Abstract

The Many Faces of Nature: An Ecocritical Reading of the Concepts of Wilderness and the Sublime in John Keats’ Selected Poems

Highlights

  • Following the rise of ecocritical studies in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, the Romantic era became a rich source of material for the ecocritical study of literature

  • Romanticism has been widely discussed among ecocritical scholars, John Keats has remained one of the underrated figures, neglected in their works

  • Keats’ tendency to observe phenomena from multiple angles by reinventing his poetic self explains his peculiar, multifaceted view of nature as both beautiful and redeeming and dangerous and limiting. Such a contradictory view finds its contemporary expression in two differentenvironmental approaches to the phenomenon of nature – that of Deep Ecology, which advocates an ecocentric point of view as opposed to an anthropocentric one, and the Dark Mountain Project, which emphasizes the insignificance of mankind in the face of nature

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Summary

Introduction

Following the rise of ecocritical studies in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, the Romantic era became a rich source of material for the ecocritical study of literature. Romanticism has been widely discussed among ecocritical scholars, John Keats has remained one of the underrated figures, neglected in their works This lack of proper attention is unfortunate because Keats’ poetry and points of view still have much to offer to the contemporary ecocritical reader. This paper employs the two philosophies of nature to shed new light on Keats’ poems “O Solitude!” (1816), “On the Sea” (1817), “Written Upon the Top of Ben Nevis” (1838), and “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” (1819) and illuminate the contemporary ecocritical perspectives. Biographical studies on John Keats as well as contemporary ecocritical theory and philosophy, including recent ecocritical interviews and debates

Romanticism and Ecocritical Reading
Wilderness and Deep Ecology
The Sublime and the Dark Mountain Project
Discussion
Conclusion
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