Download Chapter II Roots of Ecocriticism The study of literature

Chapter II
Roots of Ecocriticism
The study of literature has long been preoccupied with historical approaches.
However, in recent years critics are increasingly aware of the relation between literature
and geography, and drawing insights from the mutual study of these two fields. Nature
and literature have always shared a close relationship as is evidenced in the works of
poets and other writers down the ages in almost all cultures of the world. Today the
intimate relationship between the natural and social world is being analyzed and
emphasized in all departments of knowledge and development. The literary critic tries to
study how this close relationship between nature and society has been textualized by the
writers in their works. In this context two terms have become very important today –
‗ecology‘ and ‗ecocriticism‘. The two components of nature, organisms and their
environment are not only much complex and dynamic but also interdependent, mutually
reactive and interrelated.
Ecology, relatively a new science, deals with the various principles which govern
such relationships between organisms and environment. Today, ecology is defined as the
way in which plants, animals and people are related to each other and their environment.
In this relationship they are so much interdependent on each other that any disturbance in
one disturbs the other. History has proved this every now and then that with every change
in the civilisation the relationship of animals and human beings have also changed and
the effect on civilisation of the changes in environment has been so acute that sometimes
it has wiped the whole civilisation from the face of the earth. Therefore, concern for
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ecology is one of the most discussed issues today. It is the concern of every country to
replenish the diminishing factors of ecology which threatens human beings the most.
Literature well known for reflecting the contemporary issues could not have remained
unaffected from this theme.
The world of literature throngs with works dealing with beauty and power of
nature. However, the concern for ecology and the threat that the continuous misuse of our
environment poses on humanity have only recently caught the attention of the writers. It
is this sense of concern and its reflection in literature that have given rise to a new branch
of literary theory, namely Ecocriticism. There have also been numerous debates on
whether to include human culture in the physical world. Despite the broad scope of
inquiry all ecological criticism shares the fundamental premise that human culture is
connected to the physical world, affecting it and affected by it. Dr. Mark C. Long in an
interview found on OSLE India‘s Newsletter, in this context, first differentiates between
ecology and environment. He says that ecology is mostly used by humanists as a
metaphor for describing the natural world. In this sense, ‗ecology‘ is a way of thinking
about nature. ‗Environment‘, on the other hand, he considers as a more inclusive term
that describes the natural and human world. He says ―I use the term ‗environmental
writing‘ more than ‗nature writing‘ because I am interested in writers concerned with
natural as well as cultural experience‖ (OSLE India Newsletter 3). The view that culture
is produced by human beings and is therefore separate from nature bypasses the fact that
all human culture resides in the natural world. The human beings owe our very existence
to its processes. Therefore, our every action toward the natural world is eventually an
action toward oneself and toward one‘s culture.
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Its practitioners explore human attitudes toward the environment as expressed in
nature writing. It is a broad genre that is known by many names like green cultural
studies, ecopoetics and environmental literary criticism, which are some popular names
for this relatively new branch of literary criticism. Literary criticism in general examines
the relations between writers, texts and ―the world‖. In most literary theory ―the world‖ is
synonymous with society--- the social sphere. Ecocriticism expands the notion of ―the
world‖ to include the entire ecosphere. Ecocriticism takes an earth-centered approach to
literary criticism. Ecocritics and theorists are concerned with the questions like if the
nature is being represented in a piece of literature or if the physical setting has a role in
the plot or if the values expressed in the work are consistent with the ecological wisdom
or if in addition to race, class, gender and place should become a new critical category
and in what ways and to what effect the environment crisis is seeping into contemporary
literature and popular culture. Literary scholars specialise in questions of value, meaning,
tradition, point of view, tradition and language and it is in these areas that we are making
a substantial contribution to environmental thinking.
Ecocriticism has come to mean not only the application of ecology and ecological
principles to the study of literature, but also the theoretical approach to the interrelational
web of natural cultural and supernatural phenomena. It began to explore constructions of
environment in literary texts and theoretical discourse. Most ecological work shares a
common motivation, that is, the awareness that we have reached the age of environmental
limits, a time when the consequences of human actions are damaging the planet‘s basic
life support system. This awareness brings in us a desire to contribute to environmental
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restoration, not only as a hobby but as a representative of literature. Ecocritics encourage
others to think seriously about the aesthetic and ethical dilemmas posed by the
environmental crisis and about how language and literature transmit values with profound
ecological implications. Ecocriticism is the central focus of this research. The
considerable increase in the emergence of Ecoconscious writers in the post-modern era
has paved a path for a new kind of critical approach called Ecocriticism. It is a fairly
recent but rapidly developing concept in the area of Literary Criticism. It has emerged as
a modern ecological literary study and is now acknowledged as a vital critical approach.
