Thinking Activity: Ecocriticism

 Hello Readers,

I am Riddhi Bhatt from Department of English. As a part of the syllabus, students of the English department are learning the paper ‘Contemporary Western Theories and Film Studies (paper-204)’. Today I am going with one most important theory that ECOCRITICIM. So let's start...…..

ECOCRITICISM :

If you found Marxist criticism challenging, you’ll likely find Ecocriticism much easier. Ecocriticism first became a major theoretical movement in the 1990s. It seeks to relate literature to the natural environment, with the hope that we can take action against climate change and the destruction of natural habitats. Ecocriticism thus has a strong ethical aspect, as the reading of literature should ideally inspire political activism and real change. Conversely, practical action must be driven and directed by sound ecological theory, and here too the study of literature can help.

"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."

According to M.H.Abraham...

Ecocriticism was a term coined in the late 1970s by combining “criticism” with a shortened form of “ecology”—the science that investigates the interrelations of all forms of plant and animal life with each other and with their physical habitats. 

“Ecocriticism” (or by alternative names, environmental criticism and green studies) designates the critical writings which explore the relations between literature and the biological and physical environment, conducted with an acute awareness of the damage being wrought on that environment by human activities."

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.

Major figures in the field:

1. Jonathan Bate (considered widely as the father of Ecocriticism in England)
2. Cheryll Glotfelty (father of Ecocriticism in the USA)
3. Laurence Coupe
4. Patrick D Murphy

The essential ideas and methods of ecocritics :

• Ecocritics believe that human culture is related to the physical world.
• Ecocriticism assumes that all life forms are interlinked. Ecocriticism expands the notion of “the world” to include the entire ecosphere.
• 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.
• 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.”

(Literary Theory Today,Pramod K Nair)

What do eco-critics do ? 

1. Read or re-read the major as well as other works of literature with a viewfinder to trace the natural representation in the writing.
2. Praise the authors, poets and intellectuals who put nature on a higher pedestal than other themes.
3. Give importance to the writings with an eco-centric perspective, such as, travel memoirs, essays about places, intellectual writings containing visual landscape in text etc.
4. Not conform to the traditional notions of literary theory that suggests linguistic or the social build and thus walking through the classic lane of ‘world beyond ourselves’.

As rightly observed by Peter Barry:

“The ecocentric reading, by contrast, focuses outside, on the house and its environs, rather than the inside, on the owner and his psychology.”

Example 

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud 

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud is one of William Wordsworth’s most famous poems. Like many of Wordsworth’s shorter poems, it is far more complex than it seems at first. Wordsworth was particularly good at interweaving several different temporal perspectives into a single poem, and since time and the changes it produces formed Wordsworth’s central poetic preoccupation, his interweaving in this poem is of central importance.

Wordsworth treats the daffodils like a photo on a postcard. Wordsworth doesn’t involve himself in nature. Instead, he looks at nature from afar (like a cloud), and leaves as soon as he has had his fill. In other words, Wordsworth acts like the tourist who comes by once and snaps a quick picture before moving on. In the end, Wordsworth seems more concerned about his own feelings than about nature