ABSTRACT
Chapter 4, The Ecological Reader, asks what the hermeneutic role of nature could be within our reading practices. The question seeks to address the rise of ecocriticism and develops the concept of nature as a rare opportunity for literary criticism to reconsider its scope by removing it temporarily from its social, historical and cultural matrix and confronting it with the possibility of the non-discursive, the non-human and, perhaps, the immeasurable. To demonstrate the potential of this hypothesis, this chapter proposes a brief history of past defenses of poetry in light of the conflict of interpretations that affects nature writing in general, as either a form of insincere escapism or a means of rational, scientific observation. I argue that this unfortunate duality speaks directly to Horace’s distinction between pleasure and instruction as well as, most fundamentally, to the heart of literacy as a means and an end. Readings of Gary Snyder’s and Theodore Enslin’s poetry present conclusive instances of nature being used as a test of our interpretive techniques, particularly regarding the conflation of nature with place.