Ecocriticism not only gives emphasis on the ‗harmony‘ of humanity and nature but also
talks about the destruction caused to nature by the changes which take place in the
modern world for most of which man is directly responsible. O. J. Joycee and Evangeline
Manickam in an article, From Ego- centered to Eco-centered Humanism: A Wilburian
Perspective in The Atlantic Literary Review opine as follows:
Ecocriticism anticipates a response to the need for humanistic
understanding with the natural world in an age of environmental
destruction. The war- ravaged Twentieth Century catapulted attention to
the environment and since then there has been no dearth of theories and
movements. Our understanding of nature is at odds with another, and there
is no definitive way to judge which one is better… Nature is, therefore, an
idea that takes on different meanings in different cultural contexts. (75)
Ecocriticism gives a new meaning to place, setting, and environment. Ecocritics in their
study wanted an ecological perception of nature to change the ways humans inhabit the
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Earth. Loretta Johnson in her essay Greening the library: The Fundamentals and Future
of Ecocriticism poses a variety of questions like, ―Would a shift toward an ecological
perception of nature change the ways humans inhabit the Earth? Do authors impute
certain values and make assumptions when they present the environment and nonhuman
life in their works? How does one avoid binary oppositions, or should one perceive
human nature in an I/it or I/thou relationship?‖
<http://www.asle.org/assets/docs/Ecocriticism_essay.pdf>.
Ecocriticism is a rapidly changing theoretical approach, which is different from
the traditional approach to literature. Here the critic explores the local or global, the
material or physical, or the historical or natural history in the context of a work of art. An
ecocritical approach to literature is often interdisciplinary, citing knowledge of
environmental studies, the natural sciences, and cultural and social studies. Johnson
further explains thus:
―Eco‖,from the Greek root oikos, means ―house‖… Just as ―economy‖ is
the management or law of the house (nomos = law), ―ecology‖ is the study
of the house. Ecocriticism, then, is the criticism of the ―house,‖ i.e., the
environment, as represented in literature. But the definition of ―house,‖ or
oikos, is not simple. Questions remain: What is the environment? What is
nature? Why did the term ―environment,‖ which derives from the verb ―to
environ or surround,‖ change to mean that which is nonhuman? Are not
humans natural and a prominent environment in themselves? Where and in
what does one live? Ecocriticism is by nature interdisciplinary, invoking
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knowledge of environmental studies, the natural sciences, and cultural and
social studies, all of which play a part in answering the questions it poses.
<http://www.asle.org/assets/docs/Ecocriticism_essay.pdf>
Since 1990, ecocriticism has flourished. Today, a keyword search for
―ecocriticism‖ in the MLA Bibliography online produces 422 hits, three-quarters of
which are from the last eight years. Ecocriticism has entered academic course lists
worldwide, along with the creation of interdisciplinary academic faculty positions to
teach them. Peter Barry added a chapter titled ―Ecocriticism‖ to the second edition of his
Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory, but correctly claims
that ecocriticism has no universal model. The essay focuses exclusively on the new
practice in this area and includes only the most important works on the relationship
between culture and nature relative to ecocriticism. Accordingly, he lists ―what ecocritics
do,‖ which includes the following:
They re-read major literary works from a major ecocentric perspective,
with particular attention to the representation of the natural world. They
extend the applicability of a range of ecocentric concepts, using them of
other things in the natural world-concepts such as growth and energy,
balance and imbalance, symbiosis and mutuality, and sustainable or
unsustainable uses of energy and resources… they turn away from the
‗social constructivism‘ and ‗linguistic determinism‘ of dominant literary
theories and instead emphasize ecocentric values of meticulous
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observation, collective ethical responsibility, and the claims of the world
beyond ourselves. (Barry 254)
Glen Love in his Practical Ecocriticism answers the question of ―Why Ecocriticism is
important in today‘s world?‖ He says these words:
As the circumstances of the natural world intrude ever more pressingly
