Re-Imagining Nature:
Ecocritical Readings of Contemporary English Literature in the Age of the
Anthropocene
Deepayan
Das,
Assistant
Professor,
Department of
English,
Muzaffar Ahmed
Mahavidyalaya,
Salar,
Murshidabaad,
West Bengal,
India.
Abstract: This paper will look at how the modern English literature is re-conceptualizing nature in the Anthropocene, the suggested epoch where human agency is the geological driver[1][2]. On the basis of an ecocritical framework, the study investigates the representations of human-nature relations, environmental crisis, and nonhuman agency in the selected works of the twenty-first century to demonstrate how these works deal with the problem of environmental crisis. Introduction provides the definition of the Anthropocene and its implications to the research of literature, whereas the Literature Review provides a review of critical theories (e.g., scale, eco-cosmopolitanism, climate fiction), on which the analysis is based. The Methodology spells out the qualitative ecocritical reading of text. Thematic patterns in the Results are defined, such as fragmented narratives, deep-time perspectives that indicate the reality of the Anthropocene[3]. One characterizes the increase in climate fiction at a very high rate, and a table is a summary of ecocritical themes in exemplary novels. These findings are interpreted in the Discussion in the context of the Anthropocene theory and the Conclusion highlights the importance of literature in building environmental consciousness.
Keywords: Anthropocene, ecocriticism, contemporary
literature, climate fiction, human-nature relations.
Introduction
Over the past twenty years, the concept of Anthropocene has
developed into a strong science and humanities paradigm to appreciate the
tremendous presence of human influence on the planet[1]. The Anthropocene term
is coined by atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen who assumes that it is a new
geologic period of time marked by climate change, mass extinctions and new
planetary systems due to human activity[2]. The paradigm shift breaks the
historic barricades between human history and natural history and puts scholars
into the task of redefining the human-nature relationship (Chakrabarty 198).
Literary criticism has not been behind in reacting: climate change, as Dipesh
Chakrabarty notes, requires that we begin to think more planetarily about human
agency, including ecological approaches to cultural analysis[4][5].
Ecocriticism has equipped the tools of addressing these issues in
the field of literary criticism. Generally, ecocriticism refers to the analysis
of the connection between literature and the physical world (Glotfelty xvxiii)[6].
Ecocriticism has initially worked on nature writing and pastoral literature,
but more recent scholarship has been aimed at the global ecological crisis and
the Anthropocene. Gabrielle Duerbeck suggests that writing that specifically
considers the influence of humanity on the geological record be termed
Anthropocene literature, by using ambivalent characters and experimental
forms[7]. Modern novels, poems and plays, in this perspective are not merely
located in environmental contexts; they in fact wrestle with the change of the
planet, and compel the reader to redefine nature as an interconnected,
threatened, and radically transformed realm (Dürbeck 113). One of the most
famous critics of modern realist fiction is Amitav Ghosh, who has lamented that
modern realist fiction has managed to show no sufficient response to climate
catastrophe and this imaginative failure he has termed as the great derangement
(Ghosh 7). However, with the increase in environmental crisis, writers are
today beginning to take up this challenge, employing new storytelling methods
in reconsidering nature and human role in it.
The growth of climate change fiction, also known as cli-fi, is one
of the developments that deserve mention. Climimate change has been a dominant
motif in literature in the past ten years[8], and there is now a new corpus of
climate-change novels which dramatize the impact of global warming. According
to Adeline Johns-Putra, the growth of climate-themed novels and films that had
started to become increasingly popular since the 2010s has already begun to
establish a specific literary canon, with writers like Margaret Atwood, Kim
Stanley Robinson, and Barbara Kingsolver introducing environmental themes to
mainstream narrative[8][9]. The widespread survey of climate novels by Adam
Trexler has found more than 150 novels on anthropogenic climate change
published through to the mid-2010s[10]. The types of these works are diverse:
speculative dystopias, intimate domestic drama, but all these works in general
indicate the beginning of a new era in the way literature envisions nature. The
environment, no longer a passive backdrop, may in fact act as an active
character or agent and is representative, according to Trexler, of the capacity
of the novel to render scientific abstractions (e.g. rising CO 2 levels) into
places of practical experience, identity and culture[11]. Concisely, the
Anthropocene has prompted literary creators to reorganize the narrative and
shape, intertwining human narratives and planetary chronicles and ecological
facts. The present paper explores the re-inventions of nature as seen in modern
English works by the question of how the authors depict the environmental
crisis and redefine the connection of humankind to the nonhuman world in the
Anthropocene era..
