eco essay t intern

8/13/2019 Eco Essay t Intern

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Journal of Literature, Culture and Media Studies

Ecocriticism: Relevance of William Wordsworths

Tintern Abbey and The World is too Much with Us.

M.A.AFZALFAROOQ

N. D. R. CHANDRA

Abstract:Ecocriticism addresses how humans relate to non-human na-

ture or the environment in literature. It has grown out of the traditional

approach to literature in which 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. This paper is a modest attempt to unearth the concerns of

ecocriticism as well as to explore William Wordsworth's contribution to

the awakening of modern man towards conservation and preservation ofthe ecosystem. All ecocritics share an environmentalist motivation in one

way or the other. . As a result of want of systematic or organized movement

in the study of ecological or environmental side of literature, the ecocritical

works came to be nomenclatured variously such as pastoralism, human

ecology, regionalism, American Studies etc. Raymond Williams, the Brit-

ish Marxist critic wrote The Country and the City (1973), where he pro-

fessed a decidedly green socialism. Ecocriticism analyzes the role that the

natural environment plays in the imagination of a cultural community at a

specific historical moment, examining how the concept of "nature" is de-fined, what values are assigned to it or denied it and why, and the way in

which the relationship between humans and nature is envisioned.

Wordsworth advocated for the preservation of Nature way back in the 18th

century. Besides divinizing Nature, Wordsworth pleaded that it is a pana-

cea for all with the capacity to elevate human mind to a higher level of

feeling for everything in Nature. Tintern Abbey exposes Wordsworth's de-

velopment of love for Nature through various stages and inevery stage

there was a need to preserve it because it helps in developing the mind,

attitude and feeling. The World is Too Much with Us is an exploration ofthe poet's dissatisfaction of the modern men over their indifference to and

indiscriminate destruction of Nature.

Keywords:Ecocriticism, Green (Cultural) Studies, ecopoetics, environ-

mental literary criticism, Pantheism, Panacea.

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Journal of Literature, Culture and Media Studies 113

I

Ecocriticism as a distinct subject of study in the institutes of higher

education received due importance relatively recently. The

unprecedented degradation of the ecosystem threatening the veryexistence of human race awakened the world to think seriously

about the conservation of environment. The depletion of the ozone

layer, incurable diseases emanating from environmental pollution

and myriads of similar factors led the intellectuals to ponder over

the hazards and find out some means to promote the campaign of

saving nature through literature and other media.

Ecocriticism addresses how humans relate to non- human

nature or the environment in literature. It has grown out of thetraditional approach to literature in which 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. This paper is a modest attempt

to unearth the concerns of ecocriticism as well as to explore William

Wordsworths contribution to the awakening of modern man towards

conservation and preservation of the ecosystem.

Ecocriticism DefinedEcocriticism implies the study of literature and environment

from an interdisciplinary point of view. It is also referred to as green

criticism, green (cultural) studies, ecopoetics and

environmental literary criticism. Ecocriticism has contributed

significantly to the evolution of environmentalist thought since

1960s. It was officially prognosticated by the publication of two

seminal works, both published in the mid-1990s: The Ecocriticism

Reader, edited by Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm and TheEnvironmental Imagination, by Lawrence Buell. As a critical mode

of study, ecocriticism looks back on a long tradition of criticism

that approaches nature as an aesthetic and not a scientific object,

and that often sees scientific analysis as detrimental to aesthetic

appreciation.

Glotfelty defines ecocriticism in The Ecocriticism Readeras the

study of the relationship between literature and the physical

environment (1996: xviii). An implicit aim of this approach is to

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recoup professional dignity for what Glotfelty calls the undervalued

genre of nature writing (Ibid: xxxi) According to Buell,

ecocriticism is a study of the relationship between literature and

the environment conducted in a spirit of commitment toenvironmentalist praxis (1995: 430). Buells definition emphasizes

that ecocriticism is about the relationship existing between literature

and the environment or the ecology.

