What is Nature?

While attempting to start a blog post about some aspect of the relationship between nature and culture over the last two days, I find myself stopping mere sentences into the post and asking myself, ‘Is the thing that I am describing actually a part of nature?’ So, I begin this blog by positing and possibly attempting to answer the following question: What is nature?

This is what “nature” looks like, according 

to Google Images. Source: http://mrrecker.wordpress.com/

2013/10/26/walk-in-nature-reduce-stress/

As any twenty-something college student is wont to do, I took my query to Google. That choice was less than helpful. The Internet seemed to hedge around the definition of nature as well, taking me to sites about nature conservancy instead of nature itself. And Google Images presented me with idyllic, serene pictures usually found as default computer backgrounds. Obviously, I needed to look somewhere else.

Since the Oxford English Dictionary has become my best friend in college, I turned to its vast database of definitions next. I found that the OED definitions of nature are varied and disparate, therefore not really helpful for answering my question at all. The first three overarching categories of definitions pertain to human nature, concerning “physical or bodily power” and “mental or physical impulses and requirements.” It is only in the fourth category that the products of the earth make an appearance in the various definitions of the word, turning to the senses of the word that relate to the material world. Even in these definitions, however, nature remains indefinable  in a sense that no clear boundaries are drawn between what is and what is not nature. The first definition of the word under the category of the material world describes nature as the “creative and regulative power” that operates in the material world. The definitions remain in conflict with each other throughout the rest of this category. One defines nature as “the phenomena of the physical world collectively; esp. plants, animals, and other features and products of the earth itself, as opposed to humans and human creations.” The next definition calls nature “the whole natural world, including human beings; the cosmos.” Thus, it appears that nature can either include or exclude humans. Needless to say, these conflicting definitions did not leave me any clearer on what nature is exactly.

Is the mound of dirt nature or a lack of nature?

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/

theatre-reviews/10607806/Happy-Days-Young-Vic.html

My perusal of the OED led me to think nature is something that cannot be pinned down or placed into a convenient box that restricts what it is and is not. And I think that indefinable quality of nature allows for a great amount of interpretation of its appearance and role in various forms of literature. For example, the viewer’s individual definition of nature can greatly influence the way that Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days is interpreted. If one considers the mound of dirt that the main character, Winnie, is trapped in as a part of nature, then the play can be interpreted as a commentary on nature’s power to entrap humans. On the other hand, if one considers the mound of dirt as devoid of nature, with the exception of the small emmet that borrows into the ground around Winnie while carrying the suggestion of life in the form of the white ball of eggs, then the play holds interesting environmental implications in which Winnie’s entrapment can be interpreted as stemming from the destruction and subsequent absence of nature. Thus, the definition of nature remains open to the viewer, allowing for more and more interpretations of a text.

While the process of writing this blog post has led me to think that nature may in fact be indefinable, creating space within its evocation in literature for various interpretations of what nature is and is not and examinations of how those various interpretations affect the overall interpretations of the text, I still seek to find what I might consider my own personal definition of nature. I hope that further explorations during this semester will lead me to such a personal definition.