Literature and Environmental Ethical Criticism

Sarah Orne Jewett's New England Texts
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dc.bibliographicCitation.firstPage101en_US
dc.bibliographicCitation.issue1en_US
dc.bibliographicCitation.lastPage121en_US
dc.bibliographicCitation.volume124en_US
dc.contributor.authorMayer, Sylvia
dc.date.accessioned2022-11-08T14:34:02Z
dc.date.available2022-11-08T14:34:02Z
dc.date.issued2007en_US
dc.description.abstractThe interest in ethical literary criticism which re-emerged in the 1990s is of particular relevance to the field of ecologically oriented literary criticism. Motivated by a concern for the environment and by the question of how to live an environmentally sound life, its basic goal can be defined as creating knowledge that promotes an environmental ethical stance that in turn triggers processes of environmentally benign social and cultural transformation. The claim – made by moral philosophers and literary critics such as Charles Taylor, Martha Nussbaum, Richard Rorty and David Parker – that literary texts can be regarded as a specific mode of moral inquiry because of the imaginative range and formal richness of their language bears a high degree of importance for ecologically oriented literary scholarship. It supports the idea that literary texts which address morally relevant aspects of the human-nature relationship are indispensable sources for a more comprehensive understanding of the human moral experience – more comprehensive in the sense of extending the moral universe towards the inclusion of parts of nonhuman nature or to non-human nature as a whole. Following a brief introduction into key issues of current ethical literary criticism and into the field of environmental ethics, this essay explores New England regionalist texts by Sarah Orne Jewett as sites of inquiry into environmentally relevant moral issues. Jewett's texts were part of the emergence of American environmentalism in the second half of the nineteenth century. They contributed to the environmentalist discourse as it developed in particular in the activities and publications of movements such as the conservation, preservation and humane movements. Analysis of the environmental ethical dimension of her texts reveals that the sources of the contemporary philosophical discipline of environmental ethics can be understood as reaching far back into literary history.en_US
dc.description.publisherNoteDieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG-geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich. / This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.en_US
dc.identifier.doi10.1515/ANGL.2006.101
dc.identifier.urihttp://resolver.sub.uni-goettingen.de/purl?fidaac-11858/2610
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.relation.issn0340-5222en_US
dc.relation.journalAngliaen_US
dc.relation.journalaltZeitschrift für englische Philologieen_US
dc.rightsL::The Stacks Licenseen_US
dc.subject.ddcddc:810en_US
dc.subject.fieldamericanstudiesen_US
dc.subject.fieldenvironmentalstudiesen_US
dc.subject.fieldliterarystudiesen_US
dc.titleLiterature and Environmental Ethical Criticismen_US
dc.title.alternativeSarah Orne Jewett's New England Textsen_US
dc.title.specialissueLiterature and Ecologyen_US
dc.typearticleen_US
dc.type.versionpublishedVersionen_US
dspace.entity.typePublication
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