Simon Estok points out, ecocriticism has distinguished

itself, debates notwithstanding, firstly by the ethical stand it takes,

its commitment to the natural world as an important thing rather

than simply as an object of thematic study, and secondly, by its

commitment to making connections (2001: 220). Estok furthersays that ecocriticism is more than simply the study of Nature or

natural things in literature; rather, it is any theory that is committed

to effecting change by analyzing the function thematic, artistic,

social, historical, ideological, theoretical, or otherwise, of the natural

environment, or aspects of it, represented in documents (literary or

other) that contribute to material practices in material worlds

(2005:16-17). In response to the question of what ecocriticism is or

should be, Camilo Gomides offers an operational definition that isboth broad and discriminating: The field of enquiry that analyses

and promotes works of art which raise moral questions about human

interactions with nature, while also motivating audiences to live

within a limit that will be binding over generations (2006:16).

Gomides definition led Joseph Henry Vogel to conclude that

ecocriticism constitutes an economic school of thought as it

engages audiences to debate issues of resource allocation that have

no technical solution. Thus, ecocriticism has been defined in variousways by various scholars. The common point where all the critics

meet is their agreement on the fact that ecocriticism studies the

earth, the environment and the ecosystem and express their concern

about the preservation of the jeopardized ecology we are living in

and how literary discourses view the ecocritical writings.

Evolution of Ecocriticism in Literature

With intent to focus on the application of ecology andecological concepts to the study of literature, William Rueckert

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published an essay entitledLiterature and Ecology: An Experiment

in Ecocriticism. As a result of want of systematic or organized

movement in the study of ecological or environmental side of

literature, the ecocritical works came to be nomenclatured variouslysuch as pastoralism, human ecology, regionalism, American Studies

etc. Raymond Williams, the British Marxist critic wrote The Country

and the City(1973), where he professed a decidedly green socialism.

Joseph Meekers book The Comedy of Survival (1974) says that

the environmental crisis is caused primarily by a cultural tradition

in the West of separation of culture from nature and elevation of the

former to moral predominance(1974:126). Such anthropocentrism

is identified in the tragic conception of a hero whose moral strugglesare more important than mere biological survival, whereas the

science of animal ethology, Meeker asserts, shows that a comic

mode of muddling through and making love not war has superior

ecological value. Glotfelty says, One indication of the disunity

of the early efforts is that these critics rarely cited one anothers

work; they did not know that it existed Each was single voice

howling in the wilderness(2006:76). Nevertheless, ecocriticism

unlike the Marxist criticisms failed to crystallize into a coherentmovement in the late 1970s, and indeed only did so in the USA in

the 1990s. In the mid1980s, scholars began to work collectively to

establish ecocriticism as a genre, primarily through the work of the

Western Literature Association in which the revolution of nature

writing as a non-fictional literary genre could function. In 1990, at

the University of Nevada in Reno, Glotfelty became the first person

to hold an academic position as a Professor of Literature and the

Environment, and UNR has retained the position it established atthat time as the intellectual home of ecocriticism even as Association

for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) has burgeoned

into an organization with thousands of members in the USA alone.

From the late 1990s, new branches of ASLE and affiliated

organizations were started in the UK, Japan, Korea, New Zealand (

ASLEC-ANZ), India ( OSLE-India), Taiwan, Canada and Europe.

Ecocriticism remembers the earth by rendering an account of the

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indebtedness of culture to nature. The ecocritics try to revalue the

more-than-human natural world, to which some texts and cultural

traditions invite us to attend. Thus ecocriticism argues that defence

of nature is vitally interconnected with the pursuit of social justice.

Concerns of the Ecocritics

One of the prime concerns of the ecocritics is to unearth the

underlying cultural values. It endeavours to delve into the exact

meaning of nature and examining the human perception of

wilderness and so on and so forth. All ecocritics share an

environmentalist motivation in one way or the other. The concerns

of ecocriticism become glaringly explicit in the operationaldefinition of Camilo Gornides, The field of enquiry that analyses

and promotes works of art which raise moral questions about human

interactions with nature, while also motivating audiences to live

within a limit that will be binding over generations. (2006:16)

Ecocriticism analyzes the role that the natural environment plays

in the imagination of a cultural community at a specific historical

moment, examining how the concept of nature is defined, what

values are assigned to it or denied to it and why, and the way inwhich the relationship between humans and nature is envisioned.

