Ecocriticism and Feminist Criticism
Name :- Gohil Devangiba A.
Email id :- devangibagohil786@gmail.com
Roll No. :- 14, Sem.-2
Paper No. : - 7 (Criticism )
Topic :-
Ecocriticism and Feminist Criticism
Submitted to Department of English Maharaja
Krisnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
Ecocriticism
Ecocriticism is
the study based on literature and environment from an interdisciplinary point
of view, where literature students or scholar analyze the texts that connected
with environmental concerns and examine the various ways literature woven with
the subject of nature. Ecocriticism is an umbrella term under which a variety
of approaches fall that is why it's make it a difficult term to define. As
ecocritic Lawrence Buell says, ecocriticism is an "increasingly
heterogeneous movement". But, "simply put, ecocriticism is the study
of the relationship between literature and the physical environment"
(Glotfelty xviii).
Ecocriticism as
an academic discipline began in earnest in the 1990s, although its roots go
back to the late 1970s. Ecocriticism is a new area of study, scholars are
still engaged in defining the range and
aims of the subject. David Mazel said that it is the analysis of literature
"as though nature mattered."
Ecocriticism argued that it cannot be applied without a deep
understanding of the environmental crises of modern times and thus must inform
personal and political actions. Many critics also emphasize the interdisciplinary
nature of the enquiry, which is informed by ecological science, politics,
ethics, women's studies, Native American studies, and history, among other
academic fields. The term “ecocriticism” was coined in 1978 by William Rueckert
in his essay “Literature and Ecology: An Experiment in Ecocriticism.” Interest
in the study of nature writing and with reading literature with a focus on
“green” issues grew through the 1980s, and by the early 1990s ecocriticism had
emerged as a recognizable discipline within literature departments of American
universities.
In study of
Ecocriticism primitivism in antiquity,
Arthur Lovejoy observes that "one of the strangest, most potent and most
persistent factors in Western thought, the use of the term 'nature' to express
the standard of human values, the identification of the good with that which is
'natural' or 'according to nature. Ecocriticism is the youngest of the
revisionist movements that have swept the humanities over the past few years.
It was only in the 1990s that is began to gain impetus, first in the United
States and in the United Kingdom, as more and more literary scholars began to
ask what their filed has to contribute to our understanding of the unfolding
environmental disaster.
Ecocriticism is
represented in the United States by the Association for the Study of Literature
and Environment (ASLE). This organization holds biennial meetings for
ecocritics. The official journal of the ASLE, Interdisciplinary Studies in
Literature and Environment (ISLE), represents the latest in scholarship on
ecocritism. while we reading some text in context of ecocriticism some
questions are arrives in our minds likes How is nature expressed in this piece?
How important is physical plant to the plot? Are the values represented in the
text consonant with "green" thinking? Do literary metaphors for land
have an impact on how we treat the land? What constitutes nature writing? If
class, race and gender are critical categories, shall place become another such
category? Are there differences in the way men and women write about nature?
Has literacy changed man's bond to nature? Is the crisis with the environment
represented in literature, and how has this affected man's relationship to the
ecology? Are United States government reports influenced by a particular
ecological view? How has ecology impacted the study of literature?
Tough these
questions hint at a very wide area of inquiry on different levels, there is a
single basic premise in ecological criticism : that all of human culture is
linked to the physical world and is affected by and has an effect on the
natural world. The ecocritic's job is to negotiate between that which is human and
that which is nonhuman.
Most ecocritics are driven by the
idea that humans are nearing the end of their environmental resources. They see
everything as a consequence of how humans have damaged the basic life-support
system of the planet. With this awareness at the forefront, the ecocritic
yearns to take part in restoring the environment not just from time to time but
at all times, in every discipline, including the study of literature.
Historian Donald Worster believes that
scholars in the humanities can play a important role in this work.
"Getting through the crisis requires understanding our impact on nature as
precisely as possible, but even more, it requires understanding those ethical
systems and using that understanding to reform them," he says.
