the
of
binoculars?with
bird
bush,
pair
learn.
Peterson's
field-mark
system
encourages
that is, in view through
as novice birders soon
a
process
of
"identifica
In "How To Use This Book," Peterson
tion by elimination."
the
explains
as
a
to
"It
is
behind
this
often
know
what
bird
process:
logic
quite
helpful
could not be as what it might be" (FG xx). The user of the Field Guide
must
therefore
consult
both
its illustrations
and the book's
other
text accompanying
such as the descriptive
each illustration on
resources,
the opposite page, in order to decide
"what a bird could not be." If that
a bird's
not
does
the
issue
of
setde
identity, then the birder
description
must resort to the habitat maps in the back of the book (included
in its
recent editions).
are
not
it
to
should
be
limited
clear,
"Field-marks,"
like
visual features, but also comprise
habitat
range,
things
geographic
and flight
such as interspecial
preferences,
flocking,
typical behaviors
a
must
And
the
birder
"reader."
Such
the
become
case,
patterns.
being
or
Annie
is not like the reader of Thoreau,
the "reader" of Peterson
say,
or
It ismore
like a cookbook,
the Field Guide is not a narrative.
Dillard:
a piece of software; the new CD-ROM version is a piece of software. The
adequacy of Peterson's
inherently,
images is not a quality they possess
then,
and
impress
upon
"readers"
in
the
course
of
their
perusal
of
the
Field Guide front to back. The adequacy of Peterson's
images evolves out
of their use by birders. I do not think the same can be said of Thoreau's
in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek; of Thoreau's
images in Waiden, or of Dillard's
images,
not
very
often,
and
of Dillard's,
almost
never.
as opposed
to Carolina
the identity of Black-capped
Establishing
to
out
turn
be
and I am
Chickadees
may
surprisingly
complicated,
are
so
common.
because
these species exemplary
they
precisely
making
an
an
nonde
birder glimpses
that
apparendy
inexperienced
Suppose
on
a
a
winter walk
while out for
gloomy day in the
script chickadee
it is cold, the chickadee
Poconos
Because
of northeastern
Pennsylvania.
its winter-worn
in question
is ruffled in appearance,
feathers elevated for
is
And
it
the sake of the insulation
flitting about, feeding
they provide.
the
of
in
last
hour
through the Field
daylight. Flipping
actively
remaining
that either version of the chickadee's
Guide, the birder first realizes
ECOCRITICISM,
THEORY,
AND
or
song?chick-a-dee-dee-dee,
ECOLOGY
the
same
595
thing,
but
higher
pitched?is
she looks once more
at
just heard.28 Next
plausibly
Peterson's
illustrations, and realizes that she did not see the characteris
of the Black-capped.
tic white wing-stripe
Then
she reads Peterson's
note
about
conditions
("season, wear, angle of light,
poor
discouraging
to
not
and
confess
has
that
her
that
etc.")
having seen it does not mean
was not there. Despairing,
the white wing-stripe
she consults Maps 246
and 247, and realizes that she has chosen that day to go for a walk in one
to a note on Map 246,
of those liminal areas the maps chart. According
is known to winter south of its normal range in some
the Black-capped
years, and the note to Map 247 points out that the Carolina's
range
what
she has
To make matters worse, Map
"slighdy overlaps" that of the Black-capped.
two
the
text's
reiterates
that
the
247
warning
species "mingle at times
and hybrids are known." Finally, our conjectural naturalist, her attention
notices
that Map 248 shows the range of
called
wandering,
something
the Boreal Chickadee,
is "casual south to n. 111.,Ohio, Pa., N.J.,
which
that is not
Md.," but only in "chickadee
flight years," a phenomenon
seen this rare visitor
she possibly
Could
to the
described.29
have
Poconos?