Literature Review
The interactions between literature and the Anthropocene have been
challenged by scholars in an increasing number, and novel critical directions
have been suggested to confront the specific issues of the epoch. Scale is one
of the themes that is repeated in ecocritical discourse. In his argument
Timothy Clark presents the claim that the Anthropocene requires a scalar
literacy in criticism where local events (a fallen tree, a summer storm) are
being interpreted in terms of planetary processes such as climate change (Clark
10). Conventional narrative scales would appear comically futile in the face of
these phenomena which run centuries in their course or influence the whole
biosphere[12]. Roman Bartosch develops this, and speaks of a sense of scale
disorder - what is disorienting to the reader and the character when their
usual frames of reference are disturbed by the immense ecological time and
space[13]. Bartosch proposes that these two texts, Kingsolver (2012) Flight
Behavior and Boyle (2016) The Terranauts, are constructive techniques of the
author to express the complexity of climate change shifting viewpoints and
multi-scale storytelling[13]. These scaling off perspectives provide literature
with the capability to connect individual, local experience with that of the
global, long-term environmental change[13]. They can also be associated with
what Kate Marshall refers to as fiction in geological time, stories which are
set in deep time or nonhuman time in order to place human stories within
planetary history[14]. Marshall points at a tendency in contemporary fiction of
locating human dramas within settings such as prehistoric pasts or hypothetical
futures, and thus, emphasizing the continuity (as well as vulnerability) of the
human race through time (Marshall 525).
The other notable research line is the development of narrative
form and genre in accordance with the Anthropocene circumstances. In his work
on the Anthropocene literature, Durbeck focuses on the presence of the fragmented
and non-linear narrative and multi-perspective narration[15]. These fragmented
poetics reflect the broken environments in which they transpire and they
embrace more than one agency (human and nonhuman) within the text. As an
illustration, The Overstory by Richard Powers (2018) combines the life of nine
people and the life of trees, using a branching narrative, which de-centers
human heroes and puts trees in the focus. This is in line with the demands of
ecocritic Ursula K. Heise to develop eco-cosmopolitan narratives that do not
just focus on the individual or national levels but envision larger ecological
communities and interdependent fates (Heise 61). Similarly, the material
ecocriticism (Iovino and Oppermann) promotes the consideration of how matter
itself speaks in writing - rivers, forests, even toxins acquiring the power to
speak or a voice. Modern novels tend to bring natural objects to life or
personify them in some way, thus redefining nature as a living entity as
opposed to a mere environment. According to Greg Garrard, these innovations of
narrations confront the anthropocentrism by depicting a more-than-human world
of agents, which blurs the distinction between human characters and the
environment (Garrard 87).
The presence of the literature on the reconstruction of human
identity and ethics is also reflected. In her work, Axel Goodbody suggests a
reimagined role of humans in nature by postulating the figure of homo hortensis
- humanity as gardener[16][17]. In his book on garden writings since Rousseau
to Michael Pollan, Goodbody holds that literature can simulate an image of
human beings as part and parcel of, and custodians of, the natural world, and
not as possessors of it[16][18]. This reflects posthumanist and ecofeminist
criticisms of the mainstream Western conception of man versus nature. The idea
of making kin in the Chthulucene by Donna Haraway encourages narrative which
underlines kinship with nonhumans and the necessity to remain with the problem
of living in a maimed world (Haraway 10). Other literary critics such as Stacy
Alaimo and Rob Nixon also emphasize that modern literature remains involved
with environmental justice and slow violence - the latent, diffuse impacts of
pollution and climate change on the underprivileged groups (Nixon 2). As an
example, ecocriticism has been given a postcolonial conscience by writings by
authors of the Global South (like those by Indra Sinha in Animal's People,
2007) reminding us that the toxic legacies and industrial disasters of the
Anthropocene are not distributed equally. These highly critical approaches
emphasize the fact that re-imagining nature in literature also implies
re-imagining society, morality, and narratives of progress, and encourages the
readers to consider other possible futures and ways of coexisting.
