"Trees, Rivers, and Stories: Walter Scott Writing the Land"

This essay investigates Walter Scott's writing across several genres as a contribution to the environmental historiography of Scotland. One of the main research questions is whether that writing provides any evidence for an early land ethic that anticipates Aldo Leopold's twentieth-century use of that term. Scott's response to aesthetic discourses of his time is another topic of discussion. The essay explores ballads, poetry, fiction and a range of non-fiction documents that includes letters, statements to parliament and minute books. Scott's involvement in oil gas production is discussed, as is his concern about the depletion of river salmon due to modern methods of fishing aimed at exploiting stocks to meet product demand from London. The essay has a framework of contextualised historical sources, as well as recent developments in ecocritical theory and the environmental humanities.