Could
she glimpsed
the chickadee
have been a sport of
even more
Could she have
nature, a hybrid, or something
teratological?
to the
picked a worse time and place to go for a walk, and put Peterson
test?30
This birder is now confronted
with a variety of interpretive
options.
to be followed
there are protocols
in cases like hers. But in
Fortunately,
order to decide which of the two, possibly
it
three, kinds of chickadee
is that she has just seen, she is going to have to rely on
more
something
than just the resources provided
this case, Peterson's?and
by text?in
it is now that dark night in which all chickadees
are black.
world, where
a better "reader"?a
It will help her, of course, to become
better user?
to figure out what he means when he says that a
of Peterson's
guide,
bird is "casual" in a given area and to learn what "chickadee
flight
years" are. She may have to consult other field guides, a regional bird
list, back issues of Birder's Digest and Birder's World, audio and video
the National
Audubon
recordings,
Society's Interactive CD-ROM Guide
toNorth American Birds, and perhaps
even the rare bird alerts posted at
She
<http:www.virtualbirder.com>.
might have to go back out and beat
the bushes more
next
the
if need be, in
aggressively
day, intervening,
the chickadee's
life by "pishing"
the
alarm
bird's
call) in
(mimicking
order to encourage
it to show itself to her. She may need to
buy a new
of
binoculars.
All
of
this
users
is
what
habituated
of
Peterson's
pair
Field Guide might do in such cases, which are
or
by no means unusual
The
not
user
has
the
of
the
in
atypical.
"stylized image"
put
guide
touch with the environment,
as Buell argues. In this instance,
the
quite
596
NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
the environment
has put the user of the guide
has happened:
as Buell calls
in touch with the "stylized image." And that "transaction,"
another
it, in turn puts her to considering
stylized
image, and yet
reverse
while
another,
she
fresh
now
returns,
and
to
again,
transaction
(El97).
the
entails
environment
further
for
action.
She
text
Every
impressions
in a lot of this back-and-forth?between
is going to have to engage
and world, and world and text; between
"stylized image" and bird, and
to know what kind of
she really wants
bird and "stylized image"?if
chickadee
she saw. I think that it is this going back and forth between
text and world, and between nature and culture, and the development
like binoculars
of tools and techniques,
and computers
and "pishing,"
a
to enable
"in
which
notion
like
touch
with
the
it,
gives
getting
environment"
use
of
worth
whatever
a
as
Peterson
itmay
of
touchstone
have:
"outer
a fourth
reason why Buell's
seems
mimesis"
mistaken.
like the perpetually
this means
that Peterson's Field Guide ismore
no
texts
recent
celebrated
than
Buell
open
recognizes:
by
theory
ever
one
is
of
the
Field
Guide
achieves
"closure."
This, indeed,
"reading"
but of its usefulness,
of the book's virtues, a sign not of its shortcomings
At the same time,
and explains why copies of it are often dog-eared.
text is probably
less like the sort of text Buell really wishes to
Peterson's
All
in
celebrate,
is more
it
that
more
constrained,
and
scientific,
more
in more
than one medium
and form to help put us
resourceful, working
text also invites
In short, Peterson's
in touch with the natural world.
to
less
do
that text's
these
much
But
have
with
quibbles
quibbles.
in
the
differences
than
which
between
with
myriad ways
species
vagaries
This should remind us
in the course of avian evolution.
have ramified
realism and literary realism are not only not the same
that scientific
thing,
be
they may
less
realism,
even be opposed
"realistic,"
in
the
because
it
is
sense
less
to one another.
in which
reliant
Buell
on
uses
Scientific
realism may
the
than
term,
But
representation.
the
literary
conse
of
of scientific realism are immediate, while the consequences
are
not.
"How
has
In
the
if
it
deliberate
any,
admirably
literary realism,
the field
To Use This Text," Peterson
urges those who wish to employ
of the old school
mark system to recall a salient fact: "The ornithologist
a sight record unless it was made along the barrel of a
seldom accepted
a surrogate of sorts for shotguns,
the field-mark
As
system also
shotgun."
quences
care: "A quick field observer who does not
temper his snap judgment with a bit of caution is like a fast car without
text (TGxxi).31
brakes." "How To Use This Book" is, then, a cautionary
should
Literary
Suppose
screech
chapter
be handled
texts
with
are
rarely
cautionary
or
cautious
in
the
same
way.