More specifically, it investigates how nature is used literally or

metaphorically in certain literary or aesthetic genres and tropes,

and what assumptions about nature underlie genres that may not

address this topic directly. This analysis in turn allows ecocriticism

to assess how certain historically conditioned concepts of nature

and the natural, and particularly literary and artistic constructions

of it, have come to shape current perceptions of the environment.In addition, some ecocritics understand their intellectual work as a

direct intervention in current social, political, and economic debates

surrounding environmental pollution and preservation.

Green Literary Criticism, therefore, is confronted from the

start with a spectrum of different and not always compatible

approaches to the environment. Four different approaches are

mentioned in Greg Garrards Ecocriticism: (I) The discursive

construction foregrounds the extent to which the very distinction

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of nature and culture is itself dependent on specific cultural values;

(II) The aesthetic construction places value on nature for its

beauty, complexity, or wildness; (III) The political construction

emphasizes the power interests that inform any valuation or

devaluation of nature; and finally; and (IV) The scientific

construction, aims at the description of the functioning of natural

systems. (2004:89) Any specific ecocritical analysis has to situate

itself in relation to these various discourses and to critically

interrogate their contribution to ecological projects. One of the

central questions that necessarily emerge in such an interrogation

is the question of how the value of the natural environment can and

should be assessed in relation to human needs and goals. Social

ecology generally insists that it is ultimately human needs and

societal well-being which must determine our approach to nature,

whereas deep ecology emphasizes on the contrary that nature

has value in and of itself, independently of its functions for human

society (this opposition has been discussed by Michael Bennett in

American Book Reviews recent Urban Culture issue). The goals

and methods of an ecocritical project will be crucially determined

by how it defines itself in relation to these broader divisions withinenvironmental thought.

Ecocritical approaches confront the conflict between

sciences claim that it delivers descriptions of nature that are

essentially value-neutral, and the tendency of cultural analysis to

see research as framed by specific ideological, political, and

economic interests that do provide it with a set of more or less

explicit values. But if the context out of which scientific research

emerges is shaped by certain values, it does not necessarily followthat the results of this research will lend support to these values, a

distinction that few cultural analyses of science bother to make.

Due to its epistemological power as well as its pervasive cultural

influence in the West and, increasingly other parts of the world, the

scientific description of nature should be one of the cornerstones

of ecocriticism, one that is usefully confronted and compared with

literary visions of the environment. This confrontation enables not

only an assessment of how scientific insight is culturally received

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and transformed (rather than constructed), it also allows the critic

to see where literature deviates or, in some cases, wishes or

attempts to deviate from the scientific approach in view of

particular aesthetic and ideological goals. The text thereby becomes

a place where different visions of nature and varying images of

science, each with their cultural and political implications, are

played out, rather than simply a site of resistance against science

and its claims to truth, or a construct in which science is called

upon merely to confirm the inherent beauty of nature.

Such an approach seems all the more opportune as some

ecocritics have applied environmentalist terminology to literary texts

in highly metaphorical ways: notions such as ecology, ecosystem,

ecological balance, energy, resources, and scarcity have been

transferred to texts conceived of as systems with an internal logic

that, when activated by the reader, reveals the dynamic co-existence

of diverse components and the texts overall evolutionary,

negentropic thrust (for example, in William Rueckerts

characterization of green plants as natures poets and poems as

green plants among us). Such metaphoric translations of ecological

vocabulary are highly problematic because they tend not only torevive the obsolete metaphor of the literary text as biological

organism, but also to reintroduce, by way of nonliterary terminology,

literary visions of nature as inherently creative, harmonious, and

peaceful. Significantly enough, the concept of pollution is rarely

translated in the same manner.

In a time of intensifying ecological crises and increasing social

conflict over the management and distribution of natural resources,

as well as a growing number of engagements with environmentalissues in literature and other art forms, literary criticism is only

beginning to think through the implications of green thought for

its own practices. Science, in one form or another, has formed a

central part of ecological debates to date, and green criticism risks

condemning itself to irrelevance if it ignores the contributions as

well as the challenges that the scientific description of nature holds

out to aesthetic articulations (2006:198). With a scientifically

informed foregrounding of green issues in literature, ecocriticism

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is likely not only to contribute significantly to the interdisciplinary

dialogue between literature and science, but also to the broad

rethinking of the relations between humans and nature that is

currently taking place in societies across the globe.

