The point of this paper is to foster an awareness of the varied uses to which scholars are putting the term ‘ecocriticism’ in varied perspectives today. Thoreau’s Walden is such indisputable literary monument on environmental literature to explore, upkeep and strengthen interest in establishing pragmatic relationship between the human and natural worlds. Thoreau lived simply without “modern improvements” which he called “improved means to unimproved ends.” This displays how one places oneself in the nature world, understands nature, and the environmental aspects to cast-off materialism. Thoreau rejects what is profane and superficial but pleads nature as the storehouse of sincerity and impartiality. He proves that society creates loneliness and fear, which can be dispelled by content with Nature. A man is never alone if he is aware of his non-human relationships. The paper perhaps is a seminal attempt to make some evolution toward fostering and legitimizing the sweats of ecocritics in ecocriticism (across) milieu. It sufficiently accounts for the personal connection and sense of responsibility towards self, society, literary studies and nature. Thoreau’s Walden elevates the concept of ecocriticism further to have interdisciplinary impact beyond prejudice to create a ‘universal discipline’ to discuss, innovate and create healthy literature-environment anthology to live in for progenies. This convinces intellectuals to pursue an interest in ecology while enduring literary professionals. Thoreau’s belief in nature sets new tenets that address the major ecological concerns to see it ‘greening’ to prevent ‘The Endangered Earth- a virulent veracity’ tomorrow.
| Published in | American Journal of Art and Design (Volume 2, Issue 1) |
| DOI | 10.11648/j.ajad.20170201.14 |
| Page(s) | 24-29 |
| Creative Commons |
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Copyright |
Copyright © The Author(s), 2017. Published by Science Publishing Group |
Ecocriticsm, Nature, Environment, Society, Walden
| [1] | Astrid Bracke & Marguérite Corporaal (2010) Ecocriticism and English Studies: An Introduction. English Studies, 91:7, 709-712. |
| [2] | Barry, Peter. 2009. Ecocriticism. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary Theory. Manchester: Manchester UP. |
| [3] | Bate, Jonathan. Romantic Ecology: Wordsworth and the Environmental Tradition. London: Routledge, 1991. |
| [4] | Bruyn, Ben De. 2010. Borrowed Time, Borrowed World and Borrowed Eyes: Care, Ruin and Vision in McCarthy's The Road and Harrison's Ecocriticism. Journal English Studies, Vol 91(7), 776-789. |
| [5] | http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0013838X.2010.518045 |
| [6] | Buell, Lawrence. 1995. The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture. England: Harvard University Press. |
| [7] | Buell, Lawrence. The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and Literary Imagination. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2005. |
| [8] | Buell, Frederick. From Apocalypse to Way of Life: Environmental Crisis in the American Century. New York: Routledge, 2003. |
| [9] | Canby, Henry Seidel. 1939. Thoreau. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company. |
| [10] | Channing, William Ellery. 1873. Thoreau: The Poet- Naturalist. Boston. |
| [11] | Compton-Rickett, Arthur. 1999. A History of English Literature. London: Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd. Coupe, Lawrence. 1991 (ed.). The Green Studies Reader: From Romanticism to Ecocriticism. London: Routledge. |
| [12] | Dana Phillips. 1999. Ecocriticism, Literary Theory, and the Truth of Ecology. New Literary History, Vol. 30, No. 3, Ecocriticism (1999). The Johns Hopkins University Press pp. 577-602. |
| [13] | Estok, Simon C. 2001. “A Report Card on Ecocriticism. Ecocriticism: An Analysis of ‘Home’ and ‘Power’ in King Lear.” AUMLA, 96. |
| [14] | Farooq, Chandra. 2012. Ecocriticism: Relevance of William Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” and “The World is too Much with Us.” Journal of Literature, Culture and Media Studies Vol. IV, 112-123. |
| [15] | Federick O Waage, ed., Teaching Environmental Literature: materials, Methods, Resources. New York: MLA, 1985, VIII. |
| [16] | Fisher, J. and three others. 1995 (eds.). “American Scholar”, American Literature of the Nineteenth Century: An Anthology. William ND: Eurasia. |
| [17] | Glotfelty, Cheryll and Harold Fromm. 1996 (eds.). The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology. Athens and London: University of Georgia. |
| [18] | Gomides, Camilo. 2006. “Putting New Definition of Ecocriticism to the Test: the Case of the Burning Season, a film (mal) Adaptation.” ISLE, 13(1). |
| [19] | McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. Basingstoke: Picador, 2006. |
| [20] | Owen Thomas. 1986 (ed.). Henry David Thoreau, Walden and Civil Disobedience. ND: Prentice Hall of India, pp. 1-243. |
| [21] | Rueckert, William (1996) “Literature and Ecology: An Experiment in Ecocriticism,” in Glotfelty and Fromm (1996): 105-123. |
| [22] | Sanborn F. B. 1902. The Service, ed. Boston. Sayre Robert F. 1985 (ed.). Thoreau: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Walden, Maine Woods, Cap Cod, the Portable Thoreau. New York: The Library of America. |
| [23] | Scheese Don. Some Principles of Ecocriticism in Defining Ecocritical Theory and Practice Sixteen Position Papers. Western Literature Association Meeting Salt Lake City, Utah--6 October 1994. |
| [24] | Sharma, Vipin K. 2016. Quintessence of Ecocriticim in Emerson’s Works. Ad Litteram: An English Journal of International Literati, 01: 60-69. |
| [25] | Sharma, Vipin K. 2012. The impact of Oriental Thought on the Mind and Art of Emerson and Thoreau, the Pioneers of American Literature: A Critical Study. An Unpublished doctoral thesis. |
