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Ecocriticism In The Tempest

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Man and the Wild: An Ecocritical Reading of Shakespeare’s The Tempest I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
- H.D. Thoreau, Walden In the past, American ecocritics tended to celebrate wilderness in their response to nature while their British counterparts often opted for the more ominous minatory point of view. In America, this field of study is known as ‘Ecocriticism’ while in United Kingdom it is known as ‘Green Studies’. During the 1990’s Green Studies began in UK with Jonathan Bates emerging as the founding figure. However, I would like to begin this paper with a definition penned by Cheryll Glotfelty, who is also the acknowledged founder of Ecocriticism in the USA. Talking about this still emergent branch of study she wrote in the introductory note to The Ecocritical Reader-
What then is ecocriticism? Simply put, ecocriticism is the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment. Just as feminist criticism examines language and literature from a gender-conscious …show more content…

One can disrupt the natural order to a certain extent but cannot totally recreate it. Perhaps that is why it is called the “natural” order. Just as the sun cannot be made to rise from south, sunshine cannot be demanded from the moon and the wind cannot be asked to not to sway the trees, Caliban cannot be ‘civilized’ enough to behave like a human being. He cannot be trained to love like Ferdinand or serve like Gonzalo with utmost loyalty. These unchangeable characteristics of this extremely interesting yet barbaric persona of Shakespeare’s lights a green spark in the mind and calls for a greener reading of the play The

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