On Species Extinction and Modern Ecological Consciousness in Tennyson's In Memoriam
Early scholars of Ecocriticism traced the origin of contemporary ecological thought in Anglo-American romantic literature.They,however,confined the ecology to ecological holism,with a result of overemphasizing the unity of the whole at the sacrifice of the agency of individual components.Tennyson,a Victorian poet,absorbed the modern ecological notions conceived in the scientific thoughts in the 19th century.His writings on species extinction in In Memoriam described an ecological network with the characteristics of environmental agency and species interaction,displaying the feature of materialistic poetics as a variant of romantic poetics.Tennyson used geological concepts such as sedimentation and erosion to attribute the reality of extinction to the transformation of environment,demonstrated the interactive relationship between human beings and non-human species,and transformed his mourning for friends into the affection for nature,complementing the early ecology with the force of affect.Tennyson's writings of species extinction in In Memoriam not only transformed the organic holism of romanticism into modern ecology,but also provided useful inspiration for thinking about the relationship between species in the Anthropocene.
Alfred TennvsonIn Memoriamspecies extinctionmodem ecology
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