Victorian Ecocriticism for the Anthropocene

Abstract

How might literary and cultural spheres intersect with the Anthropocene, the epoch — however defined — of humanity's detectable influence at geological scale? What forms, genres, objects, and methodological lenses might prove most fertile in mediating between the concept's abstraction and its concrete entailments for literary and cultural history? Such questions have already commissioned a range of critical projects that attempt to reframe the Anthropocene itself: as a trope of science fiction, given how humans are “terraforming” the planet (Heise 215–20); as an object for media archaeology, considering the “signatures” that our aggregate actions are leaving in the physical strata of the earth (Boes and Marshall 64–67); and as a challenge to the categorical distinctions by which historical study is practiced, with its blurring of “human history” and “natural history” (Chakrabarty 201–07).

Elizabeth Von Arnim’s Early Novels In The Light Of Eco-Criticism

“…To begin with, we are going to study in details the notions fundamental for our research, such as eco-critisism, eco-writing and romantic ecology, then, we are to follow the interconnection between poetsromanticists and the representatives of transcendentalism. The research is based on the works of researchers and philosophers: Adamson (2018), Bavidge (2018), Kirkpatrick (2016), Ryan (2019), Sharma (2016), Thoreau (1862), Williams (2017).…”

“…Nowadays we can witness the growing influence of ecocriticism for there are many papers and books on it in different fields of literature. Williams (2017) gives a detailed overview on Victorian ecocriticism, Adamson (2019) introduces the concept of "environmental justice discourse that recognizes the interdependency of people and places" (p. 1), Ryan (2019) accentuates the British and American writers (starting from William Wordsworth and up to Annie Dillard) "as voices for/of vulnerable places and nonhuman beings" (p. 2). The papers delve into different aspects of ecocriticism while their major goal is to prove that (if one may quote Dr. V. Sharma) "ecocriticism serves this precise purpose that studies the literature and the environment where the scholars of vary realms discuss, analyze and formulate texts on environmental and concerns and challenges on the subject of nature" (Sharma, 2016, p. 60).…”