The Ecology of Literature, Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996, page 18, page 18. This paper will first briefly describe the historical origin of American eco-literary criticism, and then discuss the main problems to be solved by American eco-literary criticism on the basis of expounding its three development stages.
First, the historical origin of American eco-literary criticism
The concept of eco-literary criticism can be traced back to the 1970s. 1972, Joseph W. Mick put forward the concept of "literary ecology" in the comedy of existence: a study of literary ecology (1972). A Study of Biological Themes in Literary Works (Note: Joseph W. Meeker's The Comedy of Survival: A Study of Literary Ecology),
New york: Scribner Company, 1972, p. 9). 1978, William Rueckert used the term ecological criticality for the first time in his paper Literature and Ecology: An Ecological Critical Experiment. Put forward "applying ecology and concepts related to ecology to literary studies" (Note: William Luckert's Literature and Ecology: An Experiment of Ecological Criticality, Iowa Review 9. 1 (Winter 1978), p. 7 1-86. Subsequently, some people put forward other terms such as "ecological poetics", "environmental literary criticism", "green research" or "green cultural research". However, most people tend to use the term ecological criticism, because it is not only easy to be transformed into ecological criticism and ecological criticism, but also the prefix "ecology" emphasizes the relationship between human beings, society and the natural world. 1985 Frederick O.Waage edited and published teaching environment literature: materials, methods and resources (1985). The book collects 19 "course descriptions" written by teachers who teach eco-environmental literature courses, "aiming at promoting people's deeper understanding and understanding of eco-literature in the literary field." (Note: Edited by Frederick O. Waage. Environmental literature teaching: materials, methods,
Resources, new york: 1 985, p viii.)1989 "American nature writing newsletter" was published, enabling relevant scholars to publish short articles, book reviews and class notes on ecological literature research. Subsequently, many academic journals in the humanities have successively opened up supplements or special issues of eco-literary criticism, including famous American academic journals such as Indiana Review and Ohio Review. (Note: According to Cheryl Gro Felti's statistics, since 1986, American Humanities has published more than 20 special issues of ecological environment literature. For details, please refer to The Ecocriticism Reader: A Milestone of Literary Ecology edited by Gro Felti and Ferom, page 32. At the same time, some universities began to incorporate ecological literature into their courses, which was widely welcomed by students as a part of modern and contemporary literary theory. At 199 1, Harold fromm initiated and presided over an academic discussion entitled "Eco-criticism: Greening Literary Studies". 1992, Glen A.Love presided over a special discussion entitled "American Nature Writing: New Context, New Methods" at the special report meeting of the American Literature Association. In the same year, "ASLE: Literature and Environment Research Association" was established. Its purpose is to "promote the exchange of literary ideas and information on the relationship between human beings and nature", "encourage the creation of new natural literature, and promote the traditional and innovative academic methods of studying environmental literature and interdisciplinary ecological environment research." (Note: Cheryl Glory &; Harold Fromm, editor. Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks
Literary Ecology, Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996, page 18, page 18. ) 1993 the first national symposium on biological criticism was held in fort collis, Colorado. At the same time, the first official journal of ecological literature research, ISLE (an interdisciplinary study of literature and environment), came out. The purpose of this publication is to "provide a forum for critical research on literature and art from the perspective of ecological environment, including ecological theory, environmentalism, nature and the idea of describing nature, the dichotomy between man and nature and other related theoretical ideas." (Note: Cheryl Glory &; Harold Fromm, editor. Ecocriticism Reader: A Milestone of Literary Ecology, Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996, page 18, page 18, page 18)
After the mid-1990s, some monographs on eco-literary criticism came out one after another. 1996, University of Georgia Press published "Ecocriticism Reader: Milestones in Literary Ecology" (1996), edited by Gro Felti and Philom. The book contains 26 papers, which are divided into three parts, respectively discussing ecology and ecological literature theory, literary ecological criticism and ecological literature criticism. 1999 literature and environment: a reader about nature and culture (edited by Lorraine Anderson and Scott Szlovik, 1999) collected more than 100 articles of different lengths, and discussed human beings and animals, human beings and living environment, politics and biography in different genres. In 2000, Lawrence Cooper edited The Reading Book of Green Studies: From Romanticism to Eco-criticism (2000), and discussed the origin and development of eco-literary criticism from three aspects: green tradition, green theory and green reading. The Poetry of Sustainable Development: Four American Ecological Poets by Leonard D.Scigaj was published in 1999 to 200 1, 1999) and Jonathan Bate The Song of the Earth, 2 000), Patrick Murphy's Farter Field in the study of nature-oriented literature (2000), David Ma Zeer's Environmentalism in American Literature (2000) and Lawrence Buil's Writing.
