An Ecocritical Analysis of Wordsworths Poetry in Lyrical Ballads文献综述

 2022-09-08 11:44:34

An Ecocritical Analysis of Wordsworthrsquo;s Poetry in Lyrical Ballads

Literature Review

Carl Woodring once highly praised that “Wordsworth grew into the greatest English poet since Milton”.(Woodring, 1955;59) Through reading his poems, it is not difficult for us to find out his advanced ecological ideas in his poetry. Over the past two centuries, his works have been discussed by critics from different critical perspectives at different periods. The significance of his spiritual development, his views on immortality and his historical position as a nature poet are commonplace to the critics.

However, since the 1990s, with the booming development of industrialization, science and technology, human misbehaved in embracing nature. We sacrificed environment to make progress in creating material wealth. In most circumstances, we hindered the process of nature, disobeyed the rules of nature, destroyed the beauty of nature, broke the balance of nature, even much more worse, we had run out of some resources. According to such undesirable situations, many critics alleged that literature should come down from the Ivory Tower to help people consciously to retrieve ecological awareness and so ecocriticism had been emerging. And in the same way, with the development of ecocriticism, a new field of reading poetry of Wordsworth have been opened up.

Jonathan Bates wrote the book Romantic Ecology “Wordsworth and the Environmental Tradition” which indicated that it not only imbued the Romantic age with environmentalist thoughts, but also disclosed a new study field concerning Wordsworth.(Bates, 1991; 64) “neither apolitical nor a disguise for covert ideological polemics” written by Karl Kroeber, claimed romantic poetsrsquo; focus on nature.(Kroeber, 1994; 80) On the opposite, “poetry about nature express the romantic poetrsquo;s deepest political commitments” which is “in respect for the earth and a skepticism as to the orthodoxy that economic growth and material production are the be-all and end-all of human society” in Bates words.(Bates, 1991; 64)

However, there are some negative criticism on Wordsworthrsquo;s literal work. First in the history, Francis Jeffery devalued his poetry. And with the leaping fame of Wordsworth, Matthew Arnold depreciated Wordsworthrsquo;s accomplishments as well. As or the 20th century, T.S.Eliot created the impersonality theory which also stroke Wordsworthrsquo;s work but at the same time induced more attention and interest in his poems. Particularly after 1960, various kinds of critical theories like New Marxism, New Historicism, Feminism,Deconstruction challenged Wordsworth. For instance, Alan Liu argued the nature that Wordsworth depicted: “except as it is constituted by acts of political definition made possible by particular forms of government.” Even Geoffrey H. Hartman held the idea that William Wordsworth was a visionary poet not romanticism.

In the most poems written by Wordsworth, we could feel his ecological consciousness in his simple but cheerful language.His respect and reverence for nature, his compassionate attitude towards the living creatures proved his ecological thought. Jonathan Bate wrote in the Romantic Ecology: “Wordsworth went before us in some of the steps we are now taking in our thinking about the environment ”, and he also claimed that “Wordsworth and the Environment Tradition to the proposition that the way in which William Wordsworth sought to enable his readers better to enjoy or to endure life was by teaching them to look at and dwell in the natural world”.(Bates, 1991; 64)

All in all, William Wordsworthrsquo;s thoughts on the nature make many scholar to consider his ecological views in his romantic poetry. With the development of ecocriticism, as it involves so many fields for human beings and the nature, it includes the direct or indirect description and ideas about nature, but the whole nature. The issue of Ecology, ecological balance and environmental protection reflected in Wordsworthrsquo;s poetry indicates he is not only a romantic litterateur, but also a forerunner of Human Ecology and Romantic Ecology.

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