| <><>Without
Gilbert White, natural history would not have
developed as it has over the past two centuries. The Natural
History
and Antiquities of Selborne became the first widely distributed,
and most
widely read, work in English on the subject. Educated at Oriel College
Oxford,
White was an ordained minister who never wandered far from his small
village in
Hampshire. He began his journal in 1751, publishing his gardening
remarks as Calendar
of Flora and the Garden in 1765. This work was followed by The
Naturalist's
Journal, in which he ranged well beyond the flowers surrounding his
own
house and sought to present a more comprehensive view of the natural
world in
his neighborhood. He described himself as a "faunist" and claimed
that his
goal was to record “the life and conversation of animals.” After almost
two
decades of observation and record keeping, he published A Natural
History of
Selborne in 1788. The volume included letters to his friends
(Thomas
Pennant and Daines Barrington) on various natural history subjects. The
book
was a resounding success from its first appearance and has gone through
dozens
of editions down to the present day. Wordsworth, Coleridge, Charles
Darwin,
Virginia Woolf, and W. H. Auden, among many others, have recorded their
debts
to White's
careful
visual record keeping, his profound sense of the richness of the
ordinary
natural objects around him, and his willingness to ascribe various
levels of
perception and feeling to the animal kingdom. White's work was significant for its attention to the details of his surroundings, his observational skills, and his casual yet engaging prose style. In addition, White often gives the objects of his scrutiny a value for their own sake. He does not always present the natural world solely in terms of its significance to human beings. Nature may provoke powerful responses in White, but his version of “nature” does not seem to be here only for the benefit of human beings. In addition, he consistently combines personal observation with scientific curiosity. He does not accept colloquial thinking about topics such as migration or hibernation at face value. Rather, White presents personally observed facts and direct evidence to support his claims about the living world around him. He also embodies a powerfully proto-ecological sense of the interrelatedness and interdependence of animals, insects, plants, and even inorganic substances. White takes a methodical approach to his record-keeping and queries about particular species, but he also employs lyrical observation, figurative imagery, and rhetorical flourishes that are occasionally worthy of a poet. <><> |
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