Ecocriticism

Ecocriticism

Where it all began

Pros

• 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 texts, ecocriticism takes an earth-centered approach to literary studies.

It appeared in a book by Kenneth Burke, a literary critic. “Among the sciences,” he wrote, “there is one little fellow named Ecology, and in time we shall pay him more attention.”Later in that decade, in 1978, the dean of Burke studies, William H. Rueckert, published “Literature and Ecology: An Experiment in Ecocriticism.” It took a few years for the term “ecocriticism” to catch on, but once it did, it took off.

Focuses

In General

Your able to give more of a deeper meaning and be able to explain why the author uses the different settings in different situations like the jungle in Heart Of Darkness. The jungle being insidious representing Marlow hidden future.

• ecosystem
• land
• nature

Ecocritics and theorists ask questions like the following: How is nature represented in this sonnet? What role does the physical setting play in the plot of this novel? Are the values expressed in this play consistent with ecological wisdom? How do our metaphors of the land influence the way we treat it?

Ecocriticism is the study of literature and environment where all sciences come together to analyze the environment and brainstorm possible solutions for the correction of the contemporary environmental situation.

Most ecocritical work shares a common motivation: the troubling 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 systems.

Work Cited

key questions from HOD

Glotfelty, Cheryll. "What Is Ecocriticism?" What Is Ecocriticism? (n.d.): n. pag. What Is Ecocriticism? Association for the Study of Literature and Environment. Web. 01 Oct. 2013.

"Heart of Darkness." SparkNotes. SparkNotes, n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2013.

"What Is Ecocriticism? | EASLCE." What Is Ecocriticism? (n.d.): n. pag. EASLCE RSS. European Association for the Study of Literature, Culture and Environment. Web. 01 Oct. 2013.

Bergthaller, Hannes. "What Is Ecocriticism? | EASLCE." What Is Ecocriticism? (n.d.): n. pag. EASLCE RSS. European Association for the Study of Literature, Culture and Environment. Web. 01 Oct. 2013.

• Why does the author use the jungle in Heart of Darkness as a terrain for Marlow to voyage through in order to find his friend?

•Using a specific structuralist framework, analyze the text's narrative operations. Can you speculate about the relationship between the text and the culture from which the text emerged? In other words, what patterns exist within the text that make it a product of a larger culture?

Why Ecocritisism and HOD?

• How does the jungle effect Kurtz the longer he inhabited in it?

Looking at heart of darkness through a ecocritical point of veiw, we will point out where the author describes something dealing with nature like the fog and we will take that and deal with the charecteristics of the fog. For example, the fog was a sort of corollary to darkness. Fog not only obscures, but distorts Marlow’s steamer is caught in the fog, meaning that he has no idea where he’s going and no idea whether peril or open water lies ahead. Showing little of what will become of him.