of Thoreau
should conceive a desire to hear the
heard
it one lonesome
owl call just as Thoreau
night. In the
of Waiden entitled
the screech
"Sounds," Thoreau
paraphrases
that a reader
ECOCRITICISM,
call
owl's
as
AND
THEORY,
that I never
uOh-o-o-o-o
597
ECOLOGY
had
been
This
bor-r-r-r-nr52
is
paraphrase
the versions of birdcalls Peterson offers inmany of the entries
to paraphrase
the
the opportunity
declines
in his guide. But Peterson
it in fairly abstract terms as a "mournful
screech owl's call. He describes
a series on a
in pitch. Sometimes
whinny, or wail; tremulous, descending
more circumspect
in
I
is
this
Peterson
case,
think, for the
single pitch."33
reason
call
is
That is, it is
the
screech
owl's
that
unparaphrasable.
simple
not amenable
to the sort of verbal treatment Thoreau
attempts to give it.
not unlike
As
a
of
representation
screech
the
owl's
that
uOh-o-o-o-o
call,
I never
had
been bor-r-r-r-n!" is faulty on two counts, then: (1) It is a trite expression;
like a screech owl. Itwill not put Thoreau's
reader
(2) It sounds nothing
in touch with the world.
as a straw man
in order to make
I have used Thoreau
the following
to
Buell's advocacy of a return to realism:
and final point with regard
the
literature that points to the world is no way to counter
celebrating
is no doubt
that
claims of literary theory. There
antirepresentational
literature can be realistic and even in some limited sense representa
tional: it can point to the world. That is, it can point to some carefully
it must describe
and locate in
circumscribed
aspect of the world which
more or less detail for a competent
reader who understands
what it is
as
to
to
of
the
do.
kind
That
ideal sort
representation,
opposed
trying
indicated by Buell's use of the term "mimesis," is conventional:
elaborate
must
of cultural
competence
protocols
always be followed
by both
speaker
and
auditor,
writer
and
reader,
in
to make
order
realism
a sentence
one is apt to misinterpret
like the
Otherwise,
operational.
as
a
The
from
Rise
Howells's
Silas
of
following,
Lapham,
of
description
more
much
macabre
the
than
gestures
ordinary
something
perfecdy
to describe:
"He did not rise from the desk at which he
Howells means
was writing, but he gave Bartiey his left hand for welcome,
and he rolled
his large head in the direction
of a vacant chair."34 Realism
is idiomatic.
It works only when interlocutors
share similar assumptions
about what is
and its proper
such sharing
is not
perfecdy
ordinary
description;
universal. Itmay be quite rare. Point at something
for the benefit of your
new Labrador
puppy, and it will stare at your finger. Speak to your
not regard your speech as a representation
and
it
will
of how
puppy,
as
some
a
to
or
call
of
but
action
kind
another:
Fetch!
Bark!
are,
things
to
It's time for a walk! Mimic
the call of the screech owl according
Thoreau
matter
("Oh-o-o-o-o
how
competent
that I never
his
had
woodcraft,
been
may
bor-r-r-r-n!"),
express
and
concern
your
for
friend,
your
no
well
of the same call, and the
being. Repeat verbatim Peterson's
description
results will be a little better, if your friend thinks he has heard something
like that before. Learn to whistle
like a screech owl, and the results will
we
want to call your whistling
a literary
But
would
improve dramatically.
598
NEW
Or?the
performance?
more
extreme
alternative?would
LITERARY
we
HISTORY
want
to
treat it as a model
of literary performance?
I think we would balk at that; so would Lawrence Buell (and so would
other ecocritics who have also argued for a return to realism). But on
what grounds?
If successful
"outer mimesis"
is the acid test of the
then Buell, if he is serious about returning
environmental
imagination,
to realism, is going to have to admit some unliterary
but realistic texts
but realistic works of art, like duck decoys, into
and some literal-minded
of praise and?here
is the rub?critical
his canon of works worthy
at least
this score, Buell has the courage of his convictions,
criti
is concerned:
he enthusiastically
hitherto
praises
an
like
Susan
Fenimore
Rural
works
Hours,
cally-neglected
Cooper's
account of mid-nineteenth
in
life
New
and
York,
century
Cooperstown,
as a minor work of Americana
at best. But for
a book long regarded
to
texts which
other
Buell
have
sake,
may
consistency's
treating
begin
seem indisputably
for
after
Thoreau,
all, was
literary?Waiden,
example:
attention.
