Critical View on Pablo Neruda's Poetry
Global Research Methodology Journal, V0l-II, 8th issue, Feb-Mar-Apr, 2013
www.grmgrlaranya.com
ISSN 2249- 300X
Ecocriticism
M.R. Mazumdar Head, dept.of English Bilasipara College, Bilasipara, Assam
No white nor red was ever seen So amorous as this lovely green Andrew Marvell, “The Garden”, II, 17-18 Colourless green ideas sleep furiously, Noam Chomsky, Syntactice Structures, The Hague/Paris; Mouton, 1957, P.15 Abstract: Environmental or ecological studies first stated with literature, scientific studies came at a later date. But environmentalism has been very slow to develop a school of criticism in the academic humanities. The tradition of eco-criticism came to be formally inaugurated in the meeting of the Western Literature Association in 1980. Some prominent literary critics grew sick of the postmodernist theoretical preoccupation with ‘social constructiveness’ and ‘linguistic determinism’. Michal J. MCDowell voices the concern of many ecocritics when he says that postmodernist critical theory has ‘become so caught up in analyses of language that the physical world, if not denied outright, is ignored’. They, therefore, sought an escape from the ‘esoteric abstractness that afflicts current theorizing about literature’ by recognizing nature/environment as an ‘objective, material and vulnerable reality’ (R. Kerridge; 531) rather than as a mere cultural and ideological construct. The future of the ecosphere is endangered. It is a time and context that demand praxis, not mere theory. The present paper is an attempt to discuss, analyse and examine some of the major issues, concerns, assumptions and procedures underlying the theory of ecocriticism. The Second section of the paper briefly highlights India’s response to this new theory of reading and ends with an example of ecocritical reading.
Introduction: The late 1980s and the early 1990s witnessed the emergence in the U.S.A. and the U.K. respectively of a new theory of literary and cultural criticism
www.grmgrlaranya.com
ISSN 2249- 300X
Ecocriticism
M.R. Mazumdar Head, dept.of English Bilasipara College, Bilasipara, Assam
No white nor red was ever seen So amorous as this lovely green Andrew Marvell, “The Garden”, II, 17-18 Colourless green ideas sleep furiously, Noam Chomsky, Syntactice Structures, The Hague/Paris; Mouton, 1957, P.15 Abstract: Environmental or ecological studies first stated with literature, scientific studies came at a later date. But environmentalism has been very slow to develop a school of criticism in the academic humanities. The tradition of eco-criticism came to be formally inaugurated in the meeting of the Western Literature Association in 1980. Some prominent literary critics grew sick of the postmodernist theoretical preoccupation with ‘social constructiveness’ and ‘linguistic determinism’. Michal J. MCDowell voices the concern of many ecocritics when he says that postmodernist critical theory has ‘become so caught up in analyses of language that the physical world, if not denied outright, is ignored’. They, therefore, sought an escape from the ‘esoteric abstractness that afflicts current theorizing about literature’ by recognizing nature/environment as an ‘objective, material and vulnerable reality’ (R. Kerridge; 531) rather than as a mere cultural and ideological construct. The future of the ecosphere is endangered. It is a time and context that demand praxis, not mere theory. The present paper is an attempt to discuss, analyse and examine some of the major issues, concerns, assumptions and procedures underlying the theory of ecocriticism. The Second section of the paper briefly highlights India’s response to this new theory of reading and ends with an example of ecocritical reading.
Introduction: The late 1980s and the early 1990s witnessed the emergence in the U.S.A. and the U.K. respectively of a new theory of literary and cultural criticism
References: 1. Barry, Peter, Beginning Theory : An introduction to literary and cultural theory (Manchester University Press: Manchester and New York, 2007).P.P. 250-271. Bate, Jonathan Romantic Ecology (London : Routledge, 1991). Buell, Lowence, The Environmental Imagination : Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the formation of American Culture (Cambridge, Mass and London : Harvard University Press, 1995). Bach, Maria Ivana Trevisani, Manifesto-Ecopoetry httpi//ecopoems. Alternativea.org/manifesto en-htm Kerridge, Richard, ‘Environmentalism and ecocriticism’ from Literary Theory and Criticism, ed. Patricia Waugh (Oxford University Press, 2006) P.P. 530-543. Nayar, P.K., Contemporary Literary and Cultural Theory (Delhi, Chennai and Chandigarh : Pearson) P.P. 242-254. O’Brien, Dan : Buffalo for the Broken Heart, Random House, New York, 2002. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Notes: 1. Karl Kroeber, Ecological Literary Criticism (New York : Columbia University Press, 1994) P.1. 2. Barbara Aclam, Timescapes of Modernity : The Environment and Invisible Hazards (London : Routledge, 1998) ***** 9 Published by Aranya Suraksha Samiti- Assam & BCLSC; Inaugurated on 19th June, 2011 at Guwahati Press Club by Dr. Amarjyoti Choudhury, ExV.C. of Gauhati University, Assam, India. Chief Adviser: Dr. Prasanta K. Kalita, Dean, Soil & Water Resources Engineering University of Illinois, at Urbana-Champaign, USA. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Chief Editor: Dr. Hari Charan Das Email: grmjournaleditor@sify.com