into our teaching and writing, the need to consider the interconnections,
the implicit dialogue between the text and the environmental surroundings,
becomes more and more insistent. Ecocriticism is developing as an
explicit critical response to this unheard dialogue and attempts to raise it to
a higher level of human consciousness. Teaching and studying literature
without reference to the natural conditions of the world and the basic
ecological principles that underlie all life seems increasingly short –
sighted, incongruous. (Love 18)
Some ecocritics date the birth of the word ―ecocriticism‖ to William Rueckert,
who in a 1978 essay titled ―Literature and Ecology: An Experiment in Ecocriticism‖
wrote that ecocriticism entailed ―application of ecology and ecological concepts to the
study of literature‖ (Glotfelty and Fromm xx) which is included in The Ecocriticism
Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology by Cheryl Glotfelty and Harold Fromm. This
text remains a benchmark text in the field because of the passion of its contributors, its
scholarly breadth and depth, and the diversity of its essays. In a 1989 Western Literature
Association meeting, Glotfelty had urged literary critics to develop an ecological
approach to literature, one that would focus on the cultural dimensions of humans‘
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relationship to the environment. At the same meeting, Glen Love delivered a speech titled
―Revaluing Nature: Toward an Ecological Literary Criticism,‖ and Glotfelty and Fromm
included that text in their volume.
Over the last three decades, Ecocriticism has emerged as a field of literary study
that addresses how humans relate to non- human nature or the environment in literature.
Today, with the development and expansion of ecocritical studies, any line between
human and non- human nature has necessarily blurred. So when subjected to
Ecocriticism, literature of all periods and places—not only ecocentric or environmental
literature or nature writing, but all literature is viewed in terms of place, setting, and
environment. Glotfelty's working definition in The Ecocriticism Reader is as follows:
Ecocriticism is the study of the relationship between literature and the physical
environment. 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 its texts, eco criticism
takes an earth centered approach to literary studies. (Glotfelty and Fromm xviii)
Ecocriticism is inherently interdisciplinary. Ecocriticism is most appropriately applied to
a work in which the landscape itself is a dominant character, when a significant
interaction occurs between author and place, character and place.
Landscape by definition includes the non-human elements of place--the
rocks, soil, trees, plants, rivers, animals, air--as well as human perceptions
and modifications. How an author sees and describes these elements
relates to geological, botanical, zoological, meteorological, ecological, as
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well as aesthetic, social, and psychological considerations. And then there
is the historical vantage point. As Thoreau once wrote, there can be no
history but natural history--if one believes that by ―nature‖ we mean the
human as well as non-human world.
<http://www.asle.org/site/resources/ecocritical-library/intro/defining/scheese/>
Ecocritics ask several questions on the relationship between environment and
literature but one question seems to be the most important. Literary ecocriticism offers
an ecological interpretation of texts. Cheryl Glotfelty says that: ―Simply put, ecocriticism
is the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment‖
(Glotfelty and Fromm xviii). She lists a number of questions which could be asked by
literary ecocritics like ―How is nature represented in this sonnet?‖ and ―What crossfertilization is possible between literary studies and environmental discourse in related
disciplines such as history, philosophy, psychology, art history and ethics?‖ (Glotfelty
and Fromm xix). They also point to the central concern of culture in ecocriticism:
Despite the broad scope of inquiry and disparate levels of sophistication,
all ecological criticism shares the fundamental premise that human culture
is connected to the physical world, affecting it and affected by it.
Ecocriticism takes as its subject the interconnections between nature and
culture, specifically the cultural artefacts of language and literature. As a
critical stance, it has one foot in literature and the other on land; as a
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theoretical discourse, it negotiates between the human and the non-human.