In the United States and other places, 200 1) pushed the theoretical research of eco-literary criticism to a new stage.
In recent years, in addition to publishing monographs on eco-criticism, eco-literary criticism conferences have attracted more and more attention. For example, with the assistance of the Society for Literature and Environmental Studies, a multidisciplinary international symposium was held in Ireland in June 2000. In March 2002, the Society for Literature and Environmental Studies held a seminar in Britain to discuss the latest development of eco-criticism. In September 2002, the British branch of the Society held its third annual meeting in Leeds University with the theme of "Creation, Culture and Environment", focusing on eco-criticism, eco-poetics and eco-feminism. The third annual meeting of the Society for Literature and Environmental Studies will be held in Boston University in June 2003. The theme of the conference is "Ocean-City-Pond-Garden".
Second, the three stages of the development of American ecological criticism
So far, in just over ten years, American eco-literary criticism has gone through three stages. The first stage mainly studies how nature and environment are expressed in literary works. Eco-critics believe that an old model of describing nature in many works is that nature is either portrayed as an idyllic paradise and virgin land like the Garden of Eden, or as a swamp full of miasma or a ruthless wilderness. In the second stage of eco-literary criticism, the emphasis was put on promoting literary works describing nature that had been neglected for a long time, and the history, development, achievements and styles of American literary works describing nature were deeply discussed and studied. American works describing nature are non-fiction works oriented to describing nature. It has a fruitful past and a vibrant today. From the late 1980s to the early 1990s, the United States published more than twenty selected works describing nature. As a literary genre, it originated from Gilbert White's Natural History of Selborne (1720- 1793). Henry thoreau (18 17- 1862), John Burroughs (1837- 19265438) and Mary Austin, (0) all adopted this writing tradition. 1868- 1934), aldo leopold (1886- 1948) and rachel carson (1907- 1964). Leopold's "ecological centralism" thought later became the golden rule of environmentalists. Carson's Silent Spring (1963) can be said to be a monument, symbolizing the awakening of human ecological consciousness and the beginning of a new ecological era.
The third stage of eco-literary criticism tries to create an ecological poetics and strengthen the theoretical construction of eco-literary criticism by emphasizing the concept of ecosystem. Up to now, ecological criticism has made many achievements in establishing theoretical system and put forward many meaningful viewpoints. For example, "environmental ethics" or "environmental philosophy" discusses the moral relationship between man and the natural environment; Non-anthropocentrism advocates that non-human beings such as species and ecosystems also have moral status, pointing out that human beings have direct obligations to them; Schwartze's "fear of life" theory and Paul W taylor's "biocentrism" extend the object of moral concern to the whole life world, and construct an ethical system with "respect for nature" as the ultimate moral concept. J Baird Callicott's subjective axiology and rolston's objective axiology, especially Arne Ness's "Deep Ecology", can be used as the theoretical basis of eco-literary criticism.