where
On
literature
not a realist?as
less valuable than they have been thought to be. He may
be much
less willing to do that.
at the heart of Buell's arguments
in The Environ
The contradictions
of ecocritical
mental Imagination axe ones that have become
characteristic
in general. Though
discourse
Buell asserts that an inquiry into the
of the "limitations of
environmental
involves an exploration
imagination
in the light of recent
literature's
literary theory, his
representations"
is not nearly so strong as his desire to
those limitations
desire to explore
of theory about the naivete of realism. Like other
flout the warnings
that to think
he imagines
and
environmentalists,
ecocritics,
many
recover
to
of thought of
habits
is
the
and
environmentally
ecologically
some era in the past before
and natural
the disruption
of the human
a
the loss of
worlds by a heedless
industrialism,
runaway
agriculture,
and the
of relativity, the embrace
of modernism,
faith, the discovery
And he seems to believe
that those habits of
advent of the postmodern.
But to imagine that the solution
thought were somehow untheoretical.
to
from
the
environmental
the
metropolitan
crisis
involves
dream"?ignores
a
return
the
to
fact
the
that
past?"awakening
our
understanding
of nature by
of the environment
has come about through the disruption
rise
of science.
and
the
concomitant
industrialism
and
agriculture
there
be no
in
other
environmental
Without
words,
crisis,
might
be
there
At
would
"environmental
best,
only a very
imagination."
to
one. Nor might
understand
there be ecologists
attenuated
struggling
of a damaged
natural world. We would still
and repair the mechanisms
era
is considerable
in
There
the
of "natural history."
be living
irony in
we
to alter
to
first
had
understand
the fact that in order to begin
nature,
realism may not be the world view best
it for the worse. Four-square
THEORY,
ECOCRITICISM,
AND
599
ECOLOGY
that irony, just as a sense of place of the
suited to helping us understand
in Rural Hours or by Thoreau
in Waiden will not
sort displayed by Cooper
or
one
in
less
much
life
for
Concord,
prepare
Cooperstown
present-day
of acid rain, global warming,
and a host of other
for the complexities
ills. Today, the real is contested not only in the academy,
environmental
that reality is hyperreal or not.
but in reality, whether
Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania
NOTES
tr.William Weaver
in his Travels inHyperreality,
Umberto
Eco, "Travels in Hyperreality,"
(New York, 1986), p. 49.
of the Humanities,"
The New York Times Magazine
"The Greening
2 Jay Parini,
(29
October
1995): 52.
1
Western American
Nature:
Toward An Ecological
Criticism,"
"Revaluing
told in Love's
article: he
25,3 (Fall 1990): 205, 212. Another
story is also being
are especially
at
and critics of Western
American
that writers
literature
argues
adept
of
because
the
and
"eco-consciousness"?presumably
epistemo
achieving
appreciating
that this
from living under Western
he suggests
skies?and
they derive
logical advantage
3
Glen
A. Love,
Literature,
to the hyper-sophistication,
of a corrective
the indiffer
may serve as something
from either of the two coasts. He makes
this
to nature,
and the elitism of intellectuals
in a follow-up
"Et in Arcadia Ega Pastoral Theory
much more
directly
piece,
suggestion
Western American Literature,
Meets
195-207.
Ecocriticism,"
27,3 (Fall 1992):
deftness
ence
in Reinventing
"Nature
of History,"
ed.
and the Disorder
Nature?,
Worster,
E. Soul? and Gary Lease
D.C.,
1995), pp. 73-74.
(Washington,
5 Joel B. Hagen,
An Entangled
Bank; The Origins of Ecosystem Ecology (New Brunswick,
N.J.,
1992), p. 194.
4
Donald
Michael
"Nature and the Disorder
of History,"
Worster,
faces in a disorderly
the challenges
world
ecology
A History
Ideas, 2nd ed.
Economy:
of Ecological
6
p. 72. Worster
only
recently.
himself
His
has recognized
1977 book Nature's
a
1994)
(1977; Cambridge,
presents
a term Worster
view of ecology,
it to
then used very loosely, applying
remarkably
Utopian
like Gilbert White
the work of literary figures
and Thoreau.