(xviii)
The author elaborates upon the term ‗Ecocriticism‘ and provides us with his twin
explanation of the same. Jonathan Bate expresses the same idea as Glotfelty more briefly:
A central question in environmental ethics is whether to regard humankind
as part of nature or apart from nature. It is the task of literary ecocriticism
to address a local version of that question: what is the place of creative
imagining and writing in the complex set of relationships between
humankind and environment, between mind and world, between thinking,
being and dwelling? (8)
The term ‗Ecocriticism‘ (Greek oikos and kritis) is interpreted to mean ‗house
judge‘ by William Howarth. He says: ―the oikos is nature, a place Edward Hoagland calls
‗our widest home,‘ and the kritos is an arbiter of taste‖ (Glotfelty and Fromm 69). For
him, ―criticism judges the quality and integrity of works and promotes their
dissemination‖ (Glotfelty and Fromm 71). He claims the four disciplines of ecology,
ethics, language and criticism are essential for the reading of nature writing:
To me they offer combinations of theory and method that explore
environmental literature. As an interdisciplinary science, ecology
describes the relations between nature and culture. The applied philosophy
of ethics offers ways to mediate historic social conflicts. Language theory
examines how words represent human and nonhuman life. Criticism
judges the quality and integrity of works and promotes their
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dissemination. Each discipline stresses the relations of nature and
literature as shifting, moving shapes – a house in progress, perhaps,
unfinished and standing in a field. (Glotfelty and Fromm 71)
For Howarth the aim of ecocriticism should be ―to redirect humanistic ideology,
not spurning the natural sciences but using their ideas to sustain viable readings‖
(Glotfelty and Fromm 78). Thus the working definition of literary ecocriticism is the
analysis of literature‘s expression of humanity‘s place on Earth, our oikos or home. This
wholly includes the cultural aspect through literature and the biological aspect through
the Earth as our ecosystem. Karl Kroeber in Ecological Literary Criticism: Romantic
Imagining and the Biology of Mind points to the importance of this intersection between
the cultural and the biological:
An ecologically oriented criticism directs itself to understanding persistent
romantic struggles to articulate meaningful human relations within the
conditions of a natural world in which transcendence is not an issue. Such
criticism does not dismiss the copious evidence of romantic claims that
imaginative consciousness fulfils, rather than contravenes, the dynamic
tendencies of natural life. Ecologically oriented criticism thus recognizes a
foreshadowing of its own understanding of humanity‘s relation to nature
in the romantic view that it is natural for human beings to be selfconscious, and natural, therefore, to construct their cultures out of
complexly inter assimilative engagements with their physical and
biological environment. (38-9)
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The term ‗Ecocriticism‘ is a short form of ecological literary criticism. The tendency to
drop the reference to literature distorts the full ecological implication of the discipline.
Kroeber like Howarth, points to the linking function of literary ecocriticism between
humanism and science and calls the Romantic poets ―proto-ecological‖ because they
accepted ―a natural environment existent outside of one‘s personal psyche‖ (Kroeber 19).
Kroeber admits that scientific procedures help us to understand the natural environment
because science orders external reality. But, he adds, this external reality can only be
fully appreciated through ―imaginative acts of mind‖ (19).
According to Glen Love Ecocriticism focuses on the ―inter connections between
the material world and human culture, specifically the cultural artifacts language and
literature‖ (196). Robert Kern in his essay ―Ecocriticism: What is it good for?‖ found in
The ISLE Reader: Ecocriticism, 1993-2003 aptly observes thus:
What ecocriticism calls for, then, is a fundamental shift from one context
of reading to another- more specifically, a movement from the human to
the environmental, or at least from the exclusively human to the biocentric
or ecocentric, which is to say a humanism (since we cannot evade our
human status or identity) informed by an awareness of the ‗more- than –
human. (Branch and Slovic 267)
Ecocriticism regards nature as an autonomous, active entity of its own and so can
be used as an important tool in interpreting literary texts that represent the relationship of
human beings to their natural environment. As man moved from science to modern
technology nature became the ―Other‖. All that is not man came to be called as nature. O.
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J. Joycee and Evangeline Manickam in an article, From Ego- centered to Eco-centered
Humanism: A Wilburian Perspective in The Atlantic Literary Review utter these words:
Cultural anthropologists like Levi –Strauss distinguish nature and culture
by stating that which is universal and spontaneous and not dependent on
any particular culture, or any determinate form, belongs to nature.
