CIS Literature

• Ecocriticism is the study of relationship between literature and the physical environment (Glotfelty)
• Newer theory on the academic margins
• More popular on the American West Coast
• First arose in the 1970’s

Influenced by 3 major American Writers:
• Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
• Margaret Fuller (1810-1850)
• Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
• All transcendentalists from the 1840’s

• Reject the notion that everything is socially or linguistically constructed
• I.e.. “it isn’t the language that has a hole in its ozone layer” (Soper)
• Repudiates belief of “constructedeness”
• Challenges other literary theories

• We must question our anthropocentric world view to adopt an ecocentric world view
• We should change focus, so something like “setting” is brought from the margins to the critical center

• Reread major literary work, with an emphasis on the representation of nature
• Extend the range of ecocentric concepts on things beyond the natural world (growth, energy, balance, imbalance, etc.)
• Give special emphasis to writers who foreground nature as a part of their subject matter (American
Transcendentalists and British Romantics)

• Extend the range of literary critical practice by placing emphasis on relevant
‘factual’ writing, including essays, travel writing, memoirs and regional literature
• Turn away from constructivism
• Emphasize ecocentric values of meticulous observation, ethical responsibility, and the claims of the earth

• has four areas:
• “wilderness,”
(deserts, oceans, uninhabited continents)
• the “scenic sublime,”
(forests, lakes, mountains, cliffs, waterfalls)
• the “countryside,”
(hills, fields, woods)
• the “domestic picturesque,”
(parks, gardens, lanes)

• Ecocriticism is, like much contemporary criticism, a form of interdisciplinary in its tools, and its intentions.
,
--Michael P. Cohen

• “Ecocritics, to do something genuinely meaningful, must offer readers a broader, deeper, and more explicit explanation of how and what environmental literature communicates than the writers themselves, immersed in their particularized narratives, can offer. Crucial to the ecocritical process of pulling things (ideas, texts. authors) together and putting them in perspective is our awareness of who and where we are. Our awareness, literally, of where we stand in the world and why we're writing.”
• --Scott Slovic