In recent years, Leonard Siegel, Jonathan Bart, Patrick Muffin, Lawrence Buyi and others have absorbed the ideological essence of modern and contemporary western philosophers and literary critics, applied the critical theories of Bakhtin, Heidegger, Maurice Melo-Ponty and roland barthes to construct contemporary ecological poetics, and pushed the theoretical research of ecological literary criticism to a new stage. In the book Persistent Poetry: Four Ecological Poets, Siegel criticized the influence of post-structuralist linguistic theory on contemporary poetry and literary criticism, and thought that post-structuralism and post-modernism only focused on language, text and discourse, as if there were no other "existences" such as natural environment outside the text. Siegel criticized the dualism in western philosophy and emphasized that the theoretical construction of ecological poetics should be based on the thoughts of Heidegger and Maurice Melo-Ponty. According to Heidegger's existentialism, existence is first of all the existence of individuals, and the existence of individuals is the basis of all other existence. Being is me, and the whole world is the result of being. We must examine them in the relationship between people and things in the outside world, otherwise it will be meaningless and lose its certainty. Siegel believes that in today's highly information-based, high-tech and unbalanced economic and political environment, the task of ecological poetics is to face the basic facts of global environmental deterioration and take human survival as the foundation. Siegel also tried to explore the theoretical basis of ecological poetics from Maurice Melo-Ponty's debate on phenomenology. Deeply influenced by Husserl's phenomenology, maurice merleau-ponty called his philosophy "perceptual phenomenology". He pointed out that phenomenology is the study of essence. The so-called "essence" does not mean that philosophy should regard essence as an object, but only that we exist and we need "the place of concept". In Maurice Melo-Ponty's view, the essence is our experience; The world is not an objective object, but a "natural environment and place to perceive all my thoughts and all my appearances" (Note: Jiang Kongyang: Selected Works of Western Aesthetics in the Twentieth Century, Shanghai: Fudan University Press, 1988, p. 232. )。 Siegel found that Maurice Melo-Ponty's argument provided an effective criticism mode for eco-critics, that is, the depth of experience was integrated with the internal relationship of the world, and the relationship between the body and the world could not be understood mechanically or in the framework of idealism, which meant that the study of eco-poetics should go beyond the subjective and objective dualism in traditional western philosophy. Jonathan Barthes also used the critical principle of phenomenology in Song of the Earth, and repeatedly mentioned Heidegger's point of view, further perfecting his Romantic Ecology: Wordsworth and Environmental Tradition (199 1). At the same time, Barthes also discussed the ecological poetics according to the French thinker jean jacques Rousseaux's idea of proving "natural state". Barthes believes that Rousseau's theory of "natural state" and his thought of "returning to nature" are essentially consistent with the theory of "deep ecology". Barthes comprehensively discussed novels and poems from18th century to the present. In the first two chapters of Song of the Earth, he juxtaposes Jane Austen with Thomas Hardy, mary shelley with William H Hudson and elizabeth bishop, and probes into the ecological significance of these writers who are not usually regarded as "natural writers" from a unique perspective. (Note: Jonathan Bate, Song of the Earth, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2000, p.3 1. )
Lawrence Bull and Patrick Murphy also tried to construct ecological poetics theory from different angles. Boolean tries to downplay the boundary between nature and culture, and thinks that the future of eco-criticism should start with the study of the relationship between nature and culture. Mu Fei tried to readjust some unbalanced practices in today's ecological criticism, which highlighted the neglect of American minority ecological writers, ecological writers in other countries and ecological literature classics. Murphy pointed out that most of the works discussed by eco-critics are non-fiction, such as Thoreau's Walden Lake or Life in the Woods, while novels involving the theme of ecological environment are marginalized to some extent. Mu Fei believes that narrative novels play no less important role in environmental protection than non-fiction works, and narrative works should be the focus of ecological literature research in the next decade. The idea of respecting nature and protecting the environment is not only reflected in pure natural works, but also in many narrative novels of modern and contemporary novelists. For example, john updike and don delillo, contemporary novelists, respectively reflected contemporary writers' concern about the ecological environment in White Noise (1985) and Still Rabbit (1990). De Lillo's White Noise not only expresses the theme of contemporary people's fear of death, but also describes the