II

William Wordsworth, the illustrious Poet of Nature

belonging to the first generation of the romantics, advocated for

preservation of nature for durable peace in and preservation of

society. It is apt to say that Wordsworth, the great philosopher

realized the hazards of destroying nature through human cruelty

way back in the 18thcentury and hence warned mankind against the

dangers they are facing today. It is wrong to dismiss Wordsworths

pantheism as a theory merely attributing some spiritual significance

to his approach to Nature. His pantheism spreads wings far beyond

spiritual aspects and extends up to modern mans desperate quest

of happiness and peace at the cost of nature and its assets.

Wordsworth glorifies all objects of Nature; but he is concerned far

less with the sensuous manifestations that fascinates majority of

the poets of Nature, than with the spiritual that he finds underlying

these manifestations. The divinization of Nature which began inthe modern world during the renaissance and proceeded during the

18thcentury culminates for English literature in Wordsworth. Arthur

Compton-Rickett comments, It was Wordsworths aim as a poet

to seek for beauty in meadow, woodland, and the mountain top,

and to interpret this beauty in spiritual terms (1999: 308). His

divinization implies his respect for Nature; and such reverential

attitude to Nature goes a long way to the conservation and protection

of all objects of Nature. He is distinct from John Keats in that Keatsdelights in pagan joys in landscape, waterscape, and cloudscape

with a tendency like P. B. Shelley to intellectualize Nature (1999:

307). Keats and Shelley are concerned less to marvel at Natures

beauty than to exult at its inner significance which stand a chance

to save Nature from destruction. With Wordsworth, Nature is both

law and impulse but with Shelley, it is only impulse. Thus

Wordsworths concept of Nature has something that induces in man

a feeling for Nature which makes him ponder over and respect it.

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The growth and development of Wordsworths love for Nature is

brilliantly depicted in Tintern Abbey.Every stage of is an expose of

his preoccupation with Nature and the need to take its care. As a

child Wordsworth believed Nature to be a source of and scene foranimal pleasure which he calls glad animal movements. Nature

gives pleasure to an immature mind and hence, for the right

development of a childs mind and thought, preservation of Nature

is important. Pollution free Nature promotes a healthy mind in a

child. He further says:But secondary to my own pursuits

And animal activities, and all

Their trivial pleasures (2004: 51).The trivial pleasures in the second stage developed into passion for

the sensuous beauty of Nature. The sensuous charm of Nature could

be felt and enjoyed only when Nature is allowed to grow in its

beauty. Destruction of and harm to Nature divests it of its appeal

and the sensuous beauty is lost. Referring to the boyish pleasures

of this period when he viewed Nature with a purely physical passion,

Wordsworth says in the Prelude:

The props of my affections were removed,And yet the building stood, as it sustained

By its own spirit! All that I behold

Was dear, and hence to finer influxes

The mind lay open to a more exact

And close communion (Ibid: 71).

At this stage whatever he saw gave him immeasurable pleasure.

The same feeling has been painted in Tintern Abbey:.The sounding cataract

Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,The mountain and the deep and gloomy wood

Their colours and their forms, were then to me

An appetite; a feeling and a love ( Ibid:52).

Such aching joys and dizzy raptures paved way for his irresistible

tendency to link love of Nature with the love of man. Love of Nature

develops a caring attitude in men which is essential for the

preservation of Nature. Wordsworth always tried to instill in men a

feeling that everything in Nature is a manifestation of God, and

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therefore, harming Nature amounts to harming God. This fear in

men would go a long way to save and protect Nature. The French

Revolution and the resultant sufferings of people opened his eyes

and now he could hear in Nature:The still, sad music of humanity,

Nor harsh, nor grating, though of ample power

To chasten and subdue. (Ibid: 52)

Thus, Wordsworths love for nature developed and enabled him to

see the manifestation of God in every object of Nature. He came to

realize that there is a spirit in the woods which is a divine principle

reigning in the heart of Nature. Warwick James says, At this stage,

the fountain of Wordsworths entire existence was his mode ofseeing God in Nature and Nature in God. (2002: 97) This is known

as the period of Pantheism in Wordsworths life. This conviction of

the poet that an Eternal Spirit pervades all the objects of Nature is

brilliantly expressed in Tintern Abbey:And I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns

