Is There a German-Language Nature Writing? Broken Traditions and Transnational References

Starting with the recent emergence of the category of “nature writing” in German literature and among the public at large, this introduction explores how the concept can become meaningful for literary criticism and literary history. Tracing Anglo-American traditions of nature writing in German-language literature, we show the connections of those traditions to ecocriticism and to debates on new nature writing. We also reconstruct thematic lines of tradition in German-language literature going back to the eighteenth century and identify recent and current trends in nature writing among German-speaking authors.