ecological environment, especially a tourist attraction (an old barn), supermarket food and chemical gas leakage, which shows that the ecological environment on which the United States and even the whole human beings depend has been seriously destroyed under the post-modern cultural background. In the post-capitalist society dominated by consumption, the real nature and culture are "copied" into various illusions, and eventually disappear due to "dislocation". Updike's Rabbit Rest describes that America, as a "post-natural" country, has almost exhausted all its resources. At the end of the novel, Harry orstrom, a 55-year-old hero "Rabbit", looks at the scenery of a health resort in Florida and sees decay and pollution through its heavenly appearance. In these "dangerous landscapes" (a term coined by Susan Carter, a contemporary American geographer, to describe the invasion of natural scenery by toxic gases floating in the air), Harry saw rows of palm trees dying due to drought, saw the blue sky polluted by smoke from jet planes, saw ultraviolet rays baking human flat cells into cancer cells, and saw that the smoke in the air made it difficult for people to breathe. (Note: john updike, The Still Rabbit, new york: Alfred Knopf, 1990, P.50 1. If the western literature in19th century reflects a society that regards nature as the source of economic trauma, and the western literature in 20th century describes a society that regards nature as the source of economy, then the description of nature in contemporary American literature reveals what bill mckibben called the "post-natural world". In this "post-natural world", people's demand for nature is only superficial. Although nature sometimes arouses people's nostalgia and sometimes makes people feel left home, it has nothing to do with the real thing.
Although ecological critics have made unremitting efforts to create ecological poetics, the theory of ecological criticism is still in the development stage, and it has not reached theoretical maturity, let alone formed a systematic theoretical system. There are also many people in American academic circles who think that eco-criticism lacks theoretical basis. Martha Bantas, a member of the editorial board of the American Modern Language Association, believes that "environmental research is soft" and it is just "something that embraces trees". (Note: Lawrence Cooper, "Green Research Reader: From Romanticism to Ecological Criticism",
New york: routledge Publishing House, 2000, p. 169. Although this statement seems radical, it illustrates some problems.
Third, the problems to be solved in eco-literary criticism.
For many years, eco-literary criticism has been asking about the relationship between literature and natural environment and trying to answer these questions. Eco-literary critics often ask questions such as how the author describes nature, whether the theme of the work reflects the awareness of ecological environment, how people should treat nature, and where people are in nature. How to determine the relationship between nature and culture? What is the direction and thinking of contemporary eco-literary criticism? Is eco-criticism the "ultimate science"? How to combine ecological literature research with other disciplines to achieve complementary and mutually beneficial results? Wait a minute.
Eco-critics clearly point out that the fundamental premise of eco-criticism is that human culture is closely related to nature. Human culture affects nature, and it is also influenced by nature. It studies the relationship between nature and culture. As a kind of literary and cultural criticism, the main task of eco-criticism is to re-examine human culture through literature, conduct cultural criticism, and explore how the development mode of human thought, culture and society affects and even determines human attitudes and behaviors towards nature, and how it leads to environmental deterioration and ecological crisis. As jonathan levine said, "All aspects of our social culture, * * * together determine our unique way of life in this world. Without studying these, we can't deeply understand the relationship between man and the natural environment, and we can only express some superficial worries. ..... Therefore, in addition to studying how literature expresses nature, we must also spend more energy to analyze all the social and cultural factors that determine human attitudes towards nature and the behavior of living in the natural environment, and combine this analysis with literary research. " (Note: Quoted from Wang Nuo: Ecological Criticism: Development and Origin, Literature and Art Research, No.3, 2002, p. 48. ) Eco-criticism is to "reveal how culture has historically influenced the earth's ecology" (Note: jonathan levine's On Eco-criticism (a letter), PMLA114.5 (Oct.1999), p. 1098). Donald Oster, a famous ecological thought researcher, pointed out, "The global ecological crisis we are facing today is not caused by the ecosystem itself, but by our cultural system. In order to survive this crisis, we must understand as clearly as possible the influence of our culture on nature. ..... Historians, literary critics, anthropologists and philosophers who study ecology and culture cannot directly promote cultural change, but they can help us understand, and this understanding is precisely the premise of cultural change. " (Note: Donald Best, Wealth of Nature: Environmental History and Economic Imagination,
