Romanticism,
Nature, Ecology
Dr.
Gary Harrison
Department
of English
University
of New Mexico
This
colloquium will study the
relationship between Romantic
literature and the environment.
Drawing upon a few key theoretical
and literary works from
the eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries, as
well as from key texts in
contemporary ecological
literary criticism, environmental
literature, and philosophy,
we will ask what constitutes
environmental literature,
how such literature shapes
environmental consciousness
and action, and how Romantic
perspectives question the
human place in the world,
the relationship between
human perception and the
natural world, and our co-existence
as human beings in the larger
living organism of the earth. Rather
than turn to Romanticism
as a guide to current environmental
practices, our interest
will be in Romanticism as
a cultural discourse that
opens up conceptual, critical
and poetic investigations
about our relationship
to the environment and as
a site for the emergence
of ecopoetics. As
we move through our readings,
we will also attend to the
way Romantic discourse has
helped to shape the discursive
repertoire of environmental
practices and perceptions
today. Readings
will include poetry by William
Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, Charlotte Smith,
and John Clare; non-fiction
prose by Jean Jacques Rousseau
and Dorothy Wordsworth;
and philosophical, historical,
and critical essays by Friedrich
Schiller, Martin Heidegger,
Aldo Leopold, Michel Serres,
Donald Worster, and others. Lawrence
Buell’s The
Environmental Imagination will
serve as a primary source
for questions and concepts
about environmental literature
and ecocentrism that we
will apply to our readings
in British Romanticism;
that book’s
focus primarily upon American
literature will create a
cultural dissonance that
should unsettle our perspective
on British Romantic literature,
providing a unique critical
purchase on the history
of British environmental
literature, while keeping
us in sight of the concurrent
history of American environmental
literature.
Requirements will
include writing several
short exploratory essays;
presenting a summary of,
and leading discussion on,
at least two of the critical
works assigned for each
day; and writing an article-length
final paper, a synopsis
of which you will present
on the last day of class. Topics
for your papers and presentations
may include literary, scientific
or philosophical works;
contemporary literary criticism
and theory; key
texts in the history of
ecological thought, ecocriticism,
environmental ethics, or
environmental perception;
and the writers we will
be discussing. You
should confirm your final
paper topic with me on or
before the end of week twelve.
Required
Texts:
Buell,
Lawrence. The
Environmental Imagination.
The Belknap Press, 1995.
Burke,
Edmund. A
Philosophical Enquiry into Our
Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful.
Ed. Adam Phillips. Oxford
U P, 1998.
Coleridge,
Samuel Taylor. Selected
Poems.
Ed. H. J. Jackson. Oxford U P,
1985.
Descartes,
René. Discourse
on Method and Meditations.
Trans. Elizabeth S. Haldane and
G.R.T. Ross. Dover, 2003.
Robinson,
Eric and David Powell, eds. John
Clare.
Oxford Authors. Oxford U P, 1984.
Rousseau,
Jean Jacques. The
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality.
Trans. Maurice Cranston. Penguin,
1985.
-----. Reveries
of the Solitary Walker. Trans.
Peter France. Penguin
Classics, 1979.
Serres,
Michel. The
Natural Contract. Trans.
Elizabeth MacArthur & William
Paulson. Ann
Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1995.
Wordsworth,
Dorothy. Journals
of Dorothy Wordsworth. Ed.
Mary Moorman. 1958;
rpt. Oxford: Oxford U P, 1971.
Wordsworth,
William. Selected
Poems. Ed.
John O. Hayden. New
York: Penguin, 1994.
Recommended
Texts:
Bate,
Jonathan. The
Song of the Earth.
Harvard U P, 2000.
McKusick,
James C. Green
Writing.
St. Martins Press, 2000.