To sum up, the academic discourse offers multiple important
lessons, namely: (a) New forms of ecocriticism have grown to meet the
large-scale and multifaceted challenges of the Anthropocene[12], devising new
analytical instruments to apply to literature that addresses the issue of
global change. (b): Narrative strategies in new fiction - across multiple
points of view and non-temporalities to new forms of fiction such as climate
fiction - are an attempt to depict ecological crises aesthetically
effectively[15]. (c) There is an increasing appreciation of the role of
literature in developing environmental consciousness and environmental ethics
(Goodbody 10; Johns-Putra 270). These works are the basis of this current
analysis that extends their findings and attempts to explore how the chosen
works of modern English literature are imaginatively re-creating an image of
nature in a world characterized by human caused turmoil..
Methodology
This study utilizes a qualitative ecocritical approach to examine
the portrayal of nature and the Anthropocene in the modern English literary
works. The analysis is provided through close reading and textual analysis of
several primary works, which the study interprets in the framework of the
ecocritical theory, instead of taking quantitative measures. Five
representative literary texts (primarily novels, published between 2000 and
2020) were purposely selected according to its explicit approach to
environmental issues and problems of the Anthropocene. Margaret Atwood Oryx and
Crake (2003) and Barbara Kingsolver Flight Behavior (2012), Amitav Ghosh Gun
Island (2019) and Richard Powers The Overstory (2018), and Ian McEwan Solar
(2010) are included. This is not a comprehensive list, but this selection of
genres (dystopian fiction, realist drama, speculative fable) and points of view
(North American, British, postcolonial) allows seeing a wide panorama of the
current literary response to the ecological crisis. Both texts were analyzed in
terms of its description of the natural world, the relationship between humans
and nature, and how they told the stories concerning the Anthropocene topic of
climate change, extinction, and interconnectedness of the world.
The above-reviewed scholarship contributed to the development of
the analytical framework used to read these texts. Specifically, the paper uses
the guiding questions provided by Durbeck about Anthropocene literature[3]: How
are environmental scale changes represented, and are the accounts heralding a
deep time out of the human lifespan? What foregrounded types of characters or
agents (e.g., animals, plants, climate systems) do they take into consideration
nonhuman perspectives or distributed agency? And what forms of emplotment
(comic, tragic, dystopian, ironic, pastoral, etc.) are used to meet the needs
of the Anthropocene? The close reading was guided by these questions that
ensured a system of assessing thematic and formal approach to ecocritical
concerns of each work. Other interpretive lenses were cultural ecology
(transplanted into a concept of Hubert Zapf, where literature is an ecological
regenerative force)[19]) and empirical ecocriticism, a new approach that takes
into account the factual reader responses to environmental literature (e.g., in
surveys of climate fiction readers by Schneider-Mayerson)[20][21]. Although the
main study was based on a text, the contributions of environmental psychology
and ethics were incorporated in the analysis to enhance the interpretation of
how these works of literature could contribute towards or be a reflection of
the ecological consciousness of the people.
The information required to conduct this study was in the form of
annotated passages in each novel where major landscape descriptive passages,
climatic happenings, and human-nonhuman interactions were determined. It was
analyzed through iterative readings: the first one was based on reading each
novel separately to understand its narrative and thematic range, the following
one was concerned with specific re-readings of ecocritical aspects, the notes
were cross-linked with the critical concepts (e.g., the examples of a scale
disorder as a narrative point of view, or cases when a nonhuman agency drives
the plot). A comparative synthesis was then undertaken in search of general
patterns or deviant strategies among the sample. The output of this synthesis
is captured in the following section in the form of thematic discussions, with
the help of special illustrations on the texts. To facilitate a clearer
understanding, Table 1 presents an overview of the chosen works and their key
ecocritical themes, and Figure 1 represents a graphic context of the increased
popularity of the climate change in the modern fiction. The methodology
guarantees a linkage between the findings and the literature, as close textual
analysis, and a conceptual framework of existing ecocriticism allow
establishing a connection between the findings and the rest of the scholarly
discussions on the Anthropocene..
