Is our love of nature writing bourgeois escapism?

After reading Steven Poole’s article ‘Is our love of nature writing bourgeois escapism? I felt quite defensive about eco-literature regardless of the range of which it has been delivered or the time it was published. Poole makes a bold acclaim of how nature writing is a literary equivalent of ‘nostalgie de la boue’, which when translated means a ‘kind of rustic-fancying inverted snobbery’. 

I don’t disregard that authors and poets can present an idealised version of nature or that humans can be described as faultless or innocent beings. This can be presented in the form of travel writing featured in newspapers or blogs. They portray a scenic landscape of what they ‘see’ and create this vision of sublime for 5 minutes. Subconsciously when we read these texts we know it is not true and when we have finished reading the text we go back to reality. 

Personally I believe that Poole fails to see that these romanticised depictions of the world, could evoke a sense of realisation of what the world could be. The image of an unflawed world in contrast to our reality should technically be the biggest wake up call to mankind. Surely the intention behind travel writing is to escape to this imaginary world, or to seduce the reader or to even promote tourism. Regardless of the purpose, why is it wrong to escape for five minutes and is it really for the middle class?

Poole’s assertion that nature writing is for the bourgeois is a notion that is difficult to contest in regards to eco-poetry. For example the form of found poetry in Dorothy Alexandra’s poem, Final Warning evokes the readers sense of environmental responsibility, but what has to be questioned is the text’s form and presentation. It can certainly be argued that the aesthetic nature of the poem is presented in a pretentious manner. The haphazard and deconstructive formation of the poem visibly signifies the ‘fancy inverted snoberry’ which may only captivate the bourgeois and the academics.

Personally literature, regardless of what form, should be enchanting. However, it is evident that nature writing may be unintentionally or intentionally captivating to a particular set of audience, but nor should it be berated for allowing the reader or the writer to forget their woes.

[1] Poole, Stephen ‘Is our love of nature writing bourgeois escapism?’ The Guardian, 6^th July 2013.