Ecocriticism
Book Description
In a world where many feel disconnected from both their inner selves and the natural world around them, this scholarly exploration reveals how literature can serve as a bridge back to wholeness. Donelle N. Dreese examines twentieth-century poets and prose writers from diverse backgrounds who have used their craft to rebuild connections severed by colonization, oppression, and environmental displacement.
Through an ecocritical lens, this study demonstrates how place and landscape function as more than mere settings in literature. Instead, they become integral to personal identity formation and community healing. The authors examined here understand that true self-knowledge cannot be separated from our relationship with the earth and our ancestral territories.
Particularly compelling is the focus on American Indian writers who use literature as a tool for reclaiming not just physical territories, but spiritual and cultural landscapes that colonization attempted to erase. These writers show how reconnecting with place can restore both individual identity and collective well-being.
For readers interested in the intersection of spirituality, identity, and environmental consciousness, this work offers insights into how literature can guide us toward a more integrated understanding of self. It reveals how the journey toward personal wholeness often requires reconnecting with the places that have shaped us, whether through memory, myth, or direct experience with the natural world.
Who Is This For?
📖 Reading Level: Short (< 200 pages) (~4 hours)
📄 Length: 131 pages
What You'll Discover
- ✓ Explore History and criticism
- ✓ Explore Indians of North America
- ✓ Explore Indian authors
- ✓ Explore Environmental policy in literature
- ✓ Explore Environmental protection in literature
- ✓ Explore Indians in literature
- ✓ Explore American literature
- ✓ Explore Landscape in literature
