Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2006. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 238-248). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

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This thesis seeks to investigate the ecological theme in German-Swiss prose of the last thirty years. The role of nature has understandably always been significant in Swiss literature. In a nation that has eked out its living, in such an impressive and violent landscape, there is of necessity a highly developed awareness of the environment. Furthermore, the close relationship between mankind and the environment is inherently ambiguous, with each acting alternately as curse and blessing to the other. The bond between people and geography is made all the more vital in the Alps, where existence is under the constant threat of avalanches and landslides. In light of this heightened environmental sensibility, it is unsurprising that, with the growing profile of ecological debate in general, Swiss writers should demonstrate an acute cognisance of the significance of ecological problems. The notion of an ecological voice takes the discussion further. The question is posed whether these works merely represent a reflection of societal concern for the environment, or whether literary responses may constitute solutions. This investigation therefore contributes both to literary criticism on Swiss writing and to the understanding of the role of conceptualisation in finding solutions to ecological problems. To explore and analyse these ideas, this thesis considers a representatively broad spectrum of differing responses to ecological crisis. It is not intended to be an exhaustive list of recent Swiss ‘Öko-Literatur', but instead to be an investigation of the variety of narrative strategies employed in this period of growing ecological awareness.

M.A. / In Afrikaans poetry, Nature is depicted in terms of the relationship existing among and / or inanimate organisms, i. e. an ecological mode. Man's influence on the environment, features strongly in the poetry of the eighties. The anthology, Groen (J. L. Marais), can be seen as a focal point of this involvement. Chapter one provides an overview of the ecological code in Afrikaans poetry, spanning the time from the First Afrikaans Language Movement up till the seventies. With regard to this period, the different approaches of the poets to Nature are being studied. During this era a decidedly dynamic approach to the subject existed. Nature was initially seen as the idyllic, soothing and was also used as a metaphor for beauty and purity. With time, Nature took on another dimension and came to represent destructive forces. In chapter two, the anthology Groen by J. L. Marais, under discussion in this work, concluding the eighties, Man is called to task, i. e. to protect and nurture the balance in the ecology. Man is made aware of both the threat to and the conservation of nature. These binary forces are discussed with reference to two semantic devices, cohesion and coherence. As binding factors they provide a semantic light on the above themes. Verweerde aardbol by J. L. Marais, is approached along the same lines in chapter three. The specific themes used in this anthology, serve as a classification aid. The poet's concern about the transience of nature comes to the fore, and Marais himself states that the time has come for writers to be called up in service to the environment without being apologetic about it (Marais 1993: 32). A clear paradigm shift is visible from the infant years of Afrikaans poetry to the poetry of the eighties. The "green"-awareness which inflamed / inspired the community, plays an important role in the eighties and is reflected in Afrikaans poetry. The dynamic power of the ecological code as theme, still has many untapped areas which can be explored in further studies.

This essay compares Wordsworth’s and Arnold’s conceptions of nature and suggests reasons for the differences found. Both poets were keenly sensitive to the leveliness of the external world, and found in nature a soothing and healing power for the troubled mind of man. Both derived sensuous enjoyment from the beauties of nature, and found in nature permanence, peace, and tranquillity. The fundamental difference in their doctrines of nature is in their conceptions of abstract nature. To Wordsworth, nature was a benevolent force which actively participated in the moral and spiritual growth of man. His was a doctrine of joy and optimism. To Arnold, nature was a great and indifferent force which man must transcend. His was a doctrine of stoicism and pessimism. The differences are mainly due to the progress in science and thought from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. Wordsworth inherited the eighteenth century belief in a benevolent and all-powerful Deity, who manifested his goodness in nature. By a synthesis of this philosophy, the assumptions of associationist psychology, and his own experience, he explained the moral and spiritual growth of man. Wordsworth believed that through love of nature, man was led to love of his fellow man and of God. He believed that nature participated in man’s moral growth, through the senses, with the aid of some super-sensuous power – ‘a superadded soul’, an ‘auxilier light’, which he believed to be the imagination. Through semi-mystical and visionary experiences, he became convinced of the unity between the soul of man and the soul of nature. This was the source of his joy in nature. Arnold took for granted many of the assumptions of nineteenth century science regarding nature. Through these, and his own search for truth, he lost faith in a benevolent force in the universe. He saw no evidence of harmony or teleological purpose in nature. He found in nature only an edifying example of tranquility, steadfastness, and stoicism. The central tenet of his doctrine was of the superiority of man over nature, through his reason and conscience. On a broader basis, the change in attitude to nature between Wordsworth and Arnold is due to the changed conception of men’s place in the Chain of Being. In the eighteenth century, man held the most important earthly place in nature’s Chain of Being. In the nineteenth century, he lost that place. The Industrial Revolution created a materialistic world in which only the fittest survived economically. Biologists and zoologists reduced man to the level of all other creatures. He lost his favoured place in the Chain of Being, and for him nature lost all order and purposiveness. A pessimistic view of nature was logical and common. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

