Ecological sensibility and the experience of nature in the twentieth-century French literature of Jean Giono, Marguerite Yourcenar and Julien Gracq

This essay provides a survey of relevant works by Jean Giono, Marguerite Yourcenar and Julien Gracq, three major authors of twentieth-century French literature. All of these authors attempt in various ways to overcome the nature-culture dualism, a largely neglected topic in modern French literature,...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Wagner, Walter
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2014
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Alcalá (UAH)
Repositorio:e_Buah Biblioteca Digital Universidad de Alcalá
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ebuah.uah.es:10017/20231
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10017/20231
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Environmental ethics
Environmental aesthetics
Antimodernism
Wilderness
Romanticism
Ética medioambiental
Estética medioambiental
Antimodernismo
Naturaleza
Romanticismo
Literatura
Medio ambiente
Literature
Environmental science
Descripción
Sumario:This essay provides a survey of relevant works by Jean Giono, Marguerite Yourcenar and Julien Gracq, three major authors of twentieth-century French literature. All of these authors attempt in various ways to overcome the nature-culture dualism, a largely neglected topic in modern French literature, which is in accordance with a Romantic conception of nature. The following article falls into two parts. In the first part, I will analyse selected examples of experiences of nature that reflect an awareness of the complex interdependence of humans and their natural environment, i.e. a basic form of ecological sensibility. In the second part, I propose to explore the correlation between ecological sensibility and the search for the good life, which aims at cultural and social change. Finally, I will evaluate the three writers’ debt to Romantic ecology and where they transcend it in order to create a modern ecological awareness informed by environmental ethics and science.