Out of Doors & On the Page: Forms & Genres of Nature Writing

Throughout this course, we analyzed many different works, including that of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, as well as Michael Jordan’s film Albatross, to name a few. As we all know, Shakespeare is notorious for being difficult to understand, but through the help of class discussions we picked apart the language and worked together to actually understand the book and many of its literary elements. Albatross was a particularly difficult film to watch, as it distinctly portrayed these beautiful innocent birds, miles and miles off the coasts of the states, dying on account of plastics. It goes without saying that most of us don’t want to look at the stomach contents of a bird, or any living thing for that matter, but Jordan did what most of us don’t have the stomach for and cut open these deceased birds. Their main cause of death was stomachs full to the brim with bottle caps, plastic bags, etc. This really opened my eyes to the far-reaching effects of the things we humans choose to do.

Linked above is my term paper from the course, comparing a few of the literary works, that though they seem very different, all touch on something that we don’t exactly like to talk about. The authors emphasize our role as human beings and force us to see something we don’t normally like to see or relate ourselves to. The way they accomplish this is not only with a compelling argument but also specific aesthetic principles incorporated into their works to really emphasize the point and lead the reader into making connections for his/herself.