It is worth noting
that Nature's
of ecology
cited by ecocritics.
is usually
the only history
The
of
Economy
shortcomings
in this respect have been
in his essay "Some
ecocriticism
Howarth
addressed
by William
in The Ecocriticism Reader, ed. Cheryll
of Ecocriticism"
and Harold
Glotfelty
Principles
Fromm
(Athens, Ga., 1996), pp. 69-91.
means
7 By "inextricable,"
Elder apparently
that is both all of one piece or
something
and inseparably
bound
indivisible,
up with a particular
place.
8 John Elder,
the Earth; Poetry and the Vision of Nature,
2nd ed. (Athens, Ga.,
Imagining
cited in text as IE.
1996), pp. 1, 39; hereafter
9 A. G. Tansley,
"The Use and Abuse
of Vegetational
and Terms,"
Concepts
reprinted
Foundations
ed. Leslie A. Real and James
of Ecology; Classic Papers with Commentaries,
Brown
1991), pp. 318-41.
(Chicago,
10 Today
that the ecosystem
is beset
recognize
ecologists
concept
by a variety
in
theoretical
and practical
difficulties
the
initial
identification
of
problems:
ecosystems,
distinct
ecosystem
obstacles
from
the
grosser
as a biological
to determining
forms
of
the
landscape;
its constituent
since
entity,
the relative
importance
questions
about
the
status
of
in
H.
of
as
the
related;
parts are not genetically
versus
of organic
in
processes
inorganic
600
NEW LITERARY HISTORY
of quantitative
to
the applicability
techniques
to use
in experiment
and so on. Attempts
design;
have yielded
results. On
very mixed
practice
about
doubts
maintenance;
ecosystem
of scale
natural phenomena;
problems
in experimental
the ecosystem
concept
see the final sections of the second edition of
in contemporary
ecology,
P.
R.
The
Mclntosh,
Economy,
Background
of Ecology: Concept and Theory
B. Botkin, Discordant Harmonies;
A New Ecology for the Twenty-First
(New York, 1985); Daniel
(New York,
1990); R. H. Peters, A Critique for Ecology
1991); Frank
Century
(Cambridge,
theoretical
Worster's
debates
Nature's
A History
of the Ecosystem Concept in Ecology; More Than
E. Kingsland,
Nature; Episodes
1993); Sharon
Modeling
the Sum of the Parts
(New
in theHistory
of Population
Nature's Keepers; The New Science of
1995); Stephen
Budiansky,
Ecology, 2nd ed. (Chicago,
Nature Management
The Song of the Dodo; Island
1995); David Quammen,
(New York,
in an Age of Extinctions
1996).
(New York,
Biogeography
Golley,
Haven,
in the convenient
11 A representative
in the field is available
form
sample of early work
is included
in this volume).
of The Ecocriticism Reader (my essay "Is Nature
Necessary?"
The Environmental
the
and
12 Lawrence
Buell,
Thoreau, Nature
Imagination;
Writing,
as
text
Formation
American
Culture
hereafter
in
cited
11;
Mass.,
5,
1995),
pp.
(Cambridge,
of
EL
13
"Praxis"
is a term from
not just practice,
but
implying
from practice. Whether
Buell
cut
its theoretical
implications
in real-world,
the grounding
of ecocriticism
nonideological
somewhat
less qualified
of ecocriticism:
definition
Glotfelty's
the Marxist
the
on
his insistence
against
activities.
Compare
Cheryll
"Simply put, ecocriticism
physical
("Introduction:
is the
ecocriticism
environment...
Literary
and/or
deriving
is doubtful,
since
study of the relationship
takes an earth-centered
in An Age
Studies
p. xviii).
