Date of Award

1-1-2016

Document Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Organizational Unit

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, English and Literary Arts

First Advisor

Bin Ramke, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Eleanor McNees

Third Advisor

Matthew Taylor

Keywords

Ecology, Environmental literature, Landscape, Pastoral, Perception, Poetry

Abstract

My thesis project focuses on the current literary field of Ecocriticism, its historical transmutations, and the correlation of the pastoral genre, as one begins to understand current human understandings of "nature." By applying a deeper understanding of the Deep Ecology movement, along with shifting understandings of the human and the non-human, specifically in our usage and attention to landscape and wilderness, I hope to explore the role that the aesthetic, and the function of the poem, can play a crucial role in the environmental movement. By building a foundational understanding of our cultural context and critical theories of Environmental criticism, I hope to illuminate the necessary ways that place, body, and language/perception all interact with each other to create a specific experiential moment of nature. This environmental epiphany can be modeled best in the poem that reflects the "thisness" of nature, as Hopkins calls it, and emphasizes the aura/essence of the land with which we interaction. This project will apply its theoretical concerns to the poetry of Brian Teare, who illuminates many of the concerns of landscape, perception, and bodily engagement.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Haley N. Littleton

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

en

File Size

96 p.

Discipline

English Literature, Environmental Philosophy, Geography

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