"Historians, along with literary scholars, anthropologists, and
philosophers, cannot do the reforming, of course, but they can help with the
understanding."
Those immersed in the
study of literature have the habit of dealing into point of view, language,
tradition, meaning and value. Through these perspectives, the literary scholar
may use ecocriticism to further awareness of the environment and the ecology.
Eco criticism focuses attention on a matter that is acknowledged by most to be
of critical importance in the modern world.
Feminist
Criticism
Feminist literary
criticism is informed by feminist theory, or by the politics of feminism more
broadly. it can be understood as using feminist principles and ideological
discourses to critique the language of literature, its structure and being. Feminism
represented the and analyze the ways in which literature portrays the narrative
of male domination in regard to female bodies by exploring the economic,
social, political, and psychological forces embedded within literature.
Feminist criticism
concern itself with stereotypical representations of genders. It also may trace
the history of relatively unknown or undervalued women writers, potentially
earning them their rightful place within the literary canon, and helps create a
climate in which women's creativity may be fully realized and appreciated.
One will frequently
hear the term "patriarchy" used among feminist critics, referring to
traditional male-dominated society. "Marginalization" refers to being
forced to the outskirts of what is considered socially and politically
significant; the female voice was traditionally marginalized, or discounted
altogether. Black literary
feminist scholars began to emerge, in the post-Civil Rights era of the United
States, as a response to the masculine-centric narratives of Black empowerments
began to gain momentum over female voices. Although not a ”critical” text, The
Black Woman: An Anthology, edited by Cade (1970) is seen as essential to the
rise of Black literary criticism and theory. It’s compilation of poems, short
stories and essays gave rise to new institutionally supported forms of Black
literary scholarship. The literary scholarship also included began with the
perception of Black female writers being under received relative to their
talent. The Combahee River Collective released what is called one of the most
famous pieces in Black literary scholarship known as "A Black Feminist
Statement" (1977), which sought to prove that literary feminism was an
important component to black female liberation.
Hazel
Carby, Barbara Christian, bell hooks, Nellie McKay, Valerie Smith, Hortense
Spillers, Eleanor Traylor, Cheryl Wall and Sheryl Ann Williams all contributed
heavily to the Black Feminist Scholarship during the 1980s. During that same
time, Deborah E. McDowell published New Directions for Black Feminist
Criticism, which called for a more theoretical school of criticism versus the
current writings, which she deemed overly practical. As time moved forward,
theory began to disperse in ideology. Many deciding to shift towards the
nuanced psychological factors of the Black experience and further away from
broad sweeping generalizations. Others began to connect their works to the
politics of lesbianism. Some decided to analyze the Black experience through
their relationship to the Western world. Regardless, these scholars continue to
employ a variety of methods to explore the identity of Black feminism in
literature.
The alternative
feminist reading resists all ideological and linguistic impositions. Therefore,
now, the notion of an all-powerful author is totally demystified. This is the
most important contribution of feminist literary criticism to the literary
studies that ties it so closely with postmodern awareness. In this respect,
feminist literary criticism has not only achieved a revision of the literary
canon, but also emerged as one of the most challenging critical theories in the
rethinking of all literary conventions. Thus, feminist literary criticism has
been a revisionist theoretical movement within literary studies.
Feminism
may be described as a body of thought which suggests that women have been and
are disadvantaged in both past and contemporary societies. Feminists emphasize
the extent to which societies are in several respects patriarchal: that is the
societies are dominated by men who oppress and exploit women.
There
are several varieties of Feminism but all stress the exploitation of women.
They argue that it is vital to clarify the meanings of the concepts of sex and
gender respectively; that powerful processes of gender socialization operate to
the disadvantage of women; that female students have been disadvantage in
education; and that women are exploited at work, in the family and in society
generally where they may often face sexual harassment and male violence.
Thank You…
very useful assignment. Thanks Devangi for sharing.
ReplyDelete