SOURCE: Mossman, Mark. “The Rhetoric of a Nature Writer: Subversion, Persuasion, and Ambiguity in the Writings of Edward Abbey.” Journal of American Culture 20, no. 4 (winter 1997): 79-85.

In the following essay, Mossman identifies principal traits of the American nature writing genre and places Abbey with this tradition.

The genre of nature writing in American literature is rich in tradition and cultural significance. It has produced such canonical figures and texts as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau's Walden, and is now, with the many environmental pressures of these last years of the twentieth century, becoming one of the most frequented avenues for literary expression by the artists of our time. Indeed, with the recent rise in the genre's popularity, galvanized by such writers as Annie Dillard and Barry Lopez, some scholars are claiming that nature writing is “arguably the major genre in American literature” (Murray 73). The rhetorical intricacies...