Results
Figure 1. Growth of climate change themes in fiction over recent decades, illustrating the rising number of novels engaging with climate and Anthropocene issues. (Data are approximate, based on critical surveys[10].)
The ecocritical criticism of modern literature indicates that
there are a number of conspicuous ways through which nature is being
re-imagined under the Anthropocene signifier. To begin with, in these pieces of
work, nature is constantly depicted as an agentic or agentic force as opposed
to a passive background. In The Overstory, on the contrary, trees talk, plan
and even control human fates--Powers crosses the boundary between anthropocentric
plotlines and the forest, there is even a kind of a nonhuman agency that
asserts itself. In a similar way, in the Kingsolver Flight Behavior, when the
monarch butterflies arrive unexpectedly in the wrong places in the Appalachia
(an ecological disturbance as a result of climate change) they become the
impetus of the plotline, literally making a species and a climate condition a
protagonist. This nonhuman narrative prophecy is comparable to what ecocritic
Serpil Oppermann identifies as a material voice of nature in literature, in
which animals, plants, or ecosystems themselves drive narrative action
(Oppermann 8). The result is the re-invention of the idea of nature as a
scenery to character with a sense of purposefulness. These descriptions can be
seen as an expression of the impact of scientific ideas such as Gaia theory or
planetary systems theory on the literary imagination that gives nature the
appearance of a web of interconnected life and matter responding to human
influences. It is also similar to the homo hortensis of Goodbody, as human
protagonists in both The Overstory and Flight Behavior tend to learn to hear or
cooperate with such nonhuman influences via either waking up to the language of
trees or adapting their farming methods to changing climatic conditions.
Second, modern stories tend to take fragmented and
multi-perspective patterns to reflect the scattered and complicated reality of
the Anthropocene. Instead of a linear, single-protagonist plot, authors prefer
mosaics of interwoven stories, which are indicative of a hyper-connective world
of cumulative activities. This has been demonstrated through the Oryx and Crake
and its sequels of Atwood: the trilogy jumps through time and narrator
(scientists, survivors, even gene-spliced posthumans) to show the ecological
destruction of a society and its aftermath. The fragmented time and the many
perspectives are a reflection of the confusion of living in the ecological
crisis and mass extinction. The idea of fragmented poetics introduced by Durbeck
comes in handy in this case[15]--this narrative fragmentation may be regarded
as a formal reflection of the disintegration of the equilibrium of stable
environmental conditions and the multiplicity of voices (human and nonhuman)
that have to be taken into account. Notably, these are not formal experiments;
these formal innovations have an ideological dimension. The fragmentation of
the narrative encourages the reader to reconstruct the world stories using
local ones and to understand that the cause and effect pattern of the world are
global, are happening across generations or continents. In Gun Island, as an
example, Amitav Ghosh intertwines Bengali folklores with current climate
migration and spider attacks in Venice; changing of the settings and mythical
interludes of the novel form the carpet between the past and the present, Asian
and European; man and animal. This narration technique is a kind of
eco-cosmopolitanism: it encourages the reader to look outside his or her
surroundings and the present moment and place personal lives within a global
network (Heise 62). The ways in which each chosen work employs such narrative
and thematic strategies are summarized in Table 1 and indicate the variety of
ways through which nature can be re-imagined..
