Literary Studies in an Age of Environmental Crisis by

Cheryll Glotfelty

During the last few decades, Environment has posed a

great threat to human society as well as the mother earth.

The extensive use of natural resources has left us at the

brink of ditch. Under these circumstances, there arose a

field of literary and cultural criticism that analyses the

relationship between people and the natural world. It is a

worldwide movement which came into existence in 1990s

as a reaction to man’s anthropocentric attitude of

dominating nature. While it does not seek to alter the

course of any of these real factors, its task is to see how

theoretically informed readings of cultural texts can

contribute not only to consciousness raising but also look

into the politics of development and the construction of

nature. Ecocriticism focuses on the material contexts of
industrialisation, development, pollution and ecocide

while developing a frame for reading.

Cheryll Glotfelty is a prominent scholar in the field of

ecocriticism who is known for her contributions to the

theory and practice of literary ecology. She co-edited the

seminal anthology The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in

Literary Ecology in 1996, which is considered a

foundational text in the field. Glotfelty’s work focuses on

the interaction of environmental issues and literature,

arguing that literary studies can help us better understand

the multifaceted relationships between humans and

nature and aid us in developing critical environmental

literacy. In her seminal essay Glotfelty asserts that

literature can serve as a powerful tool for raising

awareness about environmental issues and shaping

cultural attitudes towards nature. She, in the very

introduction of her essay, “Literary Studies in an Age of
Environmental Crisis”, defines ecocriticism as “the study of

the relationship between literature and the physical

environment”. In this essay Glotfelty argues that literary

studies must engage with the environmental changes and

crises of our time.

Cheryll Glotfelty begins the essay “Literary Studies in an

Age of Environmental Crisis”, by acknowledging the vast

scale and complexity of environmental issues, from

climate change to biodiversity loss, and how these
problems have grown increasingly urgent. She states the

sad state of affairs of ecocriticism. She notes that English

Literary studies are in a constant state of flux. Literary

criticism for the last fifty years has addressed a lot of

issues and has been reinventing itself. Social issues like

race, class, gender, etc were hot topics of the twentieth

century but literary criticism had not put much effort in
addressing bout the earth’s life systems which were under

a great stress, even though news paper reports during the

same period mentions oil spills, lead and asbestos
poisoning, toxic waste contamination, extinction of

species, growing hole in the ozone layer, predictions of

global warming, acid rain, illegal dumping, droughts,

floods, etc. Hence, the essay starts by stating a problem-

Literary theory has been “remapping” itself with changing

times yet it has not yet addressed the ‘global

environmental crisis’. It was only in the 1990s the US
president declared that it “the decade of the environment”.

And in the year 1989, The Time Magazine declared the

person of the earth to be “The Endangered Earth”.

Goltfelty also notes that although there were many

cultural scholars and disciplines working on the field of
ecology since the 1970’s onwards, but unfortunately they
were all scattered and not united. So in this anthology The
Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology

Glotfelty along with her co-author Harold Fromm have

brought together many theorist and literary studies that
speak about the environmental crisis. She traces the

environmental literature from 1885 to 1993 and points

out that it was in the year 1985 Frederick O Waage edited

“Teaching Environmental Literature” which sought to

foster environmental concern and awareness in literary
disciplines. Again, in 1989 Alicia Nitecki founded “The

American Nature Writing News Letter”. Glotfelty

continues by stating that in 1990s the University of

Neveda created the first academic position in literature

and environment and in 1991, MLA identified

environmental crisis as a important issue and conducted a

special session on “Ecocriticism the greening of literary
studies”. Only in the year 1993, ecological literary study
emerged as a recognisable critical school.

Cheryll Glotfelty, notes that the term ecocriticim was

possibly first coined in 1978 by William Rueckert in his

essay “Literature and Ecology: an Experiment in

Ecocriticism” and that it takes an earth centered approach

to literary studies. By ecocriticism, Rueckert meant “the

application of ecology and ecological concepts to the
study of literature”. Other means in circulation include

ecopoetics, environmental literary criticism and green

cultural studies. But the term ‘ecocriticism’ is preffered by

most scholars.

Ecocriticism asks questions like how literature is

presented, the role physical setting plays in novel, et
cetera and it shares the fundamental premise that human
culture is connected to the physical world.

Cheryll Glotfelty continues by noting that the common

motivation of all eco-critical work. The first motivation for

common in all eco-critical work is a troubling awareness

that we have reached the age of environmental limits. The

second is, human actions are causing and damaging the

planets basic life support systems and the third is, how as
human being can we contribute to environmental

restorations. Glotfelty shares that all disciplines have

identified the importance of ecology in their works

including History, Anthropology, Psychology and

Philosophy, long before Literary criticism. She then traces

the growth of ecocriticim in three stages using Elaine

Showalter’s feminist model, where the first stage in

feminist criticism, the “images of women” stage is

concentrating on hoe women are portrayed in in canonical

literature. Showalter’s second stage in feminist criticism,
the women’s literary tradition stage reconsiders literature

by women. In ecocriticism, recuperate the hitherto

neglected genre of nature writing. The third stage that

Showalter identifies in feminist criticism is the theoretical

phase, which questions about symbolic construction of

gender and sexuality within literary discourse. Analogous

work in ecocriticism too includes the symbolic

construction of species. It is a link between the oppression

of women and the domination of nature. Glotfelty feels

that ecocriticism would redraw the boundaries of literary

studies. Strong voice in the profession will enable

ecocritics to bring about important changes in the canon,

the curriculum, and university policy. She feels that

ecocriticism has been predominantly a white movement. It

will become a multi-ethnic movement when stronger

connections are made between the environment and

issues of social justice, and when divergent views are
encouraged to contribute to the discussion.

Glotfelty’s work has helped to establish ecocriticism as a

vital area of inquiry within literary studies.

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