The Landscape and the "Death of the Author"

Abstract

The writer has argued that environmental education should embrace the notion of landscape as text, in addition to the notion of landscape about text. This might, however, be opposed on the grounds that "texts" are clearly artificial human constructs, whereas "landscapes" are, at least in part, not. Structuralist and poststructuralist literary theory has, however, challenged the assumption that texts are "authored," thus invalidating the objection. The paper explores the notion of the "death of the author" with respect to a view of landscape as text, and suggests implications for environmental education.