Literary Spaces

What is Ecocriticism?

According to Cheryll Glotfelty, (as cited in Peter Barry’s Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory) Ecocriticism is simply defined as “the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment” (p. 239).

Ecocriticism is by its nature an interdisciplinary enterprise, which can also be referred to as literary and cultural criticism from an environmentalist viewpoint, where literature scholars evaluate texts in terms of their environmentally risky or useful effects and analyze the various ways literature treats the issue of nature. At this point, beliefs and ideologies are evaluated for their environmental implications. Ecocriticism further asks us to observe ourselves and the world around us by evaluating the way that we represent, relate with, and construct the environment, both ‘natural’ and ‘man-made’.

According to Barry, ecocritics “re-read major works from an ecocritic point of view and extend the application of ideas to areas…