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A Study of Eco-poet Gary Snyder

Author: GaoGe
Tutor: WangNuo
School: Xiamen University
Course: Comparative Literature and World Literature
Keywords: Gary Snyder Ecological holism Depth ecology Reinhabitory Bioregionalism Community
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Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2008
Downloads: 225
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Abstract

The American poet Gary Snyder, as a representative writer in ecoliterature in modern times, exerts a profound and global influence on the development of ecoliterature with his eco-poetry writings, and his ecological thoughts embodied in which greatly contribute to the booming of American ecoliterature especially to the global ecological thoughts and the Movement of Bioregionalism. Significantly, Snyder is also the most controversial poet in ecocriticism. Almost every important ecocritic has studied or illuminated his poems. Based on the anterior studies, my ecoliterary interpretation of Snyder’s works will contribute an in-depth case study to the ecocriticism for its further development. Holding this faith, I have determined to take up this study.This thesis aims to interpret Snyder’s eco-poetry from ecological perspectives in order to conclude the way that Snyder gets to know the current ecological crisis, explores the ecological elements involved in nature and some ethnical culture, and constructs his theories of ecological holism which is later extended into his ecological practicalism.My extensive reading and translation of Snyder’s works lays a sound foundation for this study. Snyder’s ecological thoughts are mainly embodied in his ten volumes of poems which I scrutinized and will utilize as main materials. I also use his 7 volumes of prose as supporting materials. All the Chinese versions cited in this thesis are translated by myself.So far, not a single volume of Snyder’s poetry has been published in the mainland of China and just one in Taiwan, still less the master written in Chinese studying Snyder’s poetry from ecological perspective. Papers about this are also rare. The anterior studies used to make an introductory comment on Snyder’s ecological thoughts or emphasize the relations between his thoughts and eastern culture. However, documents in foreign countries abound, which render a rich bank for my study.Proceeding from the existing ecoliterary studies of Snyder home and abroad, I make an attempt to achieve my innovative goal in both macroscopical and microcosmic aspects as follows: macroscopically, tracking the line of his ecological thoughts, I try to make a general introduction and summarization to Snyder’s ecological thoughts embodied in his works; microcosmically, I translated a lot of his eco-poems. I hope my interpretation will give readers a straight and sound understanding of Snyder’s works as well as those ecological elements embodied in them.Five chapters containing around 200,000 words are for the illustration of Snyder’s ecological holism, a fusion of multiple ecological thought, with Buddhist ecological thoughts as its main source, and this holism including the "depth ecology" absorbing Indian game laws, mythological tradition and shamanism. These chapters also explore Snyder’s ecological practicalism aiming to Reinhabitory. This theory includes the aspects of how Snyder, under the inspiration from the Indian mythologies and shamanism, defines the responsibility of poets, how he takes the Turtle Island as a paradigm, making sense of Bioregionalism, place, "sense of place", and inhabitant respectively, and how he constructs the community, creates and carries on the ecological culture.In this thesis, I follow the mainstream of Snyder’s Reinhabitory to disscuss his ecological thoughts, and lay out my paper logically as follows: firstly, I will explore his depictions on how nature suffers in different eras governed by goddesses, God and science. By analyzing how and why nature and human beings suffer in the ecological crisis, the poet reveals that Reinhabitory is indispensable to all creatures including human beings. Secondly, I make an attempt to figure out how Snyder explores the renascent power of creatures and inhabitation wisdom of some races so as to prove the possibility for all creatures to reinhabit. Thirdly, I try to summarize Snyder’s ecological awareness embodied in his poetry and prove the harmony which links all the creatures physically and mentally so as to establish the Reinhabitory theory. Finally, another attempt is made to analyze Snyder’s special ecological practical theory and to find a way to practise the Reinhabitory theory and point out a direction to his future aim. In the conclusion, I make a simple evaluation on the significance of Snyder’s ecological poems, as well as his limitations.

A Study of Eco-poet Gary Snyder

Abstract

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