New york: Oxford University Press, 1993, p. 27. )
In the mid-1990s, the thinking and discussion on the development trend of eco-literary criticism began to become a hot spot. In the reflection on modernity, people realize that postmodernism is an ecological era, and only ecological wisdom can make mankind out of the predicament. Eco-critics look at the world from an ecological perspective, and at the same time consciously look at literature from an ecological perspective. Jonathan levine recently pointed out that according to the ecological monographs published in the United States in recent years, American ecological critics can be divided into two camps. One is a "realistic" ecological critic, and the other is a "social constructivism" ecological critic. (Note: jonathan levine's Beyond Nature? Recent work on ecological criticality, Contemporary Literature, Volume 43,No. 1, (Spring 2002), Page 175. The research ideas embodied by these two camps are mainly to find the source and nourishment of criticism from western traditional philosophical thoughts and modern and contemporary western philosophical theories. Inspired by eco-philosophy, they put eco-literary criticism in the human ecosystem of nature-society-culture for a comprehensive investigation, and strive to build a concept that can not only show the true colors of literary criticism, but also reflect the comprehensive ecological spirit and ecological values. At the same time, they extended their attention to the natural ecology to the social, cultural and even human spiritual fields, clearly affirmed the overall biological nature of human existence, and placed literary criticism in the human ecosystem for investigation. To look at literature from an ecological perspective, we should re-examine the relationship between literature and nature and pay full attention to the original significance of nature to literature. "Nature, as the basis of human life, living environment and practical object, has not lost its natural nature, although it has been mediated by society. The reason why nature can be human is that it already exists and generates the essence of human beings. (Noe: Zeng Yongcheng: Ecology-Contemporary Problems in the Construction of Literary Theory, Journal of Chengdu University, No.3, 2002, p.48, p.47.. Literature, as an activity of aesthetic adjustment of human beings' own ecology, has deeply branded nature from the beginning, and has always regarded nature as an eternal creative source and aesthetic prototype. The ecological integration of ecological thinking on nature and society, culture and human nature will surely bring a new understanding of the relationship between literature and nature.
Holmes rolston, a contemporary American ecological philosopher, defines ecology as "the ultimate science" because "it integrates various sciences, even arts and humanities." He pointed out that "although ecology can be regarded as a science, its wisdom is more profound and overwhelming than other sciences, and it has universal significance." (Noe: Holmes rolston: Philosophy Goes to the Wilderness, Changchun: Jilin People's Publishing House, 200 1 1, p. 8 2. ) rolston's "ultimate" is by no means the meaning of "ultimate truth", but in terms of its wide coverage and the depth of the problem. The author thinks that as far as the current development trend of eco-criticism is concerned, we have no sufficient reason to say that it has reached the "ultimate" level. However, rolston defined ecology as "the ultimate science" for at least the following reasons: first, ecology studies the relationship between biology and environment, which inevitably puts forward the concern about the relationship between man and environment; Secondly, ecology puts society and culture in a more primitive natural system, regards the ecological relationship between man and nature as the deep connotation and motivation of social and cultural problems, and seeks profound wisdom from natural ecology to get out of the survival dilemma; Furthermore, ecology integrates other sciences in the human ecosystem, thus correcting the disadvantages in the complementary interaction, optimizing the living conditions of human beings, integrating the humanistic spirit into a science, and integrating the science about nature and the science about human beings into a science, thus establishing the ultimate concern of all sciences for the human generation; Finally, with the comprehensive understanding of the ecological mechanism and significance of the interaction between matter, energy and information between organisms and human ecosystems, especially "the revelation of the relationship between information and spiritual generation, the spiritual connection between man and the material world, including nature, that is, the spiritual ecological problem, has been paid more and more attention" (Note: Zeng Yongcheng: Ecology-Contemporary Issues in the Construction of Literary Theory, Journal of Chengdu University, No.3, 2002) ), making ecology leap to the top of human nature, has another layer of ultimate significance.