The purpose of the article is to analyse the notions of ecological literature, environmental literature and nature writing. Special attention is paid to the categorization of environmental literature. At first, the author focuses on the phenomenon of ecocriticism which appeared in response to the interest of researchers to the new kind of nature literature and to the ways of literary representation of the interaction between humans and the rest of the natural world. Then, to clarify the meaning of the above mentioned notions the author compares different points of view of the researches on these notions. As the notion of nature writing is the most contested one among them, the author addresses the works of such famous ecocritics as M. Branch, T. Maran, D. Phillips and S. Slovic to clarify its meaning. The term "ecological literature" is new to Russian literary studies. This fact is proved not only by rare reference to it, but also by the absence of its definition in dictionaries. The works on ecological literature by such prominent researchers as J.S. Bryson, A. A. Gryakalov and N.A. Vysotskaya help the author of the article to define "ecological literature" and single out its features. Nature philosophical literature is very close to the notion of ecological literature, that is why the author of the article finds it important to find out their differences and similarities. To compare the terms "ecological literature" and "nature philosophical literature" which partly coincide in meaning the author draws on the works on Russian nature philosophical prose literature done by A. I. Smirnova and the conceptions of environmental (ecological) philosophy and nature philosophy. To prove the fact that not all ecological literary works can be referred to as nature philosophical works the author turns to the philosophical literary studies by R.S. Spivak and A.E. Eremeyev. Moreover, the author introduces the term "ecosophical literature" which means "philosophical literature with the dominant of ethics of the interaction between humans and non-human natural world". Lastly, the author pays attention to the question of nature representation in American and Russian literatures. Further comparative study of this question is welcome. The author of the article believes that such kind of study can help us bridge the gap between cultures. The historical-typological, cultural-historical and comparative methods are used in the research. The results of the research can be used by those who are interested in comparative American-Russian literary studies.
