Culture: The (In) Human Engagement with Nature

Abstract

Nature is an object of man’s fascination for a long time. From time to time, man’s approach to Nature varies according to his mental aspiration. Eco-criticism is a hermeneutic tool, which studies literature from an environmental point of view. It believes that culture and cultural products are in some way connected with the world of nature. The ecosystem is a biological lot comprising both living and non-living things, interacting with one another for their mutual coexistence. On the other hand, there is cultural system, which is human-centric, value based, which holds the ethics, ‘the benefit of many,’ especially of human kind. The ecosystem and culture are poles opposite that form the dichotomy of world view. In between, there is a moderate system, consisting the elements of aforesaid systems. Hence Ecocriticism critically operates on three premises namely ecocentric, biocentric, and anthropocentric domains. This paper tries to investigate the shades of nature in the above aspects, substantiating with evidences from a section of some seminal literary works.