Table 1: Representative Contemporary Novels and their Ecocritical
Themes
|
Work (Author, Year) |
Ecocritical Themes & Anthropocene Aspects |
|
Oryx and Crake (Margaret Atwood, 2003) |
Climate change, genetic engineering, mass
extinction; end of nature dystopia |
|
Flight Behavior (Barbara Kingsolver, 2012) |
Climate-induced species dislocation (monarch
butterflies); local vs. global knowledge |
|
The Overstory (Richard Powers, 2018) |
Deforestation, interspecies communication;
trees as agents and networks |
|
Gun Island (Amitav Ghosh, 2019) |
Climate change and migration; blending
folklore with contemporary climate impacts |
|
Solar (Ian McEwan, 2010) |
Global warming and human folly; satire of
scientific and political responses |
|
Narrative Strategies |
|
Shifting timelines; dystopian satire;
multi-gen perspective (pre- and post-apocalypse) |
|
Realist narrative with scientific subplot;
focalization through rural protagonist experiencing unusual natural event |
|
Ensemble cast of human characters linked by
trees; nonlinear intertwining arcs reflecting arboreal networks |
|
Transnational settings (India, Venice);
integrates myth and realist narrative to connect past climate lore with
present crises |
|
Single protagonist (a flawed scientist); dark
comedy tone; uses irony to highlight disconnect between knowledge and action |
Third, one of the themes that are common in these works is the
quest to answer ethical and existential questions regarding the nature of human
beings and their role in nature. When describing catastrophic or swift
environments of transformation, modern literature tends to place its characters
(and consequently, readers) in a situation where they are dealing with what
philosopher Freya Mathews describes as end of the world as we know it. It is
not merely literal (as in the case of apocalyptic situations) but a figurative
demise of the old notion of "Nature". A number of novels focus on the
disappearance of the concept of an untouched, external nature not based on
humans. An example of this, as in Solar by McEwan, the author satirically
depicts a world where even the ice caps in the arctic are full of human impact
(black carbon soot and geopolitical intrigue) and thus the anthropocene fact of
the world is that there is not a single spot on earth that has not been touched
by civilization. The climate awareness which builds gradually over the
protagonist in Flight Behavior is woven with personal development, an
explanation of what some critics sometimes call the didactic function of
eco-fiction, that is, of educating characters and readers to the reality of the
interdependence of social and ecological systems. The process of ethical
awakening is often hard in combating what Amitav Ghosh terms imaginative
poverty or viewing climatic events as backgrounds. Rather, these stories make
them incredibly individual and ethical matters. In numerous instances,
characters have a sort of ecological revelation or ecological realization: in
Flight Behavior, Dellarobia realizes her Appalachian home as a component of a
bigger ecological narrative of climate disruption, and in The Overstory
activists lose much after realizing that trees have a kind of intrinsic,
communicative value or personhood. These plots are reminiscent of the so-called
environmental consciousness that can be developed by the literature and that
Radhakrishnan (2025) and other researchers claim can be impressed on readers
through the fiction itself (Radhakrishnan 75). In fact, the empirical
literature confirms this: a survey by Schneider-Mayerson established that
readers of climate fiction described that they were more aware of climate
justice and a sense of urgency after reading cli-fi[20][21]. Nonetheless, the
same paper cautions against emotional exhaustion as most readers experienced
eco-anxiety or hopelessness in response to the dystopian consequences[21][22]. Modern
writers appear to know this tightrope, some of their books (such as The Road by
Cormac McCarthy) provide pessimistic perspectives, but others attempt to
balance between reality and hope or possible courses of action, not to freeze
their readers.
Lastly, the findings point to the fact that re-imagining nature in
a piece of literature is also accompanied by re-imagining narrative genre and
tone. Themes of Climate and Anthropocene have permeated many genres: the
detective novel (e.g. The Sea by John Banville is a family saga about
family-related climate change and hurricanes), the family saga (e.g. Florida
stories by Lauren Groff connect family relations with hurricanes and heat), and
even comedy (Solar is a dark comedy ). The implication of such a generic
diversification is that environmental topics are no longer limited to either
science fiction or to the so-called environmental literature itself, but are
increasingly entering the literary fiction. Besides, the tone swings between
the apocalyptic and redemptive. Authors such as Atwood or Claire Vaye Watkins,
in Gold Fame Citrus (2015), are leaning into the apocalyptic genre and trying
to shock the reader into paying attention to what is possible in the future,
but other books, including the one discussed by Goodbody, garden literature,
and Kim Stanley Robinson, ministry for the future (2020) are showing the
possibility of a solution and flexibility, sketching out what a sustainable
ethos could look like. This dichotomy is indicative of one of the main conflicts
in Anthropocene narratives: the need to both provide a realistic portrayal of
the severity of the ecological disaster and to envision a way forward, or a way
of survival. The equilibrium between the despair and hope in these stories may
have a great influence regarding their effects on the readers as will be
revisited in the Discussion section below..