Inversely that which depends upon a system of norms regulating society
and therefore is capable of varying from one social structure to another
belongs to culture. This ―no-culture‖ of nature may itself be considered a
culture, for nature is not an abstraction or an idea as the post – modernists
would like us to believe, nor is it mere physical entity, but a living
presence of which the human race constitute a significant part. (76)
Ecocritics can initiate change, as Lawrence Buell believes, ―admittedly nothing is more
shocking for many humanists than to find their ideas taken seriously. But it might just
happen in this case. That self- identified Ecocritics tend to be folk who seriously entertain
that possibility is one reason why the best ecocritical work is so strange, timely, and
intriguing‖(Buell 710). Christa Grewe – Volpp in the article, Nature ―out there‖ and as ―a
social player‖ found in Nature in Literary and Cultural Studies says that, ―As culture is
understood to be embedded in nature and as nature is always culturally inscribed, culture
can no longer deem itself superior to nature. It must instead respect the implications and
consequences of its embeddedness‖ (Gersdoff and Mayer 81). Grewe further explains
thus:
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Nature in each case responded and responds to human interference. As an
autonomous actor it can no longer be depicted as a mere setting, but
becomes a protagonist capable of articulation… The land, for example, is
more generally, a place, subtly or explicitly influences the psyche and the
actual behaviour of individual protagonists. Climate, wilderness condition,
technologically altered landscapes, topographies and many other
environmental elements- never as pristine nature, never as mere text –
function as a powerful force that human beings have to – and do – react to.
(78)
Arthur Lovejoy‘s contribution in this field is also very eminent. He observes that
one of the strangest, most potent and most persistent factors in the western thought is the
use of the term ‗nature‘ to express the standard of human values, the identification of the
good with that which is ‗natural‘ or ‗according to nature‘. Nature has always proved to be
stronger than human. It has often shown its power by controlling manpower through
natural calamities like famine, drought, flood, earthquake etc. Human‘s life and nature
are so interlinked that it is not possible for human beings to separate themselves from its
influence. Therefore they have no choice but to accept both nature‘s bounty and
adversity. This can be said to be reciprocal as nature too is the recipient of human‘s
action. Our irresponsible actions cause irreparable damages to nature. This is how the
chain of ecosystem works in which everything is related to each other and therefore
affects each other. However, even with a term that defined a new group of writing,
Cheryl Glotfelty‘s The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology published in
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1996 adeptly narrowed the term in spite of a ―postmodern age [that] exist[s] in a constant
state of flux‖ as ―the study of the relationship between literature and the physical
environment‖ (Glotfelty and Fromm xviii). The distinction between environmental
writing and ecocritical writing is critical to an understanding of ecocriticism. Glotfelty
notes that ―environmental writing supports a dualism that asserts nature as totally
separate from humanity, while ecocritical writing unifies the two, or at least analyzes the
relationship between them‖ (Glotfelty and Fromm xx). An ecocritical approach views
human‘s relationship with nature by his interaction with nature because it supports the
idea that nature, as a literary subject, surrounds all parts of life. Suresh Frederick rightly
says that, ―Ecocriticism gives human beings a better understanding of nature‖ (134).
Ecocriticism is a necessary part of literary scholarship because literature cannot separate
characters from nature and that they domesticate either destructively or productively.
Foundational to this study of work in nature is Ralph Waldo Emerson‘s definition
of nature and art and his argument about what it means to be whole through work in
nature. In his essay, ―Nature”, Emerson defines nature as ―essences unchanged by man,‖
and art as a ―mixture of [man‘s] will with [what is unchanged by man]‖ (Slater 3). Thus,
employing nature as a subject of literary study should address human will in nature.
Emerson acknowledges that environmental problems arise because of man‘s ―resumption
of power‖ and that ―[t]he problem of restoring to the world original and eternal beauty. . .
is solved by the redemption of the soul. The ruin or the blank, that we see when we look
at nature, is in our own eye‖ (Slater 45).
