Perspectives on German Ecocriticism: Introduction

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Abstract

German literature has a long memory for the relationship between people and the environments they inhabit. Let us consider Goethe: Goethe’s late novel Wahlverwandschaften, first published in 1809, opens in a tree nursery on a large landed estate, where the owner Eduard has been busy with the task of budding new trees, ‘frisch erhaltene Pfropfreiser auf junge Stämme zu bringen’. He stops work to survey his carefully arranged garden and then goes to join his wife, who has also been industriously engaged in landscaping improvements, noting the wellordered grounds as he passes through: