(in English): In this diploma thesis I am dealing with Czech (and by extension Slovak) environmental poetry. Particularly in Anglo-Saxon world, the environmental poetry (poetry that reacts on the current environmental situation) is well-established. This type of poetry has emerged just few years ago in Czech literary scene, and is still waiting for its stable position. One of the main reasons why this type of poetry emerged in Czech literary scene was a call přírodnílyrika.cz from 2019. It created a literary momentum and started a debate whether poets should thematize contemporary problems. Even though the poetry collections seem distinct and diverse, they have some common elements. This diploma thesis is mapping these environmental poetry collections and contextualizing them into wider poetry history.

From Preface: In this thesis it is proposed to examine the pastoral vision, symbolized by Eden, which permeates Clare's poetry, as it is reflected in The Shepherd's Calendar, the sonnets (certain of which will be analysed in detail) and a group of lyrics. This pastoral vision, while including time and space, transcends them in such a way that Eternity becomes an important concept in Clare's pastoral poems. The final chapter of this thesis will, therefore, concentrate on this aspect of Clare's pastoral vision, not by attempting to define Clare's understanding of Eternity, but by illustrating it in four of his lyrics. Because of the lack of a full and reliable text of the complete works of John Clare and the inability of the present writer to establish for certain the chronological order of his poems, there will be no attempt in this thesis to show a development in Clare's poetry. Nor will there be an attempt to evaluate in the light of Clare's "madness" those poems known to have been written while he was in a mental asylum - a non-literary study requiring knowledge associated with the discipline of psychology; and the present writer concurs in the opinion that "it is the continuity of Clare's life and ways of thought and feeling which claims one's attention, rather than the disruptions of insanity".

Walt Whitman used animistic techniques in his poetry and prose, specifically "Song of the Redwood Tree," "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking," and Specimen Days. The term animism can be traced to the Latin root of the word, anime, which connotes a "soul" or "vitality." So, when one is talking about animistic techniques, one is speaking of the (metaphoric or realistic) ensoulment of natural objects. In the wake of a growing global crisis modern scholarship has begun reexamining the implications of this belief; often it introduces ambiguities into an otherwise comfortable relationship of unquestioned human domination. In Specimen Days, Whitman seems to have a more clear view of his natural philosophy, in which he expresses his belief that nature possesses an inherency that he envies and an ability to communicate that quality with him. However, Whitman's "Song of the Redwood Tree" is ambiguous and contradicting. Whitman creates a vision of Manifest Destiny by portraying settlers in California clearing space for houses and agriculture by cutting down the majestic redwood forests. However, this poem contains a particularly odd element: the trees have a voice. They mourn their own demise while simultaneously celebrating the arrival of the new American populace. It is a conflicting image. The animistic, majestic qualities of the trees challenge an anthropocentric view of the world, not allowing the reader to quickly disregard the extinction of the redwood forests in order to embrace American ideals of progress, which in a way defeats the more imperialistic message of the poem. Another comparison, with "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking," demonstrates how important subversion of self to place is when using animistic techniques in poetry. This poem implies that animate nature is a locus for Whitman's creative genius, both inspiring his poetry and permeating it with confusion. Whitman's very engagement with the process of imagining a voice for nature inserts doubt into some of his more imperialistic pronouncements and encourages the reader to question his own previously unexamined assumptions. Animistic literary techniques have the potential to encourage an involvement with non-human nature, along with a more conscious awareness of the way we use (and abuse) that Other.

This essay is an ecocritical analysis on William Wordsworths “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” and Edgar Allan Poes “Alone”. It investigates the depiction of nature, the space within nature poetry and the common theme of loneliness in the poems. The ecocritical perspective plays the main part of this essay because of the similarity between the ecocriticism and romantic poetry in the upliftment of nature, and the erasure of the dividing line between human and nature. The main material is Timothy Mortons Ecology without nature, Jane Bennetts Vibrant Matter and Scott Knickerbockers Ecopoetics. The results of the essay show how the depiction of nature contributes to the representation of the poet’s emotion and relation to nature and the past. It shows how the space, the distance between human and nature, maintains because we can’t get closer to nature than through figurations, anthropomorphisms. It also shows how the loneliness further establishes the space and is quite different between Wordsworth and Poe, whereas Wordsworth doesn’t feel as alone as Poe because of his closer relation to nature.

