In Australia, we have not yet composed a literature of place in which the Australian geographies sing, so in this dissertation, the author goes travelling with some North American writers in their native landscapes, exploring the practice of landscape witness, of ecological imagination. They carry on there,looking for the ways in which the wild music of the land be discerned and expressed in words. He talks with them about the business of writing the life of places. He takes heed of the natural histories in which their works have arisen, looking for correlations between those physical terrains - the actual earth, the solid ground of their work - and the terrain of these writers' prose, wondering how the prose (and sometimes the poetry) may be said to be an expression of the place. This work, in a sense, is a natural history of six nature writers; it is an ecological imagining of their lives and works and places. Writing the Wild is a journey through the light, the wind, the rock, the water, sometimes the fire that makes the land that houses the writers who compose these lyrics of place. Most of what it learns about those writers, it learns from the places themselves. This dissertation takes landscapes seriously. It reads the works of these writers as though the landscapes of which and in which they write might be worthy of regard in understanding the terrain of their texts. It lets places show light on works of words composed within them. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2000. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 251-271). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Western Sydney, 2003. / Bibliography : leaves [457]-484.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Nevada, Reno, 2007. / "August, 2007." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 268-270). Library also has microfilm. Ann Arbor, Mich. : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [2008]. 1 microfilm reel ; 35 mm. Online version available on the World Wide Web.

Early nineteenth-century Eurocentric perceptions of natural history led to the flora and fauna of Australia being thought of as deficient and inferior compared with those of other lands. By the 1820s, Australia had become known as ???the land of contrarieties???. This, and Eurocentric attitudes to nature in general, influenced the expectations and perceptions of immigrants throughout the century. Yet at the same time there was developing an aesthetic appreciation of the natural history of Australia. This thesis examines the tension between these two perceptions in the popular natural history writing of the nineteenth century, mainly through the writing of five authors ??? George Bennett (1804-1893), Louisa Anne Meredith (1812-1895), Samuel Hannaford (1937-1874), Horace Wheelwright (1815-1865) and Donald Macdonald (1859?-1932). George Bennett was a scientist, who saw Australian plants and animals more as scientific specimens than objects of beauty. Louisa Meredith perceived them in the familiar language of English romantic poetry. Samuel Hannaford used another language, that of popular British natural history writers of the mid-nineteenth century. To Horace Wheelwright, Australian animals were equally valuable to the sportsman???s gun as to the naturalist???s pen. Donald Macdonald was the only one of these major writers to have been born in Australia. Although proud of his British heritage, he rejoiced in the beauty of his native land. His writing demonstrates his joy, and his novel attitude to Australian natural history continued and developed in the present century.

Early nineteenth-century Eurocentric perceptions of natural history led to the flora and fauna of Australia being thought of as deficient and inferior compared with those of other lands. By the 1820s, Australia had become known as ???the land of contrarieties???. This, and Eurocentric attitudes to nature in general, influenced the expectations and perceptions of immigrants throughout the century. Yet at the same time there was developing an aesthetic appreciation of the natural history of Australia. This thesis examines the tension between these two perceptions in the popular natural history writing of the nineteenth century, mainly through the writing of five authors ??? George Bennett (1804-1893), Louisa Anne Meredith (1812-1895), Samuel Hannaford (1937-1874), Horace Wheelwright (1815-1865) and Donald Macdonald (1859?-1932). George Bennett was a scientist, who saw Australian plants and animals more as scientific specimens than objects of beauty. Louisa Meredith perceived them in the familiar language of English romantic poetry. Samuel Hannaford used another language, that of popular British natural history writers of the mid-nineteenth century. To Horace Wheelwright, Australian animals were equally valuable to the sportsman???s gun as to the naturalist???s pen. Donald Macdonald was the only one of these major writers to have been born in Australia. Although proud of his British heritage, he rejoiced in the beauty of his native land. His writing demonstrates his joy, and his novel attitude to Australian natural history continued and developed in the present century.

Th. : lett. : München. / Bibliogr.: p.441-487. Index.