The study of “literature and environment” became popular in the 1990’s with the founding of organizations such as “The Association For the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE)” and the “ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment,” (Hart & Slovic, Pg. 1). Louise Westling and John Parham describe this approach as “distinctive and instructive ways we see how these ancient cultures continued to express preliterate traditions of interactions with the natural world, while at the same time responding to historical challenges such as the expansion of cities and agricultural systems,” (Parham & Westling, Introduction). However, this generally new field of study for scholars has been a subject of discourse for many authors throughout history. According to Laurence Mazzeno and Ronald Morrison, , “several scholars have linked the roots of ecocriticism to ancient Greece,”(Mazzeno & Morrison, Introduction). This interest in mankind’s relationship with nature continued through the Victorian era with authors such as Thomas Hardy, Christina Rossetti, and Charles Dickens, and up into the modern and contemporary eras when environmentalism became a growing academic study.
One of the prevalent ideals of Western philosophy surrounding the environment is best illustrated in a sociological study conducted by Christine J. Walley. In chapter four, titled “Where There is No Nature,” from her book Rough Waters: Nature and Development in East African Marine Park, Walley describes her attempts to determine “whether a concept of nature similar to that found within Euro-American traditions can also be found on Chole.” What she found was that the closest word associated with the English ‘environment’ was “mazingira,” which carries none of the connotations of nature in English,” (Walley, Pg. 140). The idea of being separate from nature appears to be a prevalent aspect of western attitudes towards the environment, despite not being a philosophy practiced in globally. This western perception of humans being separate from non-human nature is part of what lead me to pick this topic as my concentration. I am interested in learning more about whether this has influenced growing industrialization and the increase of resource consumption following the industrial revolution. If this sense of separation from the non-human world is prevalent throughout Western Literary tradition, I suspect that it is a contributor to the consumption culture prevalent in Western society today. There is a vast amount of literature that displays Western perspectives on consumption and conservation. For my concentration, I intend to read and analyze many authors from various time periods such as Henry David Thoreau, Cotton Mather,William Bartram, John Keats, Robert Louis Stevenson, Charles Darwin, Pliny the Elder, John Muir, Rachel Carson, and others. My goal is to use poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and essays to gain a greater understanding of Western philosophy surrounding nature and how it relates to changing attitudes of conservation and consumption throughout history. I also plan to read many contemporary essays and writings which synthesize major time periods, authors, and their views on conservation and consumption. Because these authors and others are highly regarded in the academic world, I believe their ideas may have influenced or may reflect patterns of attitudes towards resource use and the non-human world formulate many ideas of contemporary environmentalism. I am also interested in studying how the rhetoric being used changes over time and how that rhetoric might indicate underlying ideologies that are problematic or prevalent today.
Descriptive: What are the popular and intellectual ideologies and movements propelled by ecocriticism in the anglophone? Explanatory: What historical events or changes in daily life have led to changes in popular and intellectual ideas of land use? Evaluative: How have these popular and intellectual ideologies and movements strengthened or worsened cultural groups and resource abundance over time? Instrumental: How can the use of language hinder or propel the public’s perception of the popular and intellectual ideologies concerning resource and land use?
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