CONTENTS:
- INTODUCTION
- PRACTITIONERS OF THE THEORY
- HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE THEORY
- PURPOSE/BASIC ASSUMPTIONS OF THE THEORY
- METHODOLOGY
- SAMPLE TEXT FOR ILLUSTRATIONS
INTRODUCTION:
‘’The poetry of earth is never dead,
poets die; genres change or modify; writing styles sees many changes over time;
literary trends might change usually…however, the poetry of earth did never die. Cannot die ever’’! This belief
of John Keats was justified. Earth has seen ages; the earth has seen bombings;
it has seen civilization emerging and
dying; it has seen disasters… it still stays. So, anytime you feel claimed by
the rush of this modern lifestyle, you feel like retiring to your ‘farmhouse’
and spend some time in the lap of
nature(am I right?). This feeling towards nature, whether reflected by the
poets or the novelists, made the creative writers ‘Romantic’ and when this
feeling turned itself into critical faculty of the intellectuals, it becomes Eco-criticism
(Eco-criticism) or Green studies.
There are several studies in this field which
tends in literary studies only after the 1980s in the USA and early 1990s, in
the UK. So, what is Eco-criticism? What does one mean by it? What is relevance
of these terms today? These are more questions is what this work will try to
unravel
PRACTITIONERS/SCHOLARS
OF THE THOERY:
Major
figures in the field are:
Jonathan
Bate (Considered widely as the father of Eco-criticism in England)
Cheryll Glotfelty
( father of Eco-criticism in the USA)
Laurence
Coupe
Patrick D
Murphy
PURPOSE AND
BASIC ASSUMPTIONS:
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. They tend to bring out the point 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
loving texts and bringing out the role of nature, representation of nature and
natural elements in the literature produced worldwide.
All
ecocritics shares an environmentalist motivation 0f some sort.
This however, implies the vivid picturizing of the physical
and social environment in a literary work. It tends to portray the ways
cultural norms of nature and environment contribute to the environmental degradation
Eco-critics investigate such things as
the underlying ecological values, what precisely, is meant by the word of
nature and whether the examination of ‘place’ should be a distinctive category,
much like class, gender or race. Eco-critics tends to place value on the
geographical area that a literary work of art is set and that very geographical
area is encapsulate into the text as a
setting
METHODOLOGY:
More recently, in an article
that extends eco-criticism to
Shakespearean studies, Estok Simon argues that eco-criticism is more than ‘’simply the study of Nature or
natural things in literature ; rather, it is any theory that s committed to
effecting change by analyzing the functions- thematic, artistic, social,
historical, ideological,
or otherwise of the natural environment, or aspects of
it, represented in documents (Literary or other) that contribute to material practices
in Material worlds’’. This echoes the functional approach of the cultural ecology branch of
eco-critic, which analyzes the analogies between ecosystems and imaginative
texts and posits that such texts potentially have an ecological (regenerative
revitalizing) function in the cultural system.
Eco-criticism needs to guild personal and
political actions, in the same that feminist criticism was able to do a few
decades ago. Eco-critical studies insist in achieving an ethical standard and
consciousness, as a benchmark to restraining irrational and
anti-conservationist tendencies.
SAMPLE TEXTS
FOR ILLUSTSRSTION :
For instance, Thomas Hardy, under Greenwood
Tree, far from the madding crowd and others are novels set in the lap of nature
and it plays an important role. His characters grow with nature, mature with
nature and eventually die with it. In simple terms, nature, as an active force
in our life, is permanent and our life is ephemeral in a sense! Thus, giving
more importance to nature and preserving it becomes our moral duty. Another
great example performance of nature is the poem Rainbow by William Wordsworth.
Another example is in Nwamuo’s play, The Wisdom of the King, the playwright
sought to celebrate and emphasize the virtues of the natural world, when he
creates a counterpoise between the advocates and proponents of forestation and
deforestation.
Currently, national and international agencies are floated as
NGOs which strongly advocate for the conservation of our flora and fauna. The
playwright indicates in the prefatory note of the play that:
The Wisdom of the King originally conceived as a mass
literacy campaign package” is a reminder
to adult populations inclined to wanton destruction of the ecosystem, of which
the need to conserve nature. It is a play on the politics of development,…and
the powers of traditional forces on modern thought systems’’(8)
.
In this era, when scholars, critics and individuals are engrossed with
the quest for socio-political equity, it takes only a sensitive and far-sighted
individual like Chris Nwamuo, a pioneering ecocritical playwright, to raise our
awareness about the banality of our efforts at maintaining a healthy
environment.