| [26] | Stephen Greenblatt and Giles Gunn. 1985 (ed.). Redrawing the boundaries: The Transformation of English and American Literary Studies. New York: MLA, pp. 1-3. |
| [27] | Thoreau: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Walden, Maine Woods, Cap Cod, the Portable Thoreau 1985 (ed.). New York: The Library of America. |
| [28] | Thomas Owen. 1986 (ed.). Henry David Thoreau: Walden and Civil Disobedience. New Delhi: Prentice Hall of India. |
| [29] | Torrey Bradford 1906. The Writings of Henry David Thoreau Walden Edition. 11 Vols. ed., Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin. |
| [30] | Umberto Eco. 1986. "Travels in Hyperreality," in his Travels in Hyperreality, tr. William Weaver: New York, p. 49. |
| [31] | Vogel, Joseph Henry. 2008. “Ecocriticism as an Economic School of Thought: Woody Allen's Match Point as Exemplary.” OMETECA: Science and Humanities. |
| [32] | Worster. 1994 (2nd ed.). Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas. Cambridge. |
| [33] | Williams, Raymond. 1973. The Country and the City. London: Chatto and Windus. |
APA Style
Vipin K. Sharma. (2017). Thoreau’s Ecocriticism: An Improved Means to Unimproved Ends. American Journal of Art and Design, 2(1), 24-29. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajad.20170201.14
ACS Style
Vipin K. Sharma. Thoreau’s Ecocriticism: An Improved Means to Unimproved Ends. Am. J. Art Des. 2017, 2(1), 24-29. doi: 10.11648/j.ajad.20170201.14
Share This Article
Twitter
Linked In
Facebook
Copy
Download@article{10.11648/j.ajad.20170201.14,
author = {Vipin K. Sharma},
title = {Thoreau’s Ecocriticism: An Improved Means to Unimproved Ends},
journal = {American Journal of Art and Design},
volume = {2},
number = {1},
pages = {24-29},
doi = {10.11648/j.ajad.20170201.14},
url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajad.20170201.14},
eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ajad.20170201.14},
abstract = {The point of this paper is to foster an awareness of the varied uses to which scholars are putting the term ‘ecocriticism’ in varied perspectives today. Thoreau’s Walden is such indisputable literary monument on environmental literature to explore, upkeep and strengthen interest in establishing pragmatic relationship between the human and natural worlds. Thoreau lived simply without “modern improvements” which he called “improved means to unimproved ends.” This displays how one places oneself in the nature world, understands nature, and the environmental aspects to cast-off materialism. Thoreau rejects what is profane and superficial but pleads nature as the storehouse of sincerity and impartiality. He proves that society creates loneliness and fear, which can be dispelled by content with Nature. A man is never alone if he is aware of his non-human relationships. The paper perhaps is a seminal attempt to make some evolution toward fostering and legitimizing the sweats of ecocritics in ecocriticism (across) milieu. It sufficiently accounts for the personal connection and sense of responsibility towards self, society, literary studies and nature. Thoreau’s Walden elevates the concept of ecocriticism further to have interdisciplinary impact beyond prejudice to create a ‘universal discipline’ to discuss, innovate and create healthy literature-environment anthology to live in for progenies. This convinces intellectuals to pursue an interest in ecology while enduring literary professionals. Thoreau’s belief in nature sets new tenets that address the major ecological concerns to see it ‘greening’ to prevent ‘The Endangered Earth- a virulent veracity’ tomorrow.},
year = {2017}
}
TY - JOUR T1 - Thoreau’s Ecocriticism: An Improved Means to Unimproved Ends AU - Vipin K. Sharma Y1 - 2017/03/06 PY - 2017 N1 - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajad.20170201.14 DO - 10.11648/j.ajad.20170201.14 T2 - American Journal of Art and Design JF - American Journal of Art and Design JO - American Journal of Art and Design SP - 24 EP - 29 PB - Science Publishing Group SN - 2578-7802 UR - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajad.20170201.14 AB - The point of this paper is to foster an awareness of the varied uses to which scholars are putting the term ‘ecocriticism’ in varied perspectives today. Thoreau’s Walden is such indisputable literary monument on environmental literature to explore, upkeep and strengthen interest in establishing pragmatic relationship between the human and natural worlds. Thoreau lived simply without “modern improvements” which he called “improved means to unimproved ends.” This displays how one places oneself in the nature world, understands nature, and the environmental aspects to cast-off materialism. Thoreau rejects what is profane and superficial but pleads nature as the storehouse of sincerity and impartiality. He proves that society creates loneliness and fear, which can be dispelled by content with Nature. A man is never alone if he is aware of his non-human relationships. The paper perhaps is a seminal attempt to make some evolution toward fostering and legitimizing the sweats of ecocritics in ecocriticism (across) milieu. It sufficiently accounts for the personal connection and sense of responsibility towards self, society, literary studies and nature. Thoreau’s Walden elevates the concept of ecocriticism further to have interdisciplinary impact beyond prejudice to create a ‘universal discipline’ to discuss, innovate and create healthy literature-environment anthology to live in for progenies. This convinces intellectuals to pursue an interest in ecology while enduring literary professionals. Thoreau’s belief in nature sets new tenets that address the major ecological concerns to see it ‘greening’ to prevent ‘The Endangered Earth- a virulent veracity’ tomorrow. VL - 2 IS - 1 ER -
Information
Email: