THE POEMS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH: AN ECOCRITICAL OVERVIEW

Abstract

Eco-criticism emerged in the 1990’s and the critics changed their angles of vision and examined the works of art by focusing on the relationship between man and Nature. William Words worth, in particular, became the key icons of eco-critical studies. Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who has beenconsidered as a forerunner of English Romanticism. His views towards Nature and man’s treatment of Nature have supported his position as an important icon of eco-critical studies. His fame lies in the general belief that he has been viewed as a Nature poet who viewed Nature superior to humans. In other words, his views about Nature and his poems seek to heal the long-forgotten wounds of Nature in the hope of reaching unification between man and Nature. With the emergence of Eco-criticism as a new critical approach in the 1990’s, Romantic poetry, in general, and William Wordsworth, in particular, became the icons of eco-critical studies. He was the foremost Romantic poet who cared for the creation of symbiosis between man and Nature. William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who is considered as a forerunner of English Romanticism. His contributions to the repository of English literature are undoubtedly a token of hisgreatness among his contemporaries. His views towards Nature and man’s treatment of Nature have supported his position as an important icon of eco-critical studies. His fame lies in the general belief that he has been viewed as England’s greatest Nature poet who viewed Nature superior to human being whosesurvival is dependent upon Nature. Wordsworth intends to show the value of survival of human being in Nature. Though literary critics talked about the eco-critical concepts in the past, the present paper highlights a recent literary approach to Eco-criticism studies, “the relationship between literature and physicalenvironment” in the poems of William Wordsworth.