14 Cheryll
of Environmental
also raises this question
Glotfelty
to The Ecocriticism Reader. "How then can we
to the way
think,
other
he?like
and
literature
the
and
to literary studies"
approach
Crisis," The Ecocriticism Reader,
have
This
ecocritics?treats
to redeploy
between
in her introduction
of disciplinary
relevance
not
to environmental
contribute
restoration,
as professors
of literature?"
capacity
(p. xxi).
our
just in our spare time, but from within
not exactly
theorists
15 And
the proposition
are unreliable.
of theoretical
positions
phrases
to appropriate
hesitating
or watered-down
ways.
tradition
theoretical
assumptions
undergirding
ideological
to have a Marxist
flavor
the word
intends
Buell's
either;
para
put forward,
I
in his argument
weakness
is due,
as
a
not
while
term,
"theory"
generic
theoretical
terms
like "praxis"
in nonidiomatic
use of the word "metropolitan,"
which
his peculiar
a certain
resentment
of
and
which
expresses
theory
postcolonial
In fact, Buell has attempted
Eurocentric
values seen as oppressive
by the less metropolitan.
see his essay "American
as
to characterize
literature
American
Literary
"postcolonial":
16
This
he
borrows
also helps
from
explain,
by the way,
as a Postcolonial
Emergence
42.
Phenomenon,"
American
Literary History,
4
(Fall 1992):
411
has to do not just with
quality of the rhetoric Buell employs
prophetic
context
in
the other
of his project
for literary studies, but with
the urgency
movement.
environmental
that of the American
which his work must be understood,
Many
of
are
environmentalists
fervor, and tend to speak in the language
by evangelical
possessed
in the past, when
claims
This rhetorical
the converted.
strategy has backfired
intemperate
17
The
somewhat
his
sense
of
about
environmental
some
of the excesses
matters
of popular
were
shown
"ecological"
to have
been
discourse
just
during
discusses
(R. P. Mclntosh
the 1970s in The Background
that
of Ecology).
so much
takes the form of the jeremiad,
environmental
is precisely
18 This
writing
why
a clear-eyed
to produce
at odds with the desire
of
can be somewhat
a form which
appraisal
the truth of ecology.
THEORY,
ECOCRITICISM,
19
A novel
to my
claim
ECOLOGY
601
like Adventures
here.
But
Twain's
metropolitan.
determining
on frontier
AND
cultural
violence.
ofHuckleberry Finn might
I do not think it is an exception
frontier
setting is one in which
factors
The
in realist
real
novel.
fiction
be put forward as a counterexample
to the rule that realism
is social and
the kinds
are very much
is at stake
what
of social norm
in flux;
thus
that are the
the novel's
focus
is precisely
the Mississippi
and culturally
in the
socially
River provides Huck
and Jim with only the
social turmoil which
Huck's
continually
interrupts
content
has to do with the river. I would
descriptive
As for the natural world,
of havens
from the
temporary
and very little of the novel's
narrative,
realism"
is a contradiction
argue that a "frontier
most
in terms: if realism
is possible,
then the
Owen Wister's
The Virginian).
(as in, for example,
in the course of this chapter
Buell notes
20
that a number
of studies published
in the
1980s argued
for the constructed
of American
character
that such
realism, but maintains
to overstate
studies
tended
their case. No doubt he has a point, but it seems
to me
that
Buell
intent of the overstatements
he rejects, and thus avoids
ignores the polemical
seeing
some of their
for his own point of view.
implications
21
Sherman
Paul, For Love of theWorld; Essays on Nature Writing
(Iowa City, 1992), p. 19.
as the source which
Buell
cites Paul's
book
first made
him aware of Ponge
in The
Environmental
464n31.
Imagination,
frontier
22
ismore
or
less "closed"
See Richard
and theMirror
(Princeton,
Rorty, Philosophy
1979) and Conse
of Nature
C. Dennett,
Consciousness
1982); Daniel
of Pragmatism
(Minneapolis,
Explained
and theMeanings
(Boston,
1991) and Darwin's Dangerous
Idea; Evolution
of Life (New York,
Ian Hacking,
and Intervening;
in the Philosophy
1995);
Representing
Introductory Topics
of
Natural
Science (Cambridge,
1983).
Itmay seem that Buell
23
is doing much
the same thing with "Pied Beauty"
that Sherman
Paul does when he reads the passage
from Cape Cod as echoing
the waves
it describes
in the
textures
and rhythms
of its prose. But the two cases are quite different:
Buell does not
quences
claim
as a whole
that Hopkins'
reflects
the overall
structure
of a particular
poem
of the natural world
is a sonnet,
that would
be a very difficult
(since the poem
experience
to make).
claim
more
His much
ambitious
claim
is that the discrete
details
of "Pied
have a one-to-one
to particular
moments
of an experience
of the
Beauty"
relationship
natural world?to
"stimuli." Paul is concerned
to render form as a kind of
higher-order
is concerned
Buell
content;
of aesthetic
many varieties
24
See The Environmental
to preserve
content
as such,
and
regards
form
as one
of
the
seasoning.
