University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research: Department of English English, Department of December 2007 E. B. White’s Environmental Web Lynn Overholt Wake University of Nebraska - Lincoln Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/englishdiss Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Wake, Lynn Overholt, "E. B. White’s Environmental Web" (2007). Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research: Department of English. 9. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/englishdiss/9 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the English, Department of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research: Department of English by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. E. B. WHITE’S ENVIRONMENTAL WEB by Lynn Overholt Wake A DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of The Graduate College at the University of Nebraska In Partial Fulfillment of Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Major: English Under the Supervision of Professor Frances W. Kaye Lincoln, Nebraska May, 2007 E. B. WHITE’S ENVIRONMENTAL WEB Lynn Overholt Wake, Ph.D. University of Nebraska, 2007 Advisor: Frances W. Kaye E. B. White called Walden his favorite book and found in it “an invitation to life’s dance.” To read White ecocritically is to accept a similar invitation to broaden our environmental imagination. Although one or two of his essays are often anthologized as nature writing, critics have not read White environmentally. While emphasizing White’s three books for children, this dissertation reads across genre lines to examine his lifelong work. Drawing on Laurence Buell’s prismatic term, the study explores how White’s engagement with the natural world contributes to the renewal of our collective environmental imagination. Examining White’s affinity for animals, evident across the spectrum of his work, this study concludes that for White the world is fundamentally inhabited both by humans and non-human animals; his work reflects concern for the habitat of both. White’s three books for children, considered within a framework of Joseph W. Meeker’s literary ecology, form a bridge connecting children’s literature and ecocriticism. This study presents Stuart Little as a series of place-based adventures and a comedy of survival. In Charlotte’s Web, White’s environmental magnum opus, he presents his biophilic sense of the web of life and invites the animal world to speak for itself, Fern showing the rest of us how to pay attention to other species. A braided story of human and animal habitat, The Trumpet of the Swan continues Stuart’s quest underway at the end of the earlier book. An initial chapter exploring White’s literary ecology (his childhood in the age of nature study, his early sense of place, and his affinity for animals) also examines representative essays, poems and other writings. Closing the study is a chapter connecting White to the wider web of environmental literature through a focus on the nature of story, an emphasis on animal presence, and an expansive sense of ecocriticism that includes children’s literature. Finding the root of the environmental imagination to be in childhood experience, the study treats each of White’s children’s books in separate chapters. Acknowledgements I am deeply grateful for the widespread support I’ve received from friends, family, and colleagues while I completed this project. Fran Kaye’s insight has been phenomenal. Like Stuart Little, she sees things whole. I appreciate her guidance, her wide-ranging perspective, her generous style of sharing her knowledge, and her genuine interest in my work. My good fortune in having Ted Kooser as a reader for this dissertation is augmented by knowing he was already interested in E. B. White. I appreciate both his response and his stories, which I hope to hear more frequently now. I’m pleased that Jim Rosowski read my work, not with a professional biologist’s microscope, but with a big heart and a generous spirit. As EBW said, “It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer,” so I must be getting more than my share. Besides the three already mentioned, I wish to thank Anne Whitney and Mary K. Stillwell who as writers and as friends have read my work and encouraged me through the years. Their deep interest in this project is an irreplaceable component in my bringing it to completion. Ongoing friendship and valuable support has also come from Cheryl Schmieding, Jane Schaefer, Karen Buck, Linnea Fredrickson, Mickey Williamson, Trish Lindner, Stephanie Rouse, and Denise Banker—I thank each of you for your particular gifts to me. The English Department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has provided a stimulating community for writers and scholars over the years. I’m especially grateful to all who participate in the Environmental