The two terms that combine and give this term its name are ‘ecology’ and ‘criticism’. Ecology refers to the science that studies about the interactions between the flora and the fauna in our environment.
The science studies how these entities share a symbiotic relationship with each other as well as with the environment around them, in a particular ecosystem. On the other hand, the term criticism refers to an act of analyzing, interpreting, and concluding about a particular piece of work.
In the literary world, criticism holds importance because it helps one analyze a particular piece of creation in the fullest of sense. Criticism involves evaluating a particular piece of work based on set standards as well as rules. Along with the piece of work, the writers too are evaluated to give a detailed description of that piece of creation. This criticism is brought out either through some essays or some research paper writings by the authors.
Ecocriticism which is also known as environmental criticism or green studies, refers to the criticism done while comparing the subject of criticism to the environment and drawing parallels between the two, thereby exploring the relations between literature and environment, keeping in mind the damage caused to the environment due to the human activities.
This field of study is a complex one and requires immense knowledge on both subjects in order to draw proper comparisons. It thus may be a case that students new to the field may require assignment help usa while working on the topic.
Evidence of the nature being reflected in the works of literature has been found since the ancient works of literature. They were prominent in the accounts of the Garden of Eden in the Hebrew Bible, as well as in the pastoral form originated by the Greek poet Theocritus and later by the Roman poet Virgil.
They represented the rural life in its idealized form, untouched by urban experience and complexity, wherein peace, simplicity, and harmony survived. The long blank-verse poem The Seasons by James Thompson has evidence of the nostalgic view of a return to the unspoiled nature in order to attain peace.
This form of writing was known as nature writing and was widely practiced. An immense focus on nature was laid during the Romantic era of English Literature. Poets like William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, P. B. Shelley took to hand exposing the bests of nature.
Their works aimed to bring to the readers the peaceful aspects of nature and they aimed at informing their audience about major life lessons in the process. For example, Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind gives this beautiful lesson that if Winter has come, can Spring be far behind. In this manner,
they played with the elements of nature, with those aspects that were already known to the people yet never seen in the manner these poets made them see it.
When the nineteenth century approached, it saw major developments in the form of the industrial revolution and urbanization. By the mid-nineteenth century, writers like Henry David Thoreau and others in America and England came up with their essays and another piece of writings and started drawing the attention of the people towards the threats humanity posed to the nature and environment. Following this America saw the start of the environment movement in order to protect the wilderness from more impact by humans.
It was in this atmosphere that ecocriticism developed in the 1990s. it formed its own organizations known as the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment and Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment. And it soon became widely recognized and worked upon a branch in the field of literary studies.
These organizations came up with various articles, journals, research paper writings, literary periodicals, and in fact programs in college courses and a series of conferences, concerning the literature of the environment in all the continents.
These pieces of ecocritical writings aim at educating the audience and making him aware of the social condition he is living in so that any action can be initiated by one which can be followed by all. Mostly students recommend essay writing services because they are able to provide better writing solutions with all the minimal guidance that is required.
The views of the eco critics take into consideration both the structural and post-colonial views and modes of analysis. A prominent example of the field of ecocriticism is ecofeminism. This movement got impetus through the writings of Annette Kolodny.
The movement came as an analysis of the role attributed to women, by the male authors, in the fantasies of the natural environment as well as the study of the female conceptions of the environment in a time when nature writings by female authors were severely neglected.
In her work, The Lay of the Land: Metaphor as Experience and History in American Life and Letters written in 1975, Annette stresses the male-authored literature wherein land is gendered predominantly as female and the accordant tendency of a person going to the nature for peace and solace as well as gratification.
Thereafter Kolodny proposes a parallel between the dominance and subjugation of women as well as the exploitation of nature. She says that both these entities are the life-carrying forces on Earth, yet both are exploited to the point that leads to their complete destruction, a man not realizing that their end would result at the end of humanity from the earth.
Other such critics have pointed out that the American form of wilderness romance reflects the male imaginings of escape to an unspoiled natural environment, free from women and an effete, woman-dominated civilization, wherein the protagonist undergoes a test of his character.
Then in certain regions, like India, there is a growing interest in the animistic religion wherein nature is considered even above human beings. In the U. S. eco critics are concerned with exposing this practice to the world.
Therefore, within no time ecocriticism has gained popularity equal to any other form of criticism and is important to expose the impacts of human activities on the outer world.
The point stated above, on ecocriticism, is sufficient enough to offer assignment help to students working upon the topic.
