Neohelicon
Volume/Issue:
Volume 36: Issue 2
Toward a literary environmental ethics: a reflection on eco-criticism
Author:
Ning Wang Tsinghua University Department of Foreign Languages 100084 Beijing China

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Pages:
289–298
Online Publication Date:
21 Sep 2009
Publication Date:
01 Dec 2009
Article Category:
Research Article
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-009-0018-0
Keywords:
Eco-criticism; Literary environmental ethics; Man and nature; Postmodern
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Abstract  

In the present era of globalization, discussing the relations between man and nature as well as the environment has become a cutting-edge theoretical topic for almost all humanities scholars. In this respect, the rise of eco-criticism in the English-speaking world takes the initiative of intervening from a literary critical perspective. Partly due to introduction and translation from the West, and partly from China’s own ecological resources, eco-criticism has also risen in China and quickly flourished. Actually, the relation between man and nature has long been a theme not only in Western literature but also in Chinese literature, and Tao Yuanming’s creation of the “Peach Blossom Spring” as a Chinese version of Utopia serves as a particularly notable example. The present article, after some critical review and reflection of the positive aspects of eco-criticism, tries to deconstruct from a postmodern eco-critical perspective the exclusiveness of the “people-oriented” ethics dominated in current Chinese ideology, and at the same time, questions the nature-earth-centric mode of thinking advocated by the eco-critics. To the author, it is necessary to construct a sort of postmodern environmental ethics characterized by harmoniousness with differences reserved in the present era rather than raise another binary opposition between man and nature.

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Cover Neohelicon
Neohelicon
Print ISSN:
0324-4652
Online ISSN:
1588-2810

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Neohelicon
Language English
Size B5
Year of
Foundation		 1973
Volumes
per Year		 1
Issues
per Year		 2
Founder Akadémiai Kiadó
Founder's
Address		 H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
Publisher Akadémiai Kiadó
Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Publisher's
Address		 H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
CH-6330 Cham, Switzerland Gewerbestrasse 11.
Responsible
Publisher		 Chief Executive Officer, Akadémiai Kiadó
ISSN 0324-4652 (Print)
ISSN 1588-2810 (Online)

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