Writing and Criticism Community. I am indebted to Robert Brooke for reading an earlier essay on Charlotte’s Web, and I appreciate Sue Hart’s expertise and friendly assistance. I would also like to thank all who meet at The Bookworm in Omaha to discuss children’s books, especially Ellen Scott, who makes AardBaark what it is, and Jean Hartwell, for her interest in reading my work. Sue Rosowski, who encouraged the beginning of this project, remains often in my thoughts and continues to grace my life in many ways. My daughter, Elizabeth, her fiancé Gary, my son Max and his wife Melanie have all been wonderfully supportive, understanding, and encouraging. I take delight in the prospect of all the stories we have yet to create together as family. J. P. Wehrman, my husband, has been steadfast throughout. I deeply appreciate all of his able assistance. His unfailing encouragement, patient listening, and dependable insight have helped me all along this journey. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………...1 Chapter 1 ………………………………………………………………………………..8 The Literary Ecology of E. B. White Chapter 2 ………………………………………………………………………………43 Stuart Little: Adventures in Place Chapter 3 ………………………………………………………………………………77 Charlotte’s Web: E. B. White’s Environmental Magnum Opus Chapter 4 ……………………………………………………………………………..129 The Trumpet of the Swan: “Oh, Ever in the Greening Spring” Chapter 5 ……………………………………………………………………………..157 Ecocritical Lines of Attachment Postscript ……………………………………………………………………………..205 Works Cited ………………………………………………………………………….209 E. B. WHITE’S ENVIRONMENTAL WEB Introduction “One foot in literature and the other on land” is one of Cheryl Glotfelty’s descriptions of ecocriticism. “As a theoretical discourse,” she writes introducing The Ecocriticism Reader, “it negotiates between the human and the nonhuman” (xix). I like her two-footed image for this new way of reading—one foot in the book, the other in the backyard, or on the trail. One eye toward the academy—perhaps—and the other on the world outside of school. The human and the non-human negotiating. How do we do that? I like thinking of readers as two-footed creatures, alive in the world we are reading about, not just heads and noses in books, but living, breathing, fully embodied beings, the reading mind engaging the world, the reading informing the ways in which we human animals inhabit the world. Reading helps us envision the world as inhabited place. It helps us mind the earth. This dissertation seeks a two-footed stance in several ways. First, I hope to contribute to the bridge of scholarship now under construction that has one foot in ecocriticism and the other foot in children’s literature (or children’s cultural studies). From the beginning, encouraged by Professor Sue Rosowski, I envisioned a project built on the twin recognitions that children’s literature is in fact literature, and environmental criticism offers a 2 promising, more fully integrated approach to reading and writing. E. B. White still seems the perfect writer for that project. His three books for children (Stuart Little, Charlotte’s Web, and The Trumpet of the Swan) invite readers into a compelling animal presence, their human, non-human negotiation well underway. Although in these books White never strays far from human perspectives and human concerns, the animals whose stories he narrates are fully animals, not symbols or metaphors. I have read these three stories as animals’ stories, not as fables or fantasy. As Charlotte says, “A rat is a rat.” So a second way in which my work seems two-footed to me is that while I focus on animal presence, I cannot escape human perspective. This approach has lead me toward a realization that White was profoundly concerned not only with animals, and not only with humans, but with the idea of the earth as habitat for all. Environmental themes are abundantly present in White’s long lifetime of writing. I do not attempt a biographical study, but his childhood in the age of nature study, his early sense of place, and his affinity for animals, are considered in chapter 1 as elements of his environmental imagination. In the first chapter, “The Literary Ecology of E. B. White,” I offer environmental readings of several representative essays and poems. Regardless of the genre, White’s work reflects his commitment to the earth as dwelling place, as shared habitat. Chapter 2 discusses the nature of Stuart Little, reading White’s 1945 debut in children’s literature as a comedy of survival and a series of place- 3 based adventures. That adventure essentially continues and widens in The Trumpet of the Swan (1970), which I see as a braided narrative of animal and human habitat, and discuss in chapter 4. In between, and in the center, is chapter 3, a reading of “Charlotte’s Web, E. B. White’s Environmental Magnum Opus.” Chapter 3 is the heart of the dissertation.