Eco-criticism Revisited: From Eco-literature to Eco-politics.

My argument in this paper is that spontaneously conceived and produced eco-literature was always present in pre-modern world literature, and that its presence there and then negated the need for nature writing and eco-criticism as they are conceived of in modern times. Textual analysis of major pieces of early world literature is the basis for presenting and defending this argument. The opening lines of Chaucer's General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales are drawn on and analyzed for primary evidence. Works like the ancient Babylonian/Sumerian epic Gilgamesh, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, the Old English epic Beowulf, and the Middle English verse romance Sir Orfeo are also touched on for secondary evidence.
Such eco-literature, I suggest, negates the need for artificially conceived eco-criticism. When literature was naturally and spontaneously ecological, eco-criticism was hardly in demand. It is only after the industrial revolution, the rise of colonialism, and the emergence of literature that the need for eco-criticism began to be felt. I claim that the politics and economic policies in the modern world, which falsely equate development with progress, are responsible for the loss of "eco-living" and for the waning of spontaneously conceived and produced ecological literature, thus causing the need for consciously ecological criticism.