Nothing lowly: The anti-picturesque in American nature poetry

TL;DRAbstract

This dissertation deals with the depiction of unattractive, repugnant, violent, and disordered aspects of the natural world in nature-oriented poetry of the past two centuries. What began in the nineteenth century as an occasional departure from the prevailing vision of nature as majestic and picturesque developed during the twentieth century into a sustained and appreciative fascination with natural disorder, death, decay, bodily waste, garbage, and lowly creatures such as reptiles, rodents, invertebrates, and microorganisms. Such work, which represents an anti-picturesque variety of American ecopoetry, also rejects static images of nature as an ordered system in favor of depictions that emphasize the dynamism and chaos present in the natural world. Additionally, anti-picturesque poetry often extends beyond the normal range of human vision to encompass the most minute or inaccessibly distant subjects, including those that exist on a microscopic or telescopic scale. The anti-picturesqu

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