Dramas of solitude
Subtitle: narratives of retreat in American nature writing
By: Randall Roorda.
Series: SUNY series, literacy, culture, and learning
Publisher: State University of New York Press; State Univ of New York Pr
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Albany
Language: eng
Number of pages: 283
Subjects: American literature -- History and criticism.; Wilderness areas in literature.; Solitude in literature.; Nature in literature.; Narration (Rhetoric); Self in literature.; Literacy.
Description: 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.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 261-272) and index.