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Romanticism,
Nature, Ecology
Gary
Harrison,
University of
New Mexico
I:
Introduction
-
The
connection
between Romanticism
and ecology
has often been
recognized
in the critical
literature
on Romanticism
and in the
writings of
ecologists and
naturalists.
Recently Jonathan
Bate, Karl
Kroeber, Jim
McKusick,
Onno
Oerlemans,
and
Kate Rigby have
published important
books on the
subject,[1] and The
Wordsworth
Circle, Studies
in Romanticism,
and Romantic
Circles Praxis
Series have
published
special issues
on the topic.[2] By
and large,
these
books and
the
articles
in the collections
argue that
we can trace
the origins
of our current
ecological
thinking
to European
Romanticism
in general,
and sometimes
to British
and American
Romanticism
in particular.
A similar
trend
to link various
strands of
our current
environmental
thinking
to Romantic
ur-texts may
be found in
the works
of environmental
historians,
geographers,
and environmentalists,
such as Neal
Evernden,
Max
Oelschlager,
I. G. Simmons,
and Donald
Worster, among
others. In
Worster's Nature's
Economy,
a key history
of ecological
thought,
we read that "at
the very
core of [the]
Romantic
view of nature
was what
later generations
would come
to call an
ecological
perspective:
that is,
a search
for holistic
or integrated
perception,
an emphasis
on interdependence
and relatedness
in nature,
and an intense
desire to
restore
man to a
place of
intimate
intercourse
with the
vast organism
that constitutes
the earth" (82).
More recently,
in his introduction
to "Romanticism
and Ecology," a
special
issue
of The
Wordsworth
Circle,
Jim
McKusick
pointedly
and
rightly,
I think,
claims
that "much
Romantic
writing
emerges
from
a desperate
sense
of alienation
from
the natural
world
and expresses
an anxious
endeavor
to re-establish
a vital,
sustainable
relationship
between
mankind
and the
fragile
planet
on which
[we]
dwell" (123).
These
statements
point
to a
position
that
many
recent
writers
have
defended,
albeit
from
divergent
and
importantly
nuanced
perspectives:
Romantic
literature
is
a germinal
site
for
the rise
of ecological
consciousness
and
practices.
-
The
affiliation
between
Romanticism
and
ecology nonetheless
remains problematic.
On the one
hand,
Romantic nature
philosophy
has
been linked,
as in Luc Ferry's The
New Ecological
Order,
with oppressive
and totalitarian
political
dispositions. On
the other
hand,
Romanticism
has
been reduced
to
a simplistic
nostalgia
for a lost
unity
with nature,
or
worse, as
a rhapsodic
celebration
of beautiful
scenery.
In reply
to such
critics
as Ferry,
Val Plumwood
in Environmental
Culture reminds
us that "While
it is
important
to note
the role
of those
forms
of Romanticism
corrupted
by the
desire
for
unity
and
other
oppressive
forces,
any analysis
which
puts
all its
stress
on this
factor
ignores
the diversity
and liberatory
aspects
of some
forms
of Romanticism.
. . . " (208).
In response
to the
reductive
view
of Romanticism
as nature
worship,
William
Cronon
and
Paul
Fry,
among
others,
remind
us that
Romantic
representations
of nature
reflect
not
so much
actual
places
and
encounters
as virtual
landscapes
and
experiences
that
mirror
their
writers'
projected
desires
and
culturally
mediated
values.
Cronon's "The
Trouble
With
Wilderness," for
example,
cites
Wordsworth's
description
of
the
Simplon
Pass
experience
(Prelude,
Book
6)
and
Thoreau's
account
of
climbing
Mt.
Ktaadn
to
point
up
what
he
calls
the "unnaturalness" of
natural
places
rendered
through
the
Romantic
eye,
informed
as
it
is
with
Judaeo-Christian
ideas
of
the
wilderness
and
Kantian
notions
of
the
sublime
(73).
Moreover,
as
Ralph
Pite
warns
in "How
Green
were
the
Romantics," while
it
is
important
and
productive
to
link
Romanticism
with
ecology,
doing
so
often
leads
to
oversimplifications
and
confusion,
in
that
Romantic
poetry
may
be
used "to
support
any
number
of
different
[and
one
might
add
mutually
contradictory]
versions
of
ecology" (317); Pite
believes
that our
definition
of "green
poetry" may
become
so
broad
or
so
restrictive
a
category
that
the
term
becomes
unworkable
(359).
