| This dissertation illuminates the void of what Christopher Manes refers to in "Nature and Silence" as the "realm of silences, a world of "not saids" called nature, obscured in global claims of eternal truths about human difference, rationality, and transcendence." With the help of ecocriticism, my research explores the development of ecological themes in the writings of four nineteenth-century Austrians from deforestation to industrialization to the growth of gardening culture. In addition, I investigate the nexus between the philosophical and scientific origins of ecology as a discipline and its representation in Austrian literature. |