429nl6.
Imagination,
(Lincoln,
1978), p. 105 (my ellipses).
Jr., Keith County fournal
A Field Guide to the Birds;
26 Roger Tory Peterson,
Giving Field Marks
of AU Species Found in
Eastern North America, Facsimile
ed. (1934; Boston,
cited in text as FG.
1996), p. xix; hereafter
27 The
I am making
to Peterson's
with
to birds
Field Guide
is
argument
regard
25
John
Janovy,
I think, by considering
other field guides,
such as A Field Guide toWildflowers,
even less mimetic
and arguably
than the Field Guide to birds.
by Peterson
The great majority
of its plates do not show color, because
there is no need
for it: the
is presumed
and the tint of blossoms
is indicated
green of foliage
throughout,
by a legend
in the upper
corner
of each
illustrations
of
printed
righthand
page. The
righthand
individual wildflowers
consist of simple, unshaded
line drawings
of their flowering
mostly
of these illustrations
is a principle
of
parts, with a few leaves. The visual impoverishment
the wildflower
and is enabling
of identification,
for purposes
guide's
organization,
just as
it is in Peterson's
to birds. See
and Margaret
A Field
guide
Roger Tory Peterson
McKenny,
Guide toWildflowers
and North-central North America
of Northeastern
(Boston,
1968).
a chickadee
28
the pitch of its call is, of course,
a feat that can be
Identifying
by judging
strengthened,
also illustrated
is already
familiar
performed
only if one
intimately
that chickadee
calls differ
in pitch would
be of very
with
that call. Peterson's
little use
to our novice.
indication
602
NEW LITERARY HISTORY
A Field Guide
to the Birds of Eastern
and Central North America
Tory Peterson,
Roger
246, 247, 248.
1980), p. 210; Maps
(Boston,
a scenario
In the Field Guide's first edition,
30
similar
Peterson
offers
to, but more
a bird that is
a female
than mine:
"We may, for example,
be puzzled
hopeful
by
certainly
29
A consultation
of the brief descriptions
of those birds eliminates
the Hooded
a dark one. It was seen on the
because
the bird sought had a reddish head?not
Merganser
so the text tells us, increases
coast which,
the probability it was a Red-breast.
And finally, we
learn that in the Red-breasted
'the rufous of the head blends into the white of
Merganser
as in the American
the throat and neck instead of being sharply defined'
This
Merganser.
Merganser.
which
describes
the bird we have seen, makes
the identification
accurately
is clearly shown in the plate but because we had not known what
soft merging
to look for, we failed to notice
it" ("How to Use This Book," pp. xvii-xviii).
If Peterson's
seems
a bit heavy
31
snap judgments
warning
against
ornithological
in other areas of
consider
the possible
of incautious
identification
handed,
consequences
characteristic,
certain. This
natural
as birds
history,
never
they
guides
mushrooms.
such as mycology.
Because
the objects of their interest are often poisonous,
to be especially
hunters
have
and the field
are, mushroom
circumspect,
use reflect
in making
the solemnities
involved
sound
of
identifications
or Life in theWoods
Waiden,
(New York,
1991), p. 102.
Henry D. Thoreau,
A Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern and Central North America, p. 172. Other
Peterson,
to reproduce
field guides
the screech owl's call. In the Audubon
also avoid the temptation
Guide to Birding, vol. 2, ed. John Farrand,
it in a
Society Master
Jr., Sadie Coats describes
32
33
manner
quickly
similar
descending
to Peterson's:
with
"Song
a pronounced
louder
toward
length, usually growing
1983], p. 160).
Dean Howells,
34 William
The Rise
a
on a
'whinny,'
long
beginning
rising pitch and
in
quaver. Also a rapid trill on 1 pitch, variable
end. Short barks or yelps also given"
( [New York,
of Silas Lapham
(New York,
1963),
p. 5.