The play, The Wisdom of the King opens against the background and resonance
that the environment is our primary source of life, so it must not be tampered
with in spite of the need for development. For instance, where would the chiefs
have got “a gourd of frothing evening palmwine…”(10)
, if they had destroyed the
environment.
The background to all actions in the
play resonates with ecological related images
“only the voices of birds can be heard in the distance” (10);
“the
rustling of the tress is heard at the background; the sound of the village
stream washing the rocks, is at the background”(16)
.These are all set to
reflect harmony, engender spiritism and conjour a contractual meeting between
the cultural images of Umuhu Kingdom, and the theme of man and environment
“earth-theme”-in the play. The entire context of actions portray that all live
in harmony with its surroundings; and invoking
the ancient tradition of the pastoral.
Concentrating on images of natural beauty- “the
setting sun casts a brow wash of light on the eaves of drinking hut” (10),
thus
emphasizing the harmonious relationship
between humanity and nature. According to Chris Egharevba, “the decimation of
the environment, and its effects on the people’s physical and spiritual
well-being are the concerns of Chris N wamuo in the play” (2004:26). This is
the primary concern of ecoliterature: to draw attention to the
inter-relationship between man and the ecosystem. In other words of William
Reuckert, concerning the ecophere,...”there is a reciprocal interdependence
development of the earth’s life systems”.(1996:112)
In a dramatic twist to spurn what
Egharevba calls “the ecophobic decision of the king” (2004:25), the playwright
invokes the wisdom of the eco-conscious
members
of the Council of Chiefs as the Councilor, who jointly debunk the erroneous
decision of the King to cut down trees for developmental purposes. The King’s
decision was to redress the indignity visited on his son being called a
“bushman”, because of the presence of tress and bushes around their community.
When the human community destroys the ecology,
it inadvertently destroys
itself. Every invidious act of ecocide, William Rueckert
avers “…is what ecologists like to call the self destruction or suicidal motive
that is inherent in our prevailing or paradoxical attitude toward
nature”.(1996:107) This situation provokes tension and conflict in the
community, and we are educated on the virility and importance of trees in our
environment.
Ecology and man enjoy a harmonious
relationship of interdependence, so much so that to distort or undermine the
significance of either, amounts to a vicious transgression of what Reuckert calls
“the first law of ecology”.(1996:108). He went further to explain that “this
need to see even the smallest. Most remote part in relation to a very large
whole is the central intellectual action required by ecology and of an
ecological mind”.1996:108).
This idea informs our playwright’s vision of the
pivotal role that the trees play in the life of Umuhu people, and mankind
generally. He informs us through the Councilor that “…our bushes and natural
environment is like a mother to us. To destroy the bushes and forests, is to
threaten our existence” (22).
The several uses and importance of trees and
bushes to mankind are innumerable, as meticulously enumerated by three
eco-conscious Chiefs, ranging from aesthetic, protective, medicinal and
security values: “The trees. They protect our houses from wind and storm. Na
dem de give us timber for build and roofhouse and for make timber for
furniture.
T-t-trees provide us shades from sun. Trees help to arrest such
ecological problems as erosion and earthquake. Animals from the bush provide
meat which we eat. Some plants from
bush drive away snakes when you plant them for house. Besides, a good number of
the plants in our environment are medicinal. They are used in curing diseases.
S-S-Some of them are edible as vegetable. O-O-Others serve decorative purposes”
(20).
King Duke is
awe-struck as the Chiefs “…educates him on the usefulness of preserving
wildlife” (21).
Bringing together many diverse and
important themes and issues of ecocritical importance such as the human factor
in environmental praxis, the value of the flora and fauna to the human life-cycle
and the complexities arising from infrastructural development. Nwamuo in this
play seeks to reassert that the current ideology which separates human beings from their
environment is demonstrably unhealthy.
Thus, the playwright appraises the
natural world as indubitably peaceful and significant and, also recognizes the
primacy of virgin nature. He also advocates the necessity of a new ethic and
aesthetic principle that embraces the human and the natural. By this, he
overtly promulgates a law for a deep-seated affection for our environment, so that our task is not to remake
nature fit for humankind, but, on the contrary, as Henry David Thoreau says,
“to make humankind right for nature” (1996:234). This view presupposes that man
becomes the custodian of the green vegetation, wilderness, the entire
ecosphere, and endeavours to live in total harmony with inanimate world
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