Eco-Consciousness in the Works of Dorothy Wordsworth, William Cullen Bryant, and Susan Fenimore Cooper

Abstract

This paper aims to discuss how the works of Dorothy Wordsworth, William Cullen Bryant, and Susan Cooper present the mode of an ecologically oriented consciousness. Wordsworth, Bryant, and Cooper, as Romantic writers, not only sense the social conflicts of the day but also always tend to trace a variety of natural circumstances. Their consciousness is ecologically sensitive to the bond between nature and humanity. First, Wordsworth, Bryant, and Cooper overcome the hierarchical binary perception of the nature/humanity relation; they see theinterconnection between nature and culture through their careful observation of the natural environment. Second, they defend the particularity of the cultural landscape as well as their own natural environment; Dorothy Wordsworth is sympathetic to the oppressed of the day, and Bryant and Cooper reveal their sympathetic understanding of the oppression of the Native people. Third, they suggest the necessity of an ethical viewpoint that nature and human beings should create harmony in the ecosystem through each other’s responsibility. Their works remind us that we should restore our neglected awareness of the environmental crisis.