DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH WILLINGDON COLLEGEwillingdoncollege.in/pdf/Study/English/2.pdf · relationship between literature and the environment conducted in a spirit of commitment to

E C O C R I T I C I S M

Presentation by

Prof. AKHALAQ TADE

COORDINATOR, INTERNAL QUALITY ASSURANCE COMMITTEE,

CONVENOR, NAAC STEERING COMMITTEE,

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

WILLINGDON COLLEGE SANGLI – 416 415 (Maharashtra, India)

Ecocriticism is a term coined out of the combination of two familiar terms – ‘criticism’ and ‘ecology’. Ecocriticism refers to the critical writings that investigate the relation between literature and environment taking into account the destruction caused to the biological or physical surrounding by the mankind.

Prof. Akhalaq Tade, Willingdon College,

Sangli (Maharashtra)

Ecocriticism is a broad approach that is known by a number of other designations, including ‘Green Studies’, ‘Ecopoetics’, and ‘Environmental Literary Criticism’. Just as Feminist criticism examines language and literature from a gender-conscious perspective, and Marxist criticism brings an awareness of modes of production and economic class to its reading of texts; in the same manner, Ecocriticism, according to Cheryll Glotfelty, takes an earth-centered approach to literary studies.



It is supposed that ecocriticism was officially herald by the publication of two seminal works : 1) The Ecocriticism Reader, edited by Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm, and 2) The Environmental Imagination by Lawrence Buell.



CHERYLL GLOTFELTY



HAROLD FROMM



Books by Lawrence Buell



LAWRENCE BUELL



Natural environment has always been depicted since ancient time in various forms of literature. Even the religious scriptures, holy books are full of such references about natural surroundings. The ‘pastoral’ form of literature which was initiated in the third century B.C by Theocritus of Greece reflected the serene rural life full of simplicity and harmony. This form became very popular as it uplifted the rustic life against the degraded complex life of urban society.



THEOCRITUS Born: c. 310 BC Birthplace: Cos, Greece Died: c. 250 BC



Virgil, the Roman poet, popularized pastoral form later. This genre expresses one’s nostalgia to return to the holy, tranquil and unadulterated surrounding in order to seek that peacefulness which was lost in the urban life. This genre, known as “nature writing” provided realistic details of the natural surroundings.



A bust of Roman writer and poet Virgil ( Publius Vergilius Maro, 70 - 19 BC ) on display in Rome.



Nature writing was inaugurated in England by Gilbert White’s Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789). It contains minute and keen observations of the English wild life and natural surroundings of rural areas. It was William Bertram’s Travels published in 1791 which popularized this genre in America. Henry David Thoreau’s masterpiece Walden (1854) is considered as the classic of this genre.



Writings in this regard successfully attracted the attention of the world towards the devastation of environment due to the rapid progress of industrialization and urbanization. The increasing awareness of the destruction of ecology caused the emergence of ‘the environmental movement’ in the nineteenth century in America. Concern for the environmental crisis, in the twentieth century, became a burning issue because of the warnings by world’s scientists and conservationists.



It was proved scientifically that the earth was in an environmental crisis as its ‘biosphere’ was getting polluted and forests were being massacred ultimately causing the extinction of numerous plant and animal species. Two influential books of the period – Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac (1949) and Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) created sensations.



ALDO LEOPOLD



RACHEL CARSON



Joseph Meeker’s The Comedy of Survival (1974) proposed a version of an argument which later dominated the ecocritical theory. According to Meeker, the chief cause of environmental crisis is the cultural tradition of the West, that is, the separation of culture from nature.



JOSEPH MEEKER



Cheryll Glotfelty became the first person to hold an academic position as a

Professor of Literature and Environment at the University of Nevada, Reno in 1990.



According to Glotfelty, ecocriticism is the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment. Lawrence Buell defines ecocriticism as a study of the relationship between literature and the environment conducted in a spirit of commitment to environmentalist praxis. Ecocriticism establishes itself as an independent organization under the name : Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) with its own academic journal : Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (ISLE). Prof. Akhalaq Tade, Willingdon College,


It encourages the writers across the globe to pen articles, critical comments; organize and participate in series of conferences. Their aim is to create awareness, through ecocritical writings, about the concern for environment; and also to prompt social and political action in this regard. Ecocritics examine human perception of wilderness, and its representation in popular culture and modern literature.



Ecocritics seem to be more worried about the survival of the human race than seeking justice for the deterioration of environment. According to M.H. Abrams, ecocritics do not share a single theoretical perspective; instead, their engagements with environmental literature manifest a wide range of traditional, poststructural and postcolonial ways of thinking and modes of analysis.



Some of the following issues and concerns are recurrent in ecocriticism.