Following a general historical discussion of the idea of nature, the study continues with an analysis of the main sources for Tennyson's nature, concept. Here some stress is put upon the temperament of the poet as well as upon his scientific, philosophical and religious affinities with the doctrines of progress and evolution. Chapter three deals with the view of nature in Tennyson's poetry. That Tennyson regarded nature merely as the physical world interpreted by science is demonstrated by a treatment of his poetry that recognizes the different moods of the poet. The conclusion arrived at is that, no matter what mood he was in, Tennyson viewed nature with suspicion. His attempts to embrace pantheism or to escape actuality through mysticism, transcendentalism, or romantic primitivism indicated his failure to reconcile his idea of nature with religious beliefs that demanded personal immortality and absolute morality for man. Because of these emotional needs, Tennyson, especially after the publication of Darwin's scientific treatises on evolution, was forced into a dualism that separated moral (or spiritual) man from a vast, cruel, immoral (or amoral) nature that Tennyson saw as antagonistic to both man and God. For Tennyson man's progress had nothing to do with nature. Chapter four argues that Meredith adopted Goethe's idea that nature is a vital, benevolent being that includes man and God in a unity of the real and ideal worlds. Because Meredith avoided the contradictions that science and Kantian transcendentalism introduced into Tennyson's philosophy, he was able to attain to a conception of the creative and ethical oneness of Earth. Hence he could use Darwinism to clarify his basically Goethian concept of nature, for he abjured the ideas of personal immortality and absolute morality and saw man as a creature of Earth who was progressing toward the harmonious altruistic balance of blood, brain, and spirit that existed in essential humanity. Meredith could rejoice in the struggle of life, which he saw as a struggle for balance and not for existence, because he had from the beginning accepted nature as a beneficent Earth to whose operations man must adjust himself. The last chapter discusses the different approaches of Tennyson and Meredith to nature, their attitudes to nature's law, and their ideas concerning man's place in nature. One argument resulting from this comparison is that Tennyson, applying Kant's transcendental theories and his own emotional reactions to his scientific interpretation of nature, was pessimistic about nature, whereas Meredith, approaching nature by way of the Goethian synthesis and a happy outlook that discerned a desirable mean in all nature's operations, was optimistic about her. Moreover, Meredith's idea of nature was more modern than Tennyson's, for Meredith's belief in altruism and co-operation being the primary law of nature is supported by certain present-day biological and sociological theories. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

This paper examines the interconnections of nature, magic, and violence in the Nouveaux contes de fées (New Fairy Tales) of the Countess of Ségur and their illustrations. It focuses on the ways in which the Countess reappropriates the framework of the literary fairy tale and subtly breaks with the traditions established by past fairy-tale authors, encouraging a return to nature and a movement away from the perceived corruption of the nineteenth-century city within the context of a timeless magical world. Close study of the Countess’s multiple perspectives on violence as either a motivating form of punishment or as a display of pure malice reinforce the dichotomy of good vs. evil as it is developed in the text, reflecting the author’s desire to create an ordered world in which obedience is rewarded and cruelty is justly punished.

Gary Snyder has offered, in poems and essays, ways to acknowledge the interrelationships of humans with the more-than-human. He questions common notions of selfness as well as understandings of what it is to be human in relationship to other species and ecosystems, and he offers new paradigms for the relationship between cultures and the ecosystems in which these cultures reside. These new paradigms are rooted in a reevaluation of our attitudes toward our physical bodies which impacts our relationship to the earth and raises new possibilities for an ecological spirituality or philosophy. The sum of Snyder's endeavors is a foundation for an understanding of ecopoetics. Snyder's poem "The Trail is Not a Trail" is an interesting place to begin examining how human perceptions of the self are central to the kinds of relationships that humans believe are possible between our species and everything else. In this poem there is a curious fusion of the speaker and the trail. In fact, with each successive line they become increasingly difficult to separate. The physical self is central to Snyder's poetry because his is a poetry of the self physically rooted in ever-shifting relationship with the biosphere. The relationship of the self to the biosphere in Snyder's poetry also points toward a spiritual experience that can be called ecomysticism, by which I mean the space where new ecological paradigms and mystical understandings of the world overlap. Ecomysticism goes beyond mysticisms that describe a spiritual being longing for supernatural experience while being "unfortunately" trapped in a physical body. Ecomysticism emphasizes the spiritual and physical interrelatedness or interconnectedness of all matter, the human and the more-than-human. The integration of the spiritual and physical aspects of the self is only possible through an awareness of the interrelatedness of the self and the non-human. New paradigms for the self are thus central to ecopoetics, a poetics that seeks to heal the rift between humans and the biosphere.

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