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One of the most important ecocritical concepts that is used for the interpretation
of a work of art by ecocritics today is cultural geography. In literature importance is
given to the geographical background and it very much depends upon the lives of the
people and their environment. The two major branches of Geography are Physical
Geography and Cultural Geography. The latter can also be defined as Human Geography
which is the study of many cultural aspects found throughout the world. It also deals with
how culture relates to the different spaces and places. The interest of geographers in
cultural problems developed early, but the cultural approach was deeply modernized
during the last 20 years. The main cultural phenomena studied in cultural geography are
the language of the people, their religion, their economic status, art, music and other
cultural aspects. The study of these aspects helps to explain why people behave the way
they do in the particular environment in which they live in. These aspects of culture are
able to travel across the world due to globalization. This chapter deals with the Cultural
Geography of Ireland and how it is incorporated in the plays of Synge. G.S. Mohanty in
Social and Cultural Geography expounds in his Preface thus:
Geography, in simplest terms, is about locations, places, how people and
their cultures interact with their environments, how goods, services and
ideas move across space, and how dividing the world into regions can help
us understand it all. Social and cultural geography is about how people, as
individuals and as members of groups, create places and landscapes for
their daily lives; how people understand places, regions, and spatial
relationships; how places and landscapes are cumulative through time:
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how places and landscapes are part of larger regional and global systems,
and how human societies and nature interact to create the diversity of the
humanized world. (vii)
In the studies on cultural geography, developed in the first half of our century,
some geographers focus their analyses on the material productions and expressions of
culture: artefacts, housing, food; the way they are named and spoken of; discourses and
texts; works of art. Though nature has been the subject of the works of many writers it
has been recognized as a separate field of study very recently. In simple terms what was
the study of nature in olden days has now been termed as literary geography. Wagner in
his cultural traditions says that the study of
Cultural geography can help to analyse and attack the human problems in
our own societies that attach to race and poverty, age and gender, ethnicity
and alienation. Spatial imagination, historical awareness, cultural
sensitivity and ecological insight, as well as that observational gift upon
which fieldwork depends, can all play a part in rendering service, and
committed engagement will enrich our vision as well. (8)
Before delving deeper into cultural geography it is only appropriate on the part of the
researcher to discuss the two terms ‗nature‘ and ‗culture ‗which form a major part of the
study of cultural geography. Raymond Williams in his essay ―Nature‖ in the Cultural
Geography Reader says as follows:
Indeed one of the most powerful uses of nature, since the late eighteenth
century, has been in this selective sense of goodness
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and innocence.
Nature has meant the ‗countryside‘, the ‗unspoiled
places‘, plants
and
creatures other than man. The use is especially current in contrasts
between town and country: nature is what man has not made,
though if he made it long enough ago – a hedgerow or a desert – it will
usually be included as natural. (Oaks and Price 211)
As William says nature is something that is there for man to enjoy, experience and use
but he does not have the power to create nature. Williams further explains that though
nature is one of the most complex words in the language it ―is relatively easy to
distinguish three areas of meaning: (i) the essential quality and character of something;
(ii) the inherent force which directs either the world or human beings or both; (iii) the
material world itself, taken as including or not including human beings‖ (Oaks and Price
208). The next most complex term in the English language is ‗Culture‘. The answer to the
question, ‗What is culture?‘ is very complicated. Williams answers this in his other essay
Culture also found in Cultural Geography Reader. According to Williams ―Culture is
one of the two or three most complicated
words in the English language… The
immediate forerunner is cultura [Latin], from the Latin root word colere. Colere has a
range of meanings: inhabit, cultivate, protect, honour with worship‖ (Oaks and Price 18).
Williams explains that the primary meaning was husbandry which is the tending
of natural growth and culture is manifested through music, literature, painting, theatre
and film. Culture is a learned behaviour says, William Sewell. Jr. in Concepts of Culture
found in the Cultural Geography Reader. He interprets ―Culture as learned behaviour.
Culture in this sense is the whole body of practices, beliefs, institutions, customs, habits,
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myths, and so on built up by humans and passed on from generation to generation. In
this usage, culture is contrasted to nature; its possession is what distinguishes us from
other animals‖ (Oaks and Price 43).
Another important theme which comes under cultural geography is the study of
landscape. Landscape is a very complex term which has a number of meanings and
interpretation. Though many have a clear image of the word landscape, defining the term
is not so simple. Descriptions of a landscape will be the same but what that particular
landscape means to them will definitely vary from person to person. Landscapes reflected
also the habits, customs and values of those who shaped them. The inhabitant of a region
will look at his landscape differently from a tourist who is just passing by. The perception
of a painter or a philosopher will definitely be different from that that of a geographer.
