Jean Giono’s oeuvre through the prism of ecopoetics

The term “ecopoetics,” in use since the mid-2000s, refers to efforts to create a European counterpart to American ecocriticism, but which places greater emphasis on literary quality than its predecessor. Jean Giono, a great admirer of Thoreau and Whitman, was one of the first French novelists to put his wordsmithery at the service of the material world, and to be aware of the terrible imbalances that could result from the race for economic growth and unbridled anthropocentrism.