This essay provides a survey of relevant works by Jean Giono, Marguerite Yourcenar and Julien Gracq, three major authors of twentieth-century French literature. All of these authors attempt in various ways to overcome the nature-culture dualism, a largely neglected topic in modern French literature, which is in accordance with a Romantic conception of nature. The following article falls into two parts. In the first part, I will analyse selected examples of experiences of nature that reflect an awareness of the complex interdependence of humans and their natural environment, i.e. a basic form of ecological sensibility. In the second part, I propose to explore the correlation between ecological sensibility and the search for the good life, which aims at cultural and social change. Finally, I will evaluate the three writers’ debt to Romantic ecology and where they transcend it in order to create a modern ecological awareness informed by environmental ethics and science.