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Ecocriticism: An Essay: The Ecocriticism Reader Harold Fromm Lawrence Buell

Ecocriticism is an interdisciplinary approach to literature that studies human relationships with the natural world and how environmental issues are portrayed. It emerged in the 1990s in response to increased environmental destruction and social emphasis on these issues. Ecocriticism investigates how nature is represented in works and how metaphors of the land influence real-world treatment of the environment. The core assumptions are that human culture is intertwined with the physical world, all life is interconnected, and literary portrayals shape human actions toward nature.
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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
319 views10 pages

Ecocriticism: An Essay: The Ecocriticism Reader Harold Fromm Lawrence Buell

Ecocriticism is an interdisciplinary approach to literature that studies human relationships with the natural world and how environmental issues are portrayed. It emerged in the 1990s in response to increased environmental destruction and social emphasis on these issues. Ecocriticism investigates how nature is represented in works and how metaphors of the land influence real-world treatment of the environment. The core assumptions are that human culture is intertwined with the physical world, all life is interconnected, and literary portrayals shape human actions toward nature.
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Ecocriticism: An Essay

BY NASRULLAH MAMBROL ON NOVEMBER 27, 2016 • ( 0 )


Ecocriticism is the study of literature and environment from an interdisciplinary point of view
where all sciences come together to analyze the environment and brainstorm possible solutions
for the correction of the contemporary environmental situation. Ecocriticism was officially
heralded by the publication of two seminal works, both published in the mid-1990s: The
Ecocriticism Reader, edited by Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm, and The Environmental
Imagination, by Lawrence Buell.
Ecocriticism investigates the relation between humans and the natural world in literature. It deals
with how environmental issues, cultural issues concerning the environment and attitudes towards
nature are presented and analyzed. One of the main goals in ecocriticism is to study how
individuals in society behave and react in relation to nature and ecological aspects. This form of
criticism has gained a lot of attention during recent years due to higher social emphasis on
environmental destruction and increased technology. It is hence a fresh way of analyzing and
interpreting literary texts, which brings new dimensions to the field of literary and theoritical
studies. Ecocriticism is an intentionally broad approach that is known by a number of other
designations, including “green (cultural) studies”, “ecopoetics”, and “environmental literary
criticism.”

Western thought has often held a more or less utilitarian attitude to nature —nature is for serving
human needs. However, after the eighteenth century, there emerged many voices that demanded
a revaluation of the relationship between man and environment, and man’s view of nature. Arne
Naess, a Norwegian philosopher, developed the notion of “Deep Ecology” which emphasizes the
basic interconnectedness of all life forms and natural features, and presents a symbiotic and
holistic world-view rather than an anthropocentric one.
Earlier theories in literary and cultural studies focussed on issue of class, race, gender, region are
criteria and “subjects”of critical analysis. The late twentieth century has woken up to a new
threat: ecological disaster. The most important environmental problems that humankind faces as
a whole are: nuclear war, depletion of valuable natural resources, population explosion,
proliferation of exploitative technologies, conquest of space preliminary to using it as a garbage
dump, pollution, extinction of species (though not a human problem) among others. In such a
context, literary and cultural theory has begun to address the issue as a part of academic
discourse. Numerous green movements have sprung up all over the world, and some have even
gained representations in the governments.
Large scale debates over “dumping,” North versus South environmentalism (the necessary
differences between the en-vironmentalism of the developed and technologically advanced richer
nations—the North, and the poorer, subsistence environmentalism of the developing or “Third
World”—the South). Donald Worster‘s Nature’s Economy (1977) became a textbook for the
study of ecological thought down the ages. The historian Arnold Toynbee recorded the effect of
human civilisation upon the land and nature in his monumental, Mankind and Mother
Earth (1976). Environmental issues and landscape use were also the concern of the Annales
School of historians, especially Braudel and Febvre. The work of environmental historians has
been pathbreaking too. Rich-ard Grove et al’s massive Nature and the Orient (1998), David
Arnold and Ramachandra Guha’s Nature, Culture, Imperialism (1995) have been significant
work in the environmental history of India and Southeast Asia. Ramachandra Guha is of course
the most important environmental historian writing from India today.
Various versions of environmentalism developed.Deep ecology and ecofeminism were two
important developments. These new ideas questioned the notion of “development” and
“modernity,” and argued that all Western notions in science, philosophy, politics were
“anthropocentric” (human-centred) and “androcentric”(Man/male-centred). Technology, medical
science with its animal testing, the cosmetic and fashion industry all came in for scrutiny from
environmentalists. Deep ecology, for instance, stressed on a “biocentric” view (as seen in the
name of the environmentalist group, “Earth First!!”).

Ecocriticism is the result of this new consciousness: that very soon, there will be nothing
beautiful (or safe) in nature to discourse about, unless we are very careful.

Ecocritics ask questions such as:


(1) How is nature represented in the novel/poem/play ?
(2) What role does the physical-geographical setting play in the structure of the novel?
(3) How do our metaphors of the land influence the way we treat it? That is, what is the link
between pedagogic or creative practice and actual political, sociocultural and ethical behaviour
towards the land and other non-human life forms?
(4) How is science —in the form of genetic engineering, technologies of reproduction,
sexualities—open to critical scrutiny terms of the effects of science upon the land?
The essential assumptions, ideas and methods of ecocritics may be summed up as follows.
(1) Ecocritics believe that human culture is related to the physical world.
(2) Ecocriticism assumes that all life forms are interlinked. Ecocriticism expands the notion of
“the world” to include the entire ecosphere.
(3) Moreover, there is a definite link between nature and culture, where the literary treatment,
representation and “thematisation” of land and nature influence actions on the land.
(4) Joseph Meeker in an early work, The Comedy of Survival: Studies in Literary
Ecology (1972) used the term “literary ecology” to refer to “the study of biological themes and
relationships which appear in literary works. It is simultaneously an attempt to discover what
roles have been played by literature in the ecology of the human species.”
(5) William Rueckert is believed to have coined the term “ecocriticism” in 1978, which he
defines as “the application of ecology and ecological concepts to the study of literature.”

Source: Literary Theory Today,Pramod K Nair

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