Schedule:
Unit
I: Introduction and Outline
of Problem
Week
1
T:
Introduction; Michel Serres, “War,
Peace,” (Chapter
1, Natural
Contract)
R:
Serres, “Natural
Contract” (Chapter
2, Natural
Contract)
Critical
Works:
Jonathan
Bate, “Going,
Going” (Chapter
1, Song
of the Earth)
Lawrence
Buell, “Introduction” to Environmental
Imagination
James
McKusick, Introduction to Green
Writing
Unit
II: Nature
and Culture
Week
2
T:
Bacon, The
New Atlantis
R:
Descartes, Discourse
on Method;
from Meditations I & II
Critical
Works:
Carolyn
Merchant, “Dominion
Over Nature,” (Chapter
7, Death
of Nature)
Donald
Worster, “The
Empire of Reason” (Chapter
2, Nature’s
Economy)
Week
3
T:
Diderot, Supplement
to Bougainville’s
Travels
R:
Rousseau, “Discourse
on the Origin of Inequality”
Critical
Works:
Jonathan
Bate, “The
State of Nature” (Chapter
2, Song
of the Earth)
Hayden
White, “The
Forms of Wildness”
Unit
III: Romantic Aesthetics
and Nature
Week
4 The Beautiful and Picturesque
T:
Burke, A
Philosophical Enquiry into our
Ideas on the Sublime and the Beautiful,
Parts I and III; Kant, from Critique
of Judgment,
Part One, First Book, 1 – 13,
17
R:
Gilpin, from Three
Essays on the Picturesque
Critical
Works:
Jonathan
Bate, “The
Picturesque Environment” (Chapter
5, Song
of the Earth)
Walker
Percy, “The
Loss of the Creature”
Week
5 The Sublime
T:
Burke, A
Philosophical Enquiry into our
Ideas on the Sublime and the Beautiful,
Part II
R:
Kant, from Critique
of Judgment,
Part One, Second Book, 23 – 29
Critical
Works:
Arnold
Berleant, “The
Aesthetics of Art and Nature”
Christopher
Hitt, “Toward
an Ecological Sublime”
Week
6
T:
Schiller, On
the Naïve
and Sentimental
R:
Wordsworth, Preface to Lyrical
Ballads;
Coleridge, from Chapters 4, 13,
14 of Biographia
Literaria;
from Lectures
on Shakespeare “Mechanic
and Organic”
Critical
Works:
Lawrence
Buell, “Representing
the Environment” (Chapter
3, Environmental
Imagination)
Neal
Evernden, “Talking
about the Mountain” (Chapter
1, Natural
Alien)
Unit
IV: Romanticism, Nature,
Ecology
Week
7
T:
Malthus, from Essay
on Population (Chapters
1 and 2)
R:
Wordsworth, “Lines
Written a Few
Miles above Tintern Abbey”
Critical
Works:
Catherine
Gallagher, "The
Body Versus the Social Body in
the Works of Thomas
Malthus
and Henry Mayhew." Representations 14
(Spring 1986): 83-106.
Buell, “Environmental
Apocalypticism” (Chapter
9, Environmental
Imagination)
Week
8 Break
Week
9
T: Wordsworth, “Expostulation
and Reply,” “The
Tables Turned,” “Lines,
Written at a Small Distance from
My House,” “Lines
Written in Early Spring,” “The
world is too much with us,” “I
wandered lonely as a cloud,” “To
a Butterfly”; “It
is a beauteous Evening, calm and
free,” “To
the Cuckoo”
R:
Wordsworth, “Lines
left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree,” “A
slumber did my spirit seal,” “She
dwelt among untrodden ways,” “Strange
fits of passion I have known,” “Lucy
Gray”
Critical
Works:
Buell, “Pastoral
Ideology” (Chapter
1, Environmental
Imagination)
Hartman, “Wordsworth,
Inscriptions and Romantic Nature
Poetry”
Week
10
T:
Burns, “To
a Mouse”;
Coleridge, “Sonnet:
To the River Otter,” “To
a Young Ass,” “The
Eolian Harp,” “Frost
at Midnight,” “This
Lime Tree Bower My Prison”;
Clare, “The
Mouses Nest”
R:
Coleridge,“The
Nightingale,” “Dejection:
An Ode”;
Wordsworth, “Ode:
Intimations of Immortality”
Critical
Works:
Kurt
Fosso, "Sweet
Influences":
Human/Animal Difference and Social
Cohesion in Wordsworth and Coleridge,
1794-1806.”
McKusick, “Coleridge
and the Economy of Nature’ (Chapter
1, Green
Writing)
Week
11
T:
Wordsworth, “Home
at Grasmere,” “Michael”
R:
Wordsworth, The
Prelude,
Books 1-2, 4, 6
Critical
Works:
Buell, “Place” (Chapter
8, Environmental
Imagination)
Buell, “New
World Dreams and Environmental
Actualities” (Chapter
2, Environmental
Imagination)
Week
12
T:
Wordsworth, Prelude,
Books 7, 8, 14
R:
Charlotte Smith, Beachy
Head
Critical
Works
Geoffrey
Hartman, “The
Romance of Nature and the Negative
Way”
Anne
Mellor, “Domesticating
the Sublime” (Chapter
5, Romanticism
and Gender)
Week
13
T: Dorothy
Wordsworth, “Floating
Island at Hawkeshead”; Journals
R: Wordsworth, Journals
Critical
Works
Anne
Mellor, “Writing
the Self/Self Writing” (Chapter
7, Romanticism
and Gender)
Anne
Wallace, “Inhabited
Solitudes: Dorothy Wordsworth’s
Domesticating
Walkers”
Week
14
T:
Wordsworth, “Nutting”
R:
Coleridge, “The
Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
Critical
Works
Aldo
Leopold, “Thinking
Like a Mountain”
Stanley
Cavell, “In
Quest of the Ordinary”
Week
15
T:
John Clare, “The
Peasant Poet,” “Helpstone,” “Helpston
Green,” Partridge
Coveys,”
The
Land Rail”
R:
Clare, “To
a Fallen Elm,” “The
Mores,” “Emmonsales
Heath”
Critical
Works
Jonathan
Bate, “What
are Poets For” (Chapter
9, Song
of the Earth)
Heidegger, “Building
Dwelling Thinking”
Week
16
T:
Clare, “The
Lamentations of Round Oak Waters,” “The
Lament of Swordy Well”
R:
Serres, “Science,
Law” & “Casting
Off” (Chapters
3 and 4, Natural
Contract)
Critical
Works:
Heidegger, “The
Thing”
Week
17
Final
Examination Week |