Eco-Criticism : Brief Overview & Areas of Study

Introduction : This blog is a response to the thinking activity assigned by my professor Dr Dilip Barad concerning the Eco-Criticism as a part of Critical Studies, and is also the part of the series of blog wherein Marxist Criticism, Queer Criticism, Feminist Criticism, and Queer Criticism are dealt with. By clicking the following keywords, you will get redirected to the respective blogs. The thinking activity assigned to the students is to apply the ideas of chosen critical studies in day-to-day T.V. advertisements, serials, shows, songs, movies, poems, novels, etc. in order to practice what we have learnt and acquired under the umbrella of critical as well as cultural studies.

Marxist Criticism, Feminist Criticism, Queer Criticism.

In this blog, I will be demonstrating the following points :

• Green Criticism

• Culture and Nature

• Four Areas to Study Ecology

Brief Introduction to Eco-Criticism :

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.” (Source)

• Green Criticism :

Green Criticism is the another term of 'Eco-Criticism.' The roots of Ecocriticism can be traced way back to the Pastoral writing of the Greek poet Theocritus in the third century BC. It was since then continued by many poets and authors in their own preferred narrative techniques, most prominently in William Wordsworth's poems.

• Culture and Nature :

The culture and nature have historically been correlated to each other. The way people and their perceived beliefs enacted in form of cultural rites interact with surrounding natural forces decides the preservatory as well as exploitative measures of the nature being interacted with by the people living in their respective ambience.

The Industrialisation is one of the biggest exploitative threat to natural resources as it tends to cover up the major part of forest lands, swathes, and exploit natural resources like trees, streams, lagoons, lakes, and ponds for their desired production of goods and edible products.

• Four Areas to Study Ecology : 

(1) 'The Wilderness' (e.g. deserts, oceans, uninhabited continents)

(2) 'The Scenic Sublime' (e.g. forests, lakes, mountains, cliffs, waterfalls)

(3) 'The Countryside' (e.g. hills, fields, woods)

(4) 'The Domestic Picturesque' (e.g. parks, gardens, lanes)

Conclusion : The necessity of Ecocriticism arises due to Globalwarming, Mass Soil Erosion, Deforestation, Landslides, Tsunami, Femine, and Earthquakes kind of natural disasters which in a way is directly coonected to the human interaction with nature which cause the augmentation in the canvass of earth. 

Thank you!