One
of
the
objectives
of
the
course
sketched
out
below
is
to
problematize
our
understanding
of
the
Romantic
apprehension
and
representation
of
nature,
so
that
we
begin
to
account
for
its
intertextual
and
cultural
mediations
even
as
we
recognize
its
more
or
less
genuine,
but
nonetheless
partial
and
vexed, attempt
to
grasp
the
natural
world
with
as
much
immediacy
and
transparency
as
language
will
allow,
and its
effort
to
articulate
a
dynamic
reciprocity
between
human
beings
and
the
natural
world.
II: Romanticism,
Nature, Ecology:
The Course
- The
course described
here is designed
to study the
relationship
between Romantic
literature—especially
that of the
Wordsworths,
Coleridge, and
Clare—and
the environment.
Drawing upon
a few key philosophical
texts from
the seventeenth
through the
early nineteenth
centuries,
as well as from
present-day
critical
works
of ecological
literary criticism,
environmental
literature,
and philosophy,
the course
encourages
reflection
upon
what constitutes
environmental
literature,
how such literature
shapes environmental
consciousness
and action,
and how Romantic
poetry engages
urgent issues
that face us
today about
the relationship
between human
consciousness
and nature,
and about
the
structures
of consciousness
and feeling
that predispose
us to act
in
certain ways
within our
environment.
Rather than
turn to Romanticism
as a guide
to current
environmental
practices,
our interest
is in Romanticism
as
a site for
the emergence
of ecopoetics
and
as a discourse
that opens
up critical
questions
and
lines of investigation
about our human
place in
the
life
world. [SEE
SYLLABUS]
-
The
course is divided
into four units
of varying
lengths:
I: Introduction
and Outline
of
Problem; II:
Nature and
Culture;
III: Romantic
Aesthetics
and Nature;
and
IV: Romanticism,
Nature, Ecology.
Using the concept
of "discursive
clusters," sets
of works that
approach certain
topics from
a variety of
perspectives
in order to
promote discussion
and sometimes
to orchestrate
a kind of imaginary
conversation
among works,
each unit includes
a series of
primary readings
for each week,
accompanied
by a pair of "Critical
Works" that
either
critically
and sometimes
historically
contextualize
the issues
and ideas
raised
in
the primary
readings.
Unit
I focuses
on Michel
Serres's The
Natural
Contract,
which presents
a critical
view of
the breach
of contract
that characterizes
our current
relationship
to the life
world.
Underscoring
the critical
importance
of recalibrating
our relationship
to the natural
world, The
Natural
Contract inaugurates
the course
with
a sense
of urgency
that may
persuade
students
to make
a serious
intellectual
investment
in the
explorations
that will
follow. Unit
II offers
a brief
genealogical
perspective
on Romantic
nature
philosophy
and ecopoetics
in the
context
of seventeenth-
and eighteenth-century
philosophy.
Reading
selections
from Francis
Bacon,
René Descartes,
Denis
Diderot,
and Jean
Jacques
Rousseau,
we spend
two weeks
discussing
enlightenment
ideas
about
mechanism,
dualism,
the wild,
the primitive,
and the
noble
savage.
Unit
III
introduces
Edmund
Burke,
Immanuel
Kant,
and William
Gilpin
as the
major
architects
of the
beautiful,
the sublime,
and the
picturesque,
mechanisms
that
at least
in
part
structure
our perceptions
of and
responses
to the
natural
world.
-
Having
established
some
of the key
concepts
that inform
early nineteenth-century
dispositions
toward
the environment,
Unit IV moves
to the heart
of the
course: the
poetry
and prose of
William
and Dorothy
Wordsworth,
Samuel Taylor
Coleridge,
and John Clare—along
with some other
writers, such
as Thomas Malthus
and Charlotte
Smith. Taking
up more than
half of the course,
this unit considers
the various
ways these writers
theorize and
represent the
sense of interdependence
between human
beings and nature,
the reciprocal
bond that anticipates
Serres's idea
of the natural
contract, and agency—both
natural and
human. Drawing
from a variety
of "Critical
Works"—by
writers from
Geoffrey Hartman
and Jonathan
Bate to Aldo
Leopold and
Walker Percy—throughout
this unit
we use
discursive
clusters
to challenge
the
reductive
stereotypes
of Romanticism
either as
a will
to power
and mastery
or as a nostalgic
and simple
love
for nature.
Moreover,
we discuss
the way
Romanticism
reacts against,
transforms,
and sometimes
perpetuates
some of
the modes
of perception
and
understanding
it
inherited
from the
seventeenth
and eighteenth
centuries.
