William Wordsworth''s Ecological Vision

• Main Authors: Chen-hui Lee, 李貞慧
• Other Authors: Yao-Fu Lin
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/8e7ar5

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 外國語文學研究所 === 92 === I analyze Wordsworth’s poems from the ecological viewpoint. I argue that the poetry of Wordsworth contains an ecological vision and deserve our attention when we reconsider human’s relationship with non-human nature in an age which the earth has rapidly been transformed into a wasteland. I divide this thesis into three main chapters, with an introduction and a conclusion. In the introductory chapter, I explain why the emergence of an ecological study on literature is crucial and valuable to our era, briefly trace the development of Wordsworth study since the sixties, and analyze the connection between the Romantics and ecology. The first chapter intends to explore humans’ relation to non-human animals by examining Wordsworth’s animal poem, “Hart-Leap Well.” I argue that this poem conveys the poet’s deep sympathy for non-human animals. What is more, I will show that Wordsworth did not confine his concern to non-human animals alone. Instead, he extended his concern to include plants and other forms of existence. The second chapter discusses Wordsworth’s holistic view of nature, examining how he used one-life vision to resist mind/nature dualism and the mechanistic worldview, which allows human beings to exploit the natural world as pure resources. The third chapter focuses on Wordsworth’s sense of the Lake District and then argues that the poet did not confine his sense of place to this region; instead, by way of walking, Wordsworth extended his sense of identification beyond it. I will explain why expanding the scope of sense of place is important from an ecological point of view. The conclusion reiterates the view that Wordsworth’s poems can direct us to an ecological way of life.