1 - Since ancient times the Western religions and

philosophies are extremely ‘anthropocentric’; that is, they are oriented to the human interests. According to the biblical references, man is the top most creation of God; and hence, God gave man dominion over other creations including animals and nature. This notion prevailed in almost all ancient religions and philosophies.



But at present, the new ecological movement maintains that the ancient conception of ‘anthropocentrism’ need to be replaced by ‘ecocentrism’ : the view that all creations of God are in no way less than or inferior to the human species. The stress on need of ecocentrism is one the chief concerns of the ecocritics.



2 - Evaluation of binaries is another

important feature of Ecocriticism. These binaries such as man/nature or culture/nature, etc; instead of considering them as exclusive oppositions, should be considered as having interconnections and interdependence. According to M. H. Abrams, human experience of the natural environment is a meditation of a particular time and place in a particular culture; and its representation in a work of literature is undoubtedly shaped by human feelings and the human imagination.



3 - Ecocriticism strongly recommends the

extension of ‘green reading’ to all literary forms including the writings of the natural and social sciences. Its main objective is to incorporate the so far undervalued forms of nature writing ( local colour or regional fiction by authors like Mark Twain, Thomas Hardy etc.) within the ‘major canon of literature’.



The analysis of the differences in attitudes towards the environment that are attributable to a writer’s race, ethnicity, social class and gender is one more striking feature of ecocriticism. Annette Kolodny’s writings gave momentum to a phenomenon called ecofeminism. ECOFEMINISM deals with the analysis of the role ascribed to women in fantasies of the natural surroundings by male writers as well as the study of specifically feminine notions of the environment in the neglected nature writings of female authors.



ANNETTE KOLODNY



Kolodny in her The Lay of the Land: Metaphor as Experience and History in American Life and Letters (1975) points out the inclination of gendering the land as female; and accordingly the dominant tendency of resorting to nature for relaxation, delight and recovery. She has also exposed the marginalization and suppression of women as well as the exploitation and spoliation of the land. Kolodny’s views are so convincing because many epithets are equally applicable to both female and land.



According to other critics, ‘the wilderness romance’, one of the prominent forms of American literature, presents specifically male imaginings of escape to a virgin natural environment, free of women’s dominance, in which the protagonist undergoes a test of his character and virility. The ‘wilderness romance’ can be noticed in the major works of James Cooper, Herman Melville and Mark Twain.



Ecocriticism believes that every human being lives in interdependence and reciprocity with every other living thing. Ecocriticism has created a growing interest in the animistic religions of so-called primitive cultures, especially Hinduism, Buddhism and other religions that do not believe in the Western understanding of dominion of man over non-human world. Prof. Akhalaq Tade, Willingdon College,


Environmental crisis has become a universal issue. Some ecocritics think that by rejecting the Western culture with their anthropocentric view this crisis can be resolved. There are other environmental critics who insist that it is possible to protect environment by identifying and developing the human-centered ethics, tenets and philosophy of the West which will recognize humans not as masters of the natural world, but as the morally responsible living beings in the ecosystem.



Most of the ecocritics agree that scientific awareness about the alarming ecological destruction is not sufficient enough to avert the danger. They want it to be well informed to the world, through literature, so that it will provoke our feelings and imaginations about it. Ecocriticism expands the idea of the ‘world’ to incorporate the entire ecosphere. According to Barry Commoner, the first law of ecology is that “Everything is connected to everything else.”



The Romantic Period of the early nineteenth century was the turning point in the long Western tradition of human transcendence and domination over nature. Jonathan Bate in his Romantic Ecology: Wordsworth and the Environmental Tradition published in 1991, speaks of the ecological and environmental consciousness of Wordsworth. But the motif of the modern Romantic literature and philosophy, both in England and Germany, was that the root cause of modern man’s melancholy is in its alienation from the natural world; and that the sure cure of this malady lies in the reunion of humanity and nature.



Ecocritics encourage others to think seriously about the relationship between humans and nature, and about the ethical and aesthetic dilemmas posed by the environmental crisis. One of the reasons that ecocriticism continues to grow as a discipline is the continued global environmental crisis. The aim of Ecocriticism is to expose apprehension about the environment; and also to show how the work of writers can play important role in solving the real and alarming ecological problems.



There are number of books and anthologies that contributed in the establishment and development of Ecocriticism.

The anthology, The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology, published in 1996 and edited by Cheryll Glotfelty and

Harold Fromm contributed a lot in giving thrust to the ecocritical movement.

There are other anthologies of nature writing such as The Norton Book of Nature Writing (1990) edited by Robert Flinch and John

Elder; American Nature Writers (1996) edited by John Elder.

The important books on Ecocriticism are Leo Marx’s The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America (1964);

Roderick Nash’s Wilderness and the American Mind (1967); Donald Worster’s Nature’s Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas (1977);

Robert P. Harrison’s Forests: The Shadow of Civilization (1992) etc. Prof. Akhalaq Tade, Willingdon College,


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