Aldo Leopold's Unique Elegy: Consolation and Agency in "Marshland Elegy" and A Sand County Almanac

Abstract

This essay explores “Marshland Elegy” by first outlining the historical evolution of elegies to provide a foundational understanding of the literary form, and then analyzing the utility in considering “Marshland Elegy’s” elegiac form as a synecdoche for A Sand County Almanac. My argument will then examine the effects of Leopold’s legacy when applying the elegiac form, including what consolation, if any, he offers us, and what that means for the human-nature relationship he values so highly, particularly as it pertains to human agency and individual roles. My evaluation of “Marshland Elegy” as an elegiac literary narrative eventually identifies it as an incomplete elegy, though I find that its deficiencies strengthen, rather than subtract from, Leopold’s comprehensive message of consolation because it forces the reader to directly engage with their own solutions to the problems Leopold poses. [From Introduction]