Langton in Homeland: Sacred Visions and the Settler State feels that ―Land and
landscapes shared by settlers and indigenes are divergently imagined, whereas settlers see
an empty wilderness, aboriginal people see a busy spiritual landscape, peopled by
ancestors and the evidence of their creative feats‖ (Adams and Robins, 16). Landscape is
not an independent composition. It reflects the conflicts which destroy the society which
creates or inhabits it. Landscape, either the one which is painted or the one which is
shaped, is a creation where views over society are expressed through transformations
imposed upon nature. In the world of geography there is more than one term for the word
‗landscape‘ and it is a large mixture of many definitions put together. Obviously
landscape has to do with the surface of the earth and it is frequently taken as a visual
medium in literature and paintings. However during the seventeenth century Meining, in
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The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes found in Conzen‘s Cultural Landscape in
Geography comments ―Landscape is related to but not identical with nature; it is a scene,
but not identical with scenery; it is around us, but not identical with environment; related
to but not identical with place, and related to but not identical with region, area, or
geography‖ (3087).
Landscapes reflect a society‘s culture and Cultural Landscape is the common
geographers‘ term for ―perspective on the location of humans, their resources, significant
geographic landmarks, socio-economic status, belief systems, and why they evolved to
what they are today‖. The Geographer who first used the term Cultural Landscape as an
academic term in the early 20th century is Otto Schluter. He defined two forms of
landscape: ―the ‗original landscape‘ or landscape that existed before major human
induced changes and the‘ cultural landscape' a landscape created by human culture. The
major task of geography was to trace the changes in these two landscapes‖. Cultural
landscapes are reflective of human and natural transformations to landscapes. ―They
hold different meanings to diverse groups of people, each of which hold within their
relative culture, varying attitudes towards landscapes‖ (Duncan, Johnson and Schein 92).
Rubenstein stated that, ―A distinctive landscape results from the characteristics of a
particular culture, including beliefs, social structures, and material capabilities. The
impact of humans on the landscape changes over time and differs from one region to
another‖ (Rubenstein 36).
Cultural geographers recognise that the cultural landscape is an ongoing process,
and not static. Rubenstein‘s book The Cultural Landscape outlined analogies between
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what the cultural landscape represents in theory with every day examples of living
within our communities. He described ―the deep entrenchment of cultural beliefs within
different groups of people and how these distinctive beliefs come to dominate
transformations to landscapes‖ (Rubenstein 36). Emerson writes of nature by saying that,
―We come to our own, and make friends with matter, which the ambitious chatter of the
schools would persuade us to despise. We never can part with it; the mind loves its old
home‖ (Slater 325). He also poignantly notes that ―[c]ities give not the human senses
room enough‖ (Slater 325), which suggests that a rural life allows man room to fully and
wholly love, to form relationship with the land, and to be at home in it. If farming is one
of man‘s ―natural capacities,‖ then its work must accomplish something or work toward
something greater than himself. Therefore, one new function of ecocriticism is to seek
out literature that portrays particular values and beliefs toward the unity between the
environment and man. Another function is for ecocritical writers oftentimes to focus on
nature for nature‘s sake and excommunicate human action as a part of that nature.
Finally, in the twenty-first century, a number of authors are creating works that
attempt to resolve, or at best explore, the dichotomy between nature and man through
conservation. Glotfelty‘s foundational definition of ecocriticism is that ―ecocriticism
takes as its subject the interconnections between nature and culture, specially the cultural
attitude of language and literature‖ (Glotfelty and Fromm xx). She defines this
connection in ecocritical writing as a widening discussion of the ―social sphere‖ to the
―entire ecosphere‖ in which ―ideas‖ interact as a part of a ―global system‖ (xix). Thus,
literature becomes an avenue for an expressiveness of nature that does not leave out
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culture. Nature is a place of existence where living organisms flourish, wither, and die;
like nature, a person‘s interaction with the environment also reveals his or her own
development on earth.
To sum up, as a distinctive approach to the practice of literary criticism,
ecocriticism gives increased attention to literary representatives of nature and is sensitive
to interdependencies that ground the author, character or work in the natural system. This
approach shifts critical focus from social relations toward natural relationships and views
the individual as a member of ecosystem. It values highly the ‗literary sense of place‘ not
as setting but as an essential expression of bonding with or alienation from a specific
natural context. From the beginning the writers have shown interest towards nature,
culture and landscape. An ecocritical approach views man‘s relationship with nature by
his interaction with nature because it supports the idea that nature, as a literary subject,
surrounds all parts of life. Therefore, ecocriticism is a necessary part of literary
scholarship because literature cannot separate characters from nature that they
domesticate either destructively or productively.
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