Poetical-Dwelling

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English Language Teaching

Vol. 5, No. 5; May 2012

H.W. Longfellow: A Poetical-Dwelling Poet of Ecological Wisdom from the Perspective of Eco-criticism
Jingcheng Xu (Corresponding author)
Postgraduate, The School of Foreign Languages, Being Forestry University Haidian District, Beijing 100083, China
E-mail: [e-mail]

Meifang Nangong

Associate Professor, The School of Foreign Languages, Being Forestry University Haidian District, Beijing 100083, China
E-mail: [e-mail]


[Fund project] This is the stage achievement of the 2011 planning fund project for the research of humanities and social sciences supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Project Approval Number: RW2011-32)

Received: February 1, 2012 Accepted: February 23, 2012 Published: May 1, 2012 doi:10.5539/elt.v5n5p85 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/elt.v5n5p85

Abstract

Among a minority of Longfellow’s studies in China and abroad, there has even scarcely been one made from the perspective of eco-criticism. Eco-criticism aims at exploring the relation between literature and natural environment to find out the ecological wisdom in literary works so as to awaken the ecological consciousness of the contemporaries. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a poet concerning much about nature, in his nature poems, shows the value of nature by evoking people’s love and care for nature, and makes them reconsider the Man-Nature relationship so as to seek the ecological balance on earth, including that from within the human world. By reading Longfellow in the light of certain eco-ethical ideas, it is not difficult to discover the legacy glittering with ecological wisdom in his poetry. Such wisdom is highly connected with Longfellow’s “environmental niche”. Nowadays, with the increasing deterioration of the environment, the ecological wisdom implied in Longfellow’s poetry is of tremendous significance.
Keywords: Eco-criticism, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Poetical-dwelling, Environmental niche