As “ecocriticism” is a bit of a freely floating signifier at this time, it is difficult to know what works of criticism fit under the title. It is certainly the case that some works touch on environmental issues without primarily being works of ecocriticism. Similarly, a study that is primarily cultural or economic may importantly draw attention to the relationship between economics and the environment. Although it may sound simple naive, perhaps the most important question to ask of a possible ecocritical work is whether it is primarily concerned with environmental issues as they principally appear in texts.
Another common important question that is asked to Ecocritics is that does it applicable only to the modern texts only. Modernity and scientific inventions in industries enhanced growth of modernity in technology. This growth of modernity in technology and industrialisation brings interest in the implementation of technology in non-human world. That starts the rapid degradation and exploitation of nature and environment. It contaminates everything which was considered as pure and pristine. That’s why environmental issues appeared in modern literature. Scholars and ecocritics relatively do study of these texts to pay attention on nature and environment.
However literature of any period can be read as in the light of ecocritics. Every time is modern time. Nearly five thousand year before people were living in modern time. Now after so many years when we look at them people call it an ancient period but once it was modern. There are so many literary works which were written thousand years while deforesting land. For example, The Epic of Gilgamesh, which is nearly five thousand years old, is a fascinating text to consider as it explores how a culture came to grip with the fact that it needed to deforest vast tracts of land in order to prosper. In a controversial essay written by Lynn White Jr. argued that the opening chapters of the Bible can tell readers and scholars much about its attitude toward the environment. Once you get in the habit of reading “greenly,” it sometimes seems as if every book that you pick up has environmental implications!
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There is growing concern for ecology among people and thinkers. The growing numbers of ecologically informed critical studies, signals the necessity to develop an ecological or environmental criticism in the profession of the humanities and to bring ecological consciousness to the practice of literary criticism. Today more and more young academics respond to the global environmental crisis by turning to the new field of literary ecology. Thus, the ecological investigations and interpretations of the relationship between nature and culture, inevitably lead to an ecologically oriented critical approach. As a result, ecocriticism arrives with the promise of offering a unique combination of literary and natural scientific discourses.
This new eco-theory responds to the global ecological crisis and addresses important environmental issues, specifically by examining values, in literary texts, with deep ecological implications. Ecocriticism, then, takes an earth-centered approach to literature, and an ecological approach to literary criticism. Ecocriticism mainly concentrates on how literature interacts with and participates in the entire ecosphere.
The task of ecocriticism, then, is to formulate a conceptual foundation for the study of interconnections between literature and the environment. Literature can be perceieved as an aesthetically and culturally constructed part of the environment, since it directly addresses the questions of human constructions, such as meaning, value, language, and imagination, which can be linked to the problem of ecological consciousness that humans need to attain. Within this framework, ecocritics are mainly concerned with how literature transmits certain values contributing to ecological thinking. They state that the environmental crisis is a question that cannot be overlooked in literary studies. This increasing concern for environment forces literary scholars to know and study the significant role of literature that play in understanding man’s place in the ecosphere. Ecocritics should treat literature as just means of moral instructions. What ecocritics think is that instead on focussing of dead critical approach it is important to study living and influential Eco-literary approach.
Ecocriticism theory is different from other literary approaches and theories. Literary theories commonly examine the relations between writers, texts and the world. In most of the literary theories, the world is synonymous with society that includes the social sphere. Ecocriticism expands the notion of the world to include the entire ecosphere. We can say, it is a study that gradually shifts from inside to outside. Ecocriticism continues to expand beyond its American beginnings, with work being done in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, Europe and India among others.
The easiest way to understand this trend in literary theories would be to learn what these people do. As you must be aware that traditional theories in literature put emphasis either on linguistics or on the cultural and social background, the Eco-Critics put all the weight on the ‘nature’ and believe that nature exists as a force which affects our evolution directly as a society. For the intellectuals involved in the development of ‘green studies’ the world is not (only, if not entirely) made of language and social ‘elements’. They tend to bring out the part which nature plays – either in writings or in general purview.
However, as it entered into the field of literary theory, a part bifurcated and established itself as solely devoted wing concerned with the (re)reading of literary texts and bringing out the role of nature, representation of nature and natural elements in the literature produced worldwide. It’s a fact that the major foci of green studies intellectuals are the regional literature of different places as we know it contains a lot of fusion of nature. Nevertheless, the well-known authors, poets and literary figures always remain the central source which feeds the thoughts and findings of these studies.