Discussion
Third, one of the themes that are common in these works is the
quest to answer ethical and existential questions regarding the nature of human
beings and their role in nature. When describing catastrophic or swift
environments of transformation, modern literature tends to place its characters
(and consequently, readers) in a situation where they are dealing with what
philosopher Freya Mathews describes as end of the world as we know it. It is
not merely literal (as in the case of apocalyptic situations) but a figurative
demise of the old notion of "Nature". A number of novels focus on the
disappearance of the concept of an untouched, external nature not based on
humans. An example of this, as in Solar by McEwan, the author satirically
depicts a world where even the ice caps in the arctic are full of human impact
(black carbon soot and geopolitical intrigue) and thus the anthropocene fact of
the world is that there is not a single spot on earth that has not been touched
by civilization. The climate awareness which builds gradually over the
protagonist in Flight Behavior is woven with personal development, an
explanation of what some critics sometimes call the didactic function of
eco-fiction, that is, of educating characters and readers to the reality of the
interdependence of social and ecological systems. The process of ethical
awakening is often hard in combating what Amitav Ghosh terms imaginative
poverty or viewing climatic events as backgrounds. Rather, these stories make
them incredibly individual and ethical matters. In numerous instances,
characters have a sort of ecological revelation or ecological realization: in
Flight Behavior, Dellarobia realizes her Appalachian home as a component of a
bigger ecological narrative of climate disruption, and in The Overstory
activists lose much after realizing that trees have a kind of intrinsic,
communicative value or personhood. These plots are reminiscent of the so-called
environmental consciousness that can be developed by the literature and that
Radhakrishnan (2025) and other researchers claim can be impressed on readers
through the fiction itself (Radhakrishnan 75). In fact, the empirical literature
confirms this: a survey by Schneider-Mayerson established that readers of
climate fiction described that they were more aware of climate justice and a
sense of urgency after reading cli-fi[20][21]. Nonetheless, the same paper
cautions against emotional exhaustion as most readers experienced eco-anxiety
or hopelessness in response to the dystopian consequences[21][22]. Modern
writers appear to know this tightrope, some of their books (such as The Road by
Cormac McCarthy) provide pessimistic perspectives, but others attempt to
balance between reality and hope or possible courses of action, not to freeze
their readers.
Lastly, the findings point to the fact that re-imagining nature in
a piece of literature is also accompanied by re-imagining narrative genre and
tone. Themes of Climate and Anthropocene have permeated many genres: the
detective novel (e.g. The Sea by John Banville is a family saga about
family-related climate change and hurricanes), the family saga ( e.g. Florida
stories by Lauren Groff connect family relations with hurricanes and heat), and
even comedy (Solar is a dark comedy ). The implication of such a generic
diversification is that environmental topics are no longer limited to either
science fiction or to the so-called environmental literature itself, but are
increasingly entering the literary fiction. Besides, the tone swings between
the apocalyptic and redemptive. Authors such as Atwood or Claire Vaye Watkins,
in Gold Fame Citrus (2015), are leaning into the apocalyptic genre and trying
to shock the reader into paying attention to what is possible in the future,
but other books, including the one discussed by Goodbody, garden literature,
and Kim Stanley Robinson, ministry for the future (2020) are showing the
possibility of a solution and flexibility, sketching out what a sustainable
ethos could look like. This dichotomy is indicative of one of the main
conflicts in Anthropocene narratives: the need to both provide a realistic
portrayal of the severity of the ecological disaster and to envision a way
forward, or a way of survival. The equilibrium between the despair and hope in
these stories may have a great influence regarding their effects on the readers
as will be revisited in the Discussion section below..
