Sangster, DeLillo, Nature and God

What is the opposite of Nature? There are a number of different answers we could give in playing the game of finding an antonym. We are accustomed to speaking of "nature vs. nurture," but "nature" here is a shorthand for the phrase "human nature." In referring to Nature in its environmental sense, we are more likely to speak of "nature vs. culture" or "nature vs. art" -- environment is defined as something which stands apart from human habitation or cultivation. In this sense, it is paradoxical to approach the subject of nature in a work of art -- the fact of its being art serves to remove us in some way from the realm of Nature. I would like to examine the treatment of Nature as a concept in two very different works: the nineteenth-century Canadian poem "The St. Lawrence and the Saguenay" by Charles...
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