Every theory has its pet names. What does Ecocriticism think of literature, authors, and readers?
What is literature?
It's alive.
An ecocritic believes that literature is a type of living, breathing being. Like any other animal, then, storytelling evolves—particularly as scientific knowledge of the natural world expands. Have you ever thought about how Mary Shelley's horrible miscarriage must've influenced the writing of Frankenstein? What about the horrible weather during her summer vacation? How do you think that molded her prose?
See, nature is always in literature. After all, nature is what creates literature.
What is an author?
An author is an animal. A human animal, but still—a being with a body. And our bodies house impulses that drive us to behave in all sorts of strange and wonderful ways.
Then, there's this whole human culture thing we've constructed. The world of high art and Ducatis and busy cafes. So the ecocritics say: an author is both a product of human culture and a specimen of Homo sapiens, made of meat and blood and bone.
So, whether the author is aware of it or not, she writes just as much from chemistry as she does from her imagination. An easy example of this is just how many writers have, historically, liked to write while on drugs of some kind.
The Greek and Roman poets had their wine. The Romantic poets loved them some opium. And the Beat poets were fans of marijuana and just about every other chemical they could get their hands on.
Keep in mind that we're not condoning drug use here, budding author-types. But if you experiment with reading literature like you read the periodic table, ecocritical analysis just might blow your mind.
What is a reader?
A reader is an animal that reads.
Us human-things can read texts as well with our noses and ears as we can with our eyes and learned rationality, the ecocritic argues. All the smells and sounds and chemicals floating around in our great books tell us a lot about our texts and ourselves.
Let us point this point to you another way: Ecocriticism compels the reader to filter the words on the page through our bodily senses. Smell the orphanage from Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist. Feel the oppressive heat and humidity from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
Then ask yourself, dear reader, questions like: How does one's climate influence mythology and storytelling? For example, do you think Santa Claus makes much sense to a Zimbabwean whose house has no chimney? Hm. These are the important questions in life, we thinks.