Conclusion
The modern English literature is in the age of the Anthropocene
and in this age, the important task the modern literature is performing is to
re-imaginatively recreate nature and rearrange the human narrative in the
planetary context. The ecocritical reading of the chosen works in this study
shows that the environmental crisis is receiving answers in new stories in
which the voices of nonhumans are heard, and the time and space are traversed
on immense scales to make the readers rethink their connection to the planet.
Instead of the scenery, the environment in these works turns into a character,
and even the idea of nature as such is not a purely idealized notion, but
rather a network of interdependencies and agencies. The re-imaginings of
literature are not taking place in a vacuum; they are interacting with
scientific knowledge, moral issues, and cultural fears of the present. Diverse
poetics, multiple point of view narratives, and genre bending, writers express
the dislocation and immediacy of existence in a humanized period even as they
find a sense of purpose, relationship and hope in the anarchy.
These findings go beyond the field of literary analysis. With the
emergence of the Anthropocene narrative as a point of public discussion, the
importance of stories and symbols continues to increase as a part of the
collective action. The ability of literature to develop ecological imagination,
to make readers experience the reality of the deep time, the truth of climate
change, or the personhood of other species, translates into literature being a
potent tool in developing ecological awareness. Meanwhile, as the texts and
reader reactions demonstrate, caution should be observed in the manner in which
these stories are narrated: being clear on what the threats to the environment
are without becoming too negative on the possible futures that can develop, but
leaving the reader with a sense of hope instead of despair. Finally, the onward
discussion between the literature, criticism and the environmental science will
be necessary. Through constant re-definition of what nature represents in the
transfigured world of humans, through remaining with the trouble as Haraway
puts it, and by telling stories, the storytellers and scholars can guide
society through the radical transformation of the Anthropocene. As this study
highlights, literature will always be a necessary means by which we are able to
envision and, therefore, develop ways of living in our common world in a more
sustainable and fairer way..
Notes
[1] Introduction: The Literature of the
Anthropocene
https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/33075/1/10612_Cordle.pdf
[2] Geology of mankind - PubMed
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11780095/
[3] IJRTI
https://ijcrt.org/papers/IJCRT2008045.pdf
[4] The climate of history: Four theses - The
Australian National University
https://researchportalplus.anu.edu.au/en/publications/the-climate-of-history-four-theses/
[5] Dipesh Chakrabarty, The Climate of History:
Four Theses - PhilPapers
https://philpapers.org/rec/CHATCO-23
[6] [PDF] LANDMARKS IN LITERARY ECOLOGY - Edited by
Cheryll Glotfelty ...
[7] [15] Ambivalent Characters and Fragmented Poetics in
Anthropocene ...
[8] [9] Climate
change in literature and literary studies: From cli-fi, climate change theater
and ecopoetry to ecocriticism and climate change criticism - Monash University
[10] Anthropocene Fictions: The Novel in a Time of
Climate Change|eBook
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/anthropocene-fictions-adam-trexler/1120371438
[11] Anthropocene Fictions - UVA Press
https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/4777/
[12] The Scale of the Anthropocene: Material
Ecocritical Reflections - jstor
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26974107
[13] [19] Scale,
Climate Change, and the Pedagogic Potential of Literature: Scaling (in) the
Work of Barbara Kingsolver and T.C. Boyle - Kölner
UniversitätsPublikationsServer
https://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/51509/
[14] State of the Art: Literary Studies in the
Anthropocene
https://www.metacriticjournal.com/article/282/state-of-the-art-literary-studies-in-the-anthropocene
[16] [17]
Gardening the Planet: Literature and the Reimagining of Human/Nature
Relations for the Anthropocene | Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature,
Culture and Environment
https://ecozona.eu/article/view/4877
[18] Gardening the planet: literature and the
reimagining of human ...
https://ebuah.uah.es/dspace/handle/10017/57211
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Empirical Survey of Readers" | Environment & Society Portal
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Introduction: the literature of the Anthropocene - IRep - Nottingham
Trent University
https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/33075/
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