-
Note:
The course
described here
is designed
for upper-division
undergraduates
or first-year
graduate
students who
have
some acquaintance
with British
and
ideally American
or European
Romanticism
as well. Students
who have taken
a form of this
course
have noted
in their
teaching evaluations
that the reading
load is challenging,
while at the
same
time they have
generally praised
the course
for
being comprehensive
and opening
up multiple
and divergent
perspectives
on Romanticism
and ecology.
Because
of its modular
design, the
course can
easily be modified
to adjust the
contents
and/or the
pace of the
course. By
dropping units
two and/or
three,
for example,
the
course could
focus more
directly upon the
literary
texts,
which could
be supplemented
by works
from
other
writers,
such
as
Ann Radcliffe,
Byron, the
Shelleys
(Frankenstein,
for example,
teaches
very
well alongside
Serres's The
Natural
Contract),
and,
to flesh
out American
Romanticism
and
ecology,
Emerson,
Thoreau,
and Susan
Cooper,
among
others.
To recover
some
of the
historical
and philosophical
background
lost
in that
trade
off,
students
might
be
asked
to
give individual
or seminar-style
presentations
or
to participate
in focus-group
discussions
every
two
or three
weeks.
Another
way to
simplify
the course
would
be
to scale
back some
of the
critical
readings
assigned
for each
week.
-
Unit
I: Introduction
and Outline of
Problem focuses
on the first
two chapters of
Michel Serres's The
Natural Contract which
critique our
contemporary
environmental
predicament
and
bring a sense
of urgency
to
the questions
and issues
we
will discuss
throughout
the class.
Serres
brilliantly
interprets
Goya's Men
Fighting with
Cudgels as
a visual metaphor
for the struggle
between nature
and culture,
invoking this
binary polarization
in order to
problematize
it later in
his
text. For Serres,
the two antagonists
of Goya's painting
represent history.
As they fight,
they remain
oblivious
to the bog
into
which they
are
sinking, and
which represents
nature. If
the
two men keep
fighting
and continue
to ignore nature,
they will eventually
succumb to
it.
Thus nature,
the world-wide
system of objects
and living
things
upon which
humanity
depends for
its
survival, will
emerge from
its
subordinated
position as
a neglected
third
term and become
a force which
the men, perhaps
putting down
their own differences,
will have to
acknowledge,
or with which
they will have
to reckon.
For
Serres, we
are
at or near
that
point of reckoning,
and to preclude
the eventuality
of a serious
catastrophe,
Serres
calls for a
contract
between humanity
and nature—a
contract,
in
part modeled
after
Rousseau's
social
contract,
that
will acknowledge
nature as
a fully-fledged
partner in
a
community
of agents with
reciprocal
and equal
rights
to protection
under the
law.
A natural
contract
self-consciously
guaranteeing
the rights
of
symbiosis
would
offer a mutually
beneficial
alternative
to the parasitic
relationship
that collective
humanity now
holds with
Nature in its
totality.
-
Serres's
analysis leads
us directly
to the questions
about interdependence,
holism, agency,
and reciprocity
that we will
find in Malthus,
the Wordsworths,
Coleridge,
and
Clare. Like
Malthus,
Serres reminds
us of nature's
under-acknowledged
power to wage
war against
humanity,
and like Wordsworth
he questions
what it means
to acknowledge
the natural
world effectively
and meaningfully
so as to foster
a mutually
beneficial
relationship.
Establishing
the urgent
need
for a natural
contract based
upon the self-conscious
acknowledgement
of and love
for Nature,
which
Serres recognizes
as a creative
and destructive,
dynamic and
indifferent
force, The
Natural Contract may
encourage
students
to begin
their
reading of
Romantic
texts with
a sense of
the legacies
of Romantic
nature
philosophy
and
the need
to refigure
the metaphors
we use to
construct
our relationship
to nature.
-
Because
Serres does
not
deal explicitly
with ecocriticism
or ecopoetics,
I ask students
to read the
introductory
chapters of
three
important books
of environmental
criticism:
Jonathan
Bate's The
Song of the
Earth,
Lawrence
Buell's The
Environmental
Imagination,
and Jim
McKusick's Green
Writing.
Placing
these three
books into
play
highlights
the
overlapping
issues
of ecocriticism,
establishing
some
grounds
for the
students'
own thinking
and writing.
First,
Bate's
introduction
challenges
the
binary
opposition
between
nature
and culture,
using Jane
Austen
and Thomas
Hardy
to tease
out the
ways that
culture
is always
already
imbedded
in nature,
just as
nature
is always
already
imbedded
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