Ecological Literary Criticism: Romantic Imagining and the Biology of MindColumbia University Press, 1994 - 185 pages Kroeber argues that literary criticism needs to reestablish connections to a wide range of social activities, especially the thinking of contemporary scientists. This new kind of criticism, "ecological literary criticism," sets out to correct the abstractions of current theorizing about literature, and to make humanistic studies more socially responsible. Though applicable to any writer of any period, Kroeber points out that the proto-ecological tendencies of the English Romantic poets make them especially useful as a starting point for this approach. Since the Romantics believed that people were, and should be, at home in the natural world. Ecological Literary Criticism asks that we examine poetry from a perspective that assumes that the imaginative acts of cultural beings offer valuable insights into how and why cultural and natural phenomena have interrelated in the past and how they could more advantageously interrelate in the future. Kroeber argues that this approach to criticism will help us to develop mutually enriching links between humanistic and scientific modes of understanding humankind and the earth we inhabit. |
Contents
one Introducing Ecological Criticism | 1 |
two Feminism and the Historicity of Science | 22 |
Ecology | 37 |
Art for Natures Sake | 53 |
five Discovering Natures Voice | 67 |
six Malthusian Visions | 82 |
seven Refiguring Reason | 95 |
The Socialization of Mind | 120 |
nine Biology of Mind and the Future of Criticism | 139 |
notes | 155 |
Common terms and phrases
ambivalence articulated Beatrice beauty biological brain Byron's Cain Cambridge capable Cenci century chapter Cold War Coleridge Coleridge's complex conceived conceptions consciousness contemporary cultural dramatizes dream earth ecological criticism ecological thinking ecologically oriented ecosystem Edelman's Enlightenment environment essay evoke evolution evolutionary experience Fall of Hyperion functions fundamental Grasmere Harold Bloom Harvard University Press historicists Home at Grasmere human humanistic humankind's Hyperion Hyperion poems ideas ideological imagination individual intellectual interactions interdependence John Keats Jonathan Bate Jupiter Keats's Lyrical Ballads Malthus Malthus's mind natural environment natural phenomena natural processes natural world Neural Darwinism Nightingale organism original Oxford perceptions perspective physical pleasure poem poem's poet's poetic poetry political population Prometheus Unbound proto-ecological recognize relation repertoires representation response romantic poets Romanticism scientific scientists self-consciousness Shelley Shelley's significant social thee thought Tintern Abbey tions traditional transcendent Triumph understanding unique verse vision William Wordsworth Wordsworth Wordsworthian York