Abstract
The classical naturalist Carl Linnaeus is prominent for his “binominal nomenclature,” which he developed in the Systema Naturae (1st edition 1735, 10th edition 1758). However, while in the Norton Book of Nature Writing (1990) he is mentioned as a pioneer and “father” of nature writers, Linnaeus, with his Iter Lapponicum 1732, is in fact one of the early representatives of this genre. The essay argues that there is not only a deep connection between natural history and nature writing but also a vivid tradition of naturalists practicing nature writing (defined as an “aesthetically formed” personal nature essay). In this sense, Linnaeus’s travelogue is a precursor to Jean-Henri Fabre’s Souvenirs entomologiques—Etudes sur l’instinct et les moeurs des insectes (1879–1907), Ernst Jünger’s Subtile Jagden (1967), and Horst Stern’s Leben am seidenen Faden (1981).
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Similarly to Petersen, Scheese defines nature writing in its “typical form” as “a first-person, nonfiction account of an exploration, both physical (outward) and mental (inward), of a predominantly nonhuman environment” (Scheese 2002, 6).
- 3.
In fact, White links his interest in natural history to an interest in cultural history; he thus writes two books in one under the title The Natural History and Antiquities of Selbourne.
- 4.
On White cf. Mabey (1986).
- 5.
White’s self-depiction as an observer in the field as distinct from “armchair-travellers” and “parlor-based researchers” is a topos of the eighteenth century and by no means his invention. For an alternative assessment, cf. Stewart (1995).
- 6.
From the perspective of ecocriticism, it has been argued that American nature writing began with the natural history works of William Wood (1634) and Cotton Mather (1721), both highly regarded by Thoreau (cf. Branch 2001).
- 7.
Excerpt translated by Gregory Sims. Cf. also Voigt (1785).
- 8.
“But now hurry with me to the Rhine Falls … On the other side of the river, in the vineyards, one can see the falls from all sides, and finally stand in the middle, faced with the entire majesty of nature … As the water reaches the high point and then falls, the whole river is transformed into foam … One sees nothing but a sea of the purest milk … The delicate spray of the water, which is hurled upwards like the finest, thinnest smoke and flies towards the sky, is an indescribably beautiful sight. The longer one takes it in, the more powerful, the more raging, one believes, the bubbling and roaring of the—so to speak—still young river” [Sander 1782a; excerpt translated by Gregory Sims; cf. also the poem “Der Rheinfall bey Lauffen” by Heinrich Sander (1782b)].
- 9.
With enthusiasm and precision he describes the colorfulness of the pack ice as well as the “boring monotony” of ice, storms, and fog on the weeks-long journey through Antarctica, summing it up as follows: “Our southern cruises were uniform and tedious in the highest degree … In short, we rather vegetated than lived, we withered and became indifferent to all that animates the soul at other times” (Forster 2000, 293).
- 10.
Excerpt translated by Gregory Sims.
- 11.
On this point, cf. also Goldstein (2013).
- 12.
Of course, Humboldt is able to do this himself, for example, in the final sentence of his description of the glowing waters of the Pacific: “Indelible is the impression left on my mind by those calm tropical nights of the Pacific, where the constellation of Argo in its zenith and the setting Southern Cross pour their mild planetary light through the ethereal azure of the sky, while dolphins mark the foaming waves with their luminous furrows” (Humboldt 1850, 213).
- 13.
According to the publisher of the German edition, it is a combination of “scattered [diary] notes” and the “written travel report submitted to the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala” (which had commissioned the research trip) and which Linnaeus himself gave the title Iter Lapponicum. It remained unpublished during his lifetime (cf. Mierau 1980, 313).
- 14.
On the reception of Linnaeus as a poet by poets, cf. the afterword by Mierau (1980, 295–312).
- 15.
Cf. from an essay-theoretical perspective, but with observations that are also important for the present text, Schröder (2018).
- 16.
The fact that Fabre actually worked in a combination of laboratory and biotope (Laborotop) is emphasized with reference to Bruno Latour’s reflections by Köchy (2016).
- 17.
Ulrike Draesner has aptly encapsulated Fabre’s approach in a paradox, describing it as “factual rhapsodizing” (Draesner 2013, 187).
- 18.
Fabre explicitly presents his observations of the sand wasp and its technique of paralyzing its prey as a “drama” in several acts, which he researches under laboratory conditions (cf. Fabre 1921, 295ff.)
- 19.
“…to find one’s self suddenly robbed by a companion is certainly a revers[al] of fortune that would try most people’s courage. But the dung beetle does not allow itself to be cast down by this malicious blow of fate; it rubs its cheeks, spreads its antennae, sniffs the air, and flies to the nearest heap to begin again. This is a trait of character which I admire and envy” (Fabre 1913, 24, “The Sacred Beetle”).
- 20.
This edition will be referenced in the text as SJ, with the page number. (All quotes from Subtile Jagden translated by Gregory Sims.)
- 21.
This observation comes from Simone Schröder (2019), who reads Subtile Jagden as a more personal form of the nature essay compared to Alexander von Humboldt’s comprehensive Ideas for a Physiognomy of Plants (on the significance of colors in Jünger’s work, ibid., 64).
- 22.
On the Linnaean “law of priority” in the naming of fauna and flora, cf. SJ 30 and passim. Even after the initial forays, it is a question of “imposing order on the abundance as well as one conscionably could, since it could not yet be described as knowledge” (SJ 26).
- 23.
On this process, cf. van Hoorn (2016, 248–252).
- 24.
Cf. SJ 240–248. Jünger is also fond of an aphoristic style that quickly condenses the individual into maxims.
- 25.
Fischer borrows the term “energy of protest” (Protestenergie) from Alexander Kluge.
- 26.
Cf., however, the positive appraisal by Fischer (2019, 221–224).
- 27.
Kullmann and Stern (1981, 21; also 67–68). This edition will be referenced in the text as KS, with the page number. (All quotes from Leben am seidenen Faden translated by Gregory Sims.)
- 28.
For example, when he compares the appetence behavior of starlings with football fans insulting the referee and ends with an ironical reference to the “appetitive behavior” of Ernst Kullmann and himself (cf. KS 69 and 70).
- 29.
In Stern’s words, it is “the literary rhetoric of an author who has a parasitic relationship with zoology, who adorns himself with the colorful feathers of its knowledge, but pastes its fine structure together with the art of language, or worse: who sets Fabre over against the electron microscope” (KS 42; translated by Gregory Sims). For a completely different reception of Jünger as an entomologist, cf. Martens (2012).
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van Hoorn, T. (2024). On the Natural History of Nature Writing: Linnaeus’ Followers. In: Dürbeck, G., Kanz, C. (eds) German-Language Nature Writing from Eighteenth Century to the Present. Literatures, Cultures, and the Environment. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-50910-0_11
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