Introduction

This special issue of Critical Survey offers several pathways for critical exploration. It is the first time the journal has explored the field of literary criticism known as ‘ecocriticism’ or ‘green cultural studies’,and this will be its first focus on walking literature and related art. In opening up these two routes, our special issue allows a view both on the roles of walking in poetry, literary non-fiction, fiction and the walking arts in the UK and Ireland, and on the possibilities of ecocriticism as a method of addressing these roles.