This dissertation works against the longstanding literary critical premise that aesthetics and ethics are at odds. I challenge this notion by foregrounding the verse of four nineteenth-century-born and Northeastern-based poets who unapologetically prioritize aesthetic perception and experience in their writing. These poets—Frederick Goddard Tuckerman, Emily Dickinson, Olivia Ward Bush, and William Stanley Braithwaite—were well aware of the criticism politicians, social reformers, educators, business proponents, and even other writers leveled against the functional and ethical utility of poetry in an era when transatlantic industrial revolutions and innovations in manufacturing and transportation technology contributed to a national ethos that celebrated progress and productivity in the most concrete terms. These developments, coupled with moral and political divisions over slavery and the economic and psychic strain of a nationwide war that brought life’s precariousness into relief, spurred citizens to contemplate their sense of purpose in contexts ranging from the vocational to the existential. Writers and poets in particular faced continual pressures to defend the practical value of their work. What makes the four poets in this dissertation unparalleled, I suggest, is the way they challenge readers to revise and expand their understanding of the aesthetic by devoting poetic attention to unsettling and unsightly products and processes in the natural world. Moldering plant matter, heaps of manure, broom-ravaged spiderwebs, and fragments of driftwood; the kinds of waste and remains normally deemed indecorous for nineteenth-century verse become vibrant and arresting in the work of these poets. Yet while each poet approaches humble and neglected phenomena as worthy of aesthetic treatment, they do so without idealizing the unpalatable and disregarded subjects they portray in verse. The attention they devote to the abject—a witnessing they extrapolate from literal to human nature—is, as I show over the course of this dissertation, an ethical and political act. In addition to upholding the unsettling and unglamorous qualities of the natural subjects they honor, these poets also abstain from sentimentalizing the elements of lived experience that inform their writing, and refuse to downplay the often demanding process of poetic composition itself. While this dissertation’s insistence on regarding aspects of nature that nineteenth-century poetry has traditionally neglected is, in part, an ecocritical intervention, my project is also a call to dignify the artistic labors that reframe overlooked natural phenomena as worthy of aesthetic attention. To portray writing as work is to regard the craft as just as substantial and legitimate a pursuit as occupations whose effects are more straightforwardly measurable in practical terms. Indeed, each poet in this dissertation insists upon depicting poetic making as a labor that requires the same dexterity as the construction of an architectural structure and that has as dramatic and far-reaching effects as military and legislative developments. Far from posing an escapist diversion from the social and civic realities of their day, I argue, these poets frame aesthetic creation and experience as fundamental to human nature, especially during wartime and periods of political upheaval.

This doctoral thesis involves two components, a book length collection of poems and a critical study of ‘Herbert White’ and ‘Ellen West’ by Frank Bidart. The collection of poems, The Coagulate, consists of four parts: 1) Semi-personal poems focusing on nature both in a general sense and in specific reference to the natural British landscape. 2) Poems that explore the nature-based myths and contemporary social idiosyncrasies of Japan.3) Poems that explore the social perception of mental illness and the individual voices that exist in spite psychological classification.4) Poems by an alter-ego and pseudonym named Lee Cole, a completely foreign perspective to my own. These poems were written with the intent to adhere to Frank Bidart’s concept of Herbert White as ‘all that I was not.’ However, unlike Bidart, these poems attempt to remove the presence of the poet and forgo the use of a feint. The collection is organised with contexture in mind rather than chronology. Poems build upon one another and one section flows into the next causing the book to have a fluid quality. The critical component examines Bidart’s treatment of two mentally ill characters in respect to the establishment of the form, style, and voice that would become a hallmark of his poetry. Chapter 1 looks at the first poem of Bidart’s first book, ‘Herbert White.’ This chapter examines how Bidart’s unique use of typography, voice, Freudian theory, and the sharing of the poet’s history contributed to the crafting of a mentally ill character and the contexture of Golden State. It suggests that the inclusion of the poet, a stable presence in comparison to White, allows the reader to recognise certain universal human personality traits in a character that seems inhuman. Chapter 2 examines how Bidart crafted ‘Ellen West,’ a character just as unlike Bidart as ‘Herbert White.’ Central to this analysis is the examination of how to construct a character struggling with identity. It also examines the use of dramatic monologues and how ‘Ellen West’ fits into a form with a flexible definition. As with Chapter 1, Chapter 2 examines how Bidart uses the poet’s self to add to a fictional narrative and how that reflects upon his personal poetry, indicating that Bidart’s use of the self is a redirection from how the Confessional poets used first-person.

In the Anthropocene, a new approach towards nature in poetry is emerging. This change is closely related to ecocritical theory, which is a reevaluation of the human view on, and representation of, nature. It moves away from a more traditional anthropocentric perspective to a more critical one. This can for instance be in the spirit of Arne Naess or Timothy Morton, the two main theorists used in this essay. This essay is an ecocritical close reading of two Swedish contemporary poems on nature: “När jag går i skymningsmörkret” by Ingela Strandberg (from Att snara en fågel, 2018) and “(Strandförskjutningar)” by Gunnar D Hansson (from Tapeshavet, 2017). The focus of the reading is on the representation of wild, untouched nature. The formulated questions in the essay concern how untouched nature is represented in the poems, the human relationship towards it and how the differences and similarities between the two poems relate to and transform romantic representations of nature.  The conclusion is that these two very different poems exemplify the range of contemporary Swedish nature poetry. Strandberg’s poem is leaning towards a romantic or ecosofist representation of nature, whilst Hansson’s is more clear-cut ecocritical in line with Morton’s dark ecology.