Environmental Ethics versus Anthropocentrism: Comparative Ecocriticism

Document Type : Original Research

Author
Behnam Mirzababazadeh Fomeshi
Humboldt FoundationTU Dortmund University
Abstract
Belonging to the binary opposition man/nature, nature is a common subject in world literature. Ecocriticism, interdisciplinary study of the relationship between human beings and the environment, provides literary criticism with a fresh approach to literature. Although a significant number of theoretical and practical works have been published in the field of ecocriticism, just a few works have so far employed a comparative ecoctitical approach. The present paper employing such a comparative approach is groundbreaking in Iranian academia in that such a comparative study has not yet been published in Persian. Contemporary Persian poet, Sohrab Sepehri frequently referred to nature in his poetry. American poet and philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson employed nature as a subject of his works. Since nature is an important subject for the two figures, employing a comparative ecocritical approach will shed light on their works. Even though employing nature led to similarities, Sepehri’s approach toward nature is significantly different from that of Emerson.

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