And the round ocean and the living air,

And the blue sky and in the mind of man: (2004: 53)

Wordsworth firmly believes in the presence of a Spirit which gives

him the joy of elevated thoughts and bows his head in respect to

this divine power. He feels that Nature has a healing capacity and it

is the panacea for all ailments; therefore human beings should live

in tune with Nature without indiscriminate destruction of its objects.

He bewails the cruelty of man to Nature in The World is Too Muchwith Uswhich elaborates the theme of modern mans indulgence in

getting and spending resulting in their lack of concern for Nature.

Materialistic attitude of men makes them oblivious of the fact that

Nature should be protected. The beauty, charm and healing attributes

of Nature demand that it should be preserved. He bewails men falling

out of tune with Nature in the lines:This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

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And are upgathered now like Sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not. (2004:30)

Nature, according to Wordsworth is a living entity, and itspreservation is mans responsibility and duty. Modern man falls

out of tune and he fails to appreciate the beauteous aspects of

nature because he is not living in harmony with Nature. Wordsworth

feels frustrated when he sees destructive activities of man directed

towards nature. His feeling for nature and its pitiable state makes

him cry out, Little we see in Nature that is ours. (2004:30). His

dissatisfaction over mans indiscriminate assault on Nature makes

him say:I would rather be

A pagan suckled in a creed outworn; ( Ibidem)

Wordsworths conviction is that the pagans had greater respect for

Nature than the modern men. He desires to be a pagan and thus

shape and renew his reverential attitude to Nature. A.C. Compton

Rickett says:Apart from the sanctifying touch of Nature, men

and women are poor creatures to Wordsworth. The

farther we travel from Nature, the more paltry we

become. This is the burden of his splendid sonnet

The World is Too Much with Us. Better, he says in

effect, people, the woods and streams, the plains

and oceans, with nymphs and gods and goddesses,

and retain something of the fresh simplicity and

austere endurance of Nature, than give up our souls

to the mere accumulation of wealth and to the

superficial life of pleasure (1999: 311).Preservation of Nature becomes all the more important because it

keeps human beings pure and enhances their moral, ethical and

spiritual prowess. Respect to Nature dissuades people from polluting

and destroying it. Thus, Wordsworths concern for nature in the

18thcentury can be considered one of the first few attempts from

littrateurs to attract the attention of mankind towards the

endangered ecosystem. It is the inhabitants of the society whose

initiatives can reduce the dangers of a collapsed ecosystem and

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that is why the conservation has been a major concern for the

intellectual circles around the world. Ecocriticism today, analyses

the causes of the environmental degradation with a view to reawaken

man towards his responsibility to Nature and the ecosystem.

REFERENCESBarry, Peter. 2009. Ecocriticism.Beginning Theory: An Introduction to

Literary Theory. Manchester: Manchester UP.

Buell, Lawrence. 1995. The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature

Writing, and the Formation of American Culture.England: Harvard

University Press.

Compton-Rickett, Arthur. 1999.A History of English Literature. London:

Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd.

Coupe, Lawrence, (ed.). 1991. The Green Studies Reader: From

Romanticism to Ecocriticism.London:Routledge.

Estok, Simon C. 2001. A Report Card on Ecocriticism.Ecocriticism: An

Analysis of Home and Power in King Lear.AUMLA, 96.

_ _ _. 2005. Shakespeare and Ecocriticism: An Analysis of 'Home' and

'Power' in King Lear.AUMLA103. May.

Gomides, Camilo. 2006. Putting New Definition of Ecocriticism to the

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Glotfelty, Cheryll and Harold Fromm. (eds.). 1996. The Ecocriticism

Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology.Athens and London:University

of Georgia.

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Vogel, Joseph Henry. 2008. Ecocriticism as an Economic School of

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Science and Humanities.

Assistant Professor, Department of English, Baptist College, Kohima.

Professor, Department of English, Nagaland Central University, Kohima

Campus.

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