ENG 435: Making Nineteenth-Century Literary Environments

Social Activism Through Poetry

Enakshi Roy — 2017-06-02

William Wordsworth's sonnet "On the Projected Kendal and Windermere Railway" vigorously objects to the proposed construction of a railway connecting two places (Kendal and Windermere) in the Lake District in the north of England. In my paper, I offer an analysis of the political and literary success and failure of Wordsworth’s poem, and consider whether the platform of poetry is a logical choice for Wordsworth. I draw upon the eco-socialist criticism of William Morris, as well as the views of Tobias Menely and Timothy Morton as I examine the poet's arguments. I attempt to answer whether Wordsworth is misguided in asking specific landmarks and forces of nature to answer his battle-cry and join him in his revolution. The conclusion of this paper is strengthened by current environmental concerns regarding the Kinder Morgan Pipeline Project in British Columbia as well as the words of William Morris and Stephen Collis. What becomes evident by the end of the paper is that we have only begun to fathom the nature of poetry, and the poetry of nature.

Through the Looking Glass: An Environmentally Conscious Economy in New From Nowhere

Lori Stanley — 2017-05-18

This paper addresses central ecological problems that emerge in a society--and economy--built around capitalism and the mass-production of goods. When humans change the way they create products, how does this impact the worker and the environment? And furthermore, how does this ecologically sustainable approach impact humanity as a whole? I argue that, in News From Nowhere, William Morris’s push for a more authentic means of production, in valuing the worker and avoiding waste, suggests a way of creating a more environmentally conscious and viable culture focused on bringing humankind back in connection with nature. I analyze Morris’s utopia alongside environmental writings of his contemporaries, like John Ruskin (who was also writing from an Arts and Crafts movement perspective) and Karl Marx, as well as present day eco-critical theorists, such as Donna Haraway, Jason Moore, and Timothy Morton. This framework helps foreground Morris’s novel as a possible solution to ecological crisis. The solution Morris proposes goes beyond solving environmental issues, like pollution. Rather, Morris also brings humans back in connection with nature and each other. Although News From Nowhere was written in the nineteenth century, the mass-produced, consumer society that Morris opposes is still with us today, perpetuating current environmental crises.

News from Nowhere: Art for Art’s Sake or the Emotional State?

Kayla MacMartin — 2017-06-02

From the nineteenth to the twenty-first century not much has changed in terms of the prevalence of capitalism. Nineteenth century writers from Marx to Morris have written about capitalist structures to discuss social systems and to provide critiques and offer solutions. Morris’s News from Nowhere presents an alternative society where art is a form of labour and all work is deemed pleasurable. However, the novel also reflects critically on socialism, as ideas of the usefulness of unnecessary art objects, such as books, are treated in a near satirical way. Morris points out the importance of freedom of expression and considers art as therapy. In addition, he presents a socialist agenda that promotes a peaceful, fulfilled, and happy society in all aspects of art - and books could only help support his views. This paper argues that News from Nowhere helps us think about the importance of art and literature to society: there will always be some competition and excess emotion in the human condition; an outlet for this excess helps make an equal society free of hierarchy and greed.

The Effects of Imperialism on Women in News from Nowhere and Jane Eyre

Cheery Huang — 2017-05-29

During the Victorian era, the rise of imperialism inspired writers such as William Morris to examine capitalism’s domination and Victorian ideals by representing a utopian idealization of socialism. Charlotte Brontë depicts the complex results of situating a proto-feminist individual in a Victorian society that undermined these ideas. Through analysis of William Morris’s News from Nowhere and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, this paper elaborates on how imperialism prevailed in Britain during the Victorian period. Through an analysis of gender, I explore how these novels contribute to a new vision of the status of women, and how they look forward to new forms of female independence.

Nature Bound by the Body: Humans and Nature in Olive Schreiner's Story of an African Farm

Erin Pelletreau — 2017-06-02

In my paper I am trying to answer the question: does Lyndall have to die in Schreiner’s novel Story of an African Farm in order to achieve unity with nature? I argue that the definition of nature that Hannah Freeman introduces leaves the heroine, Lyndall, with only one option: death. I draw on Raymond Williams to define “nature” as a complex idea with varied definitions. I then use Karl Marx and Jason Moore to discuss how some critics may disagree with Freeman and argue instead that nature and humans are already unified. I suggest that the moon in the novel complicates their version of “the web” by equalizing nature and human-made objects, but favoring some humans over others. In opposition to Freeman's argument that humans are not together with nature, I suggest that it is not that humans themselves are unnatural. Rather, the restrictions humans impose on each othern limit a person’s ability to connect with nature and even other people.

Williams Morris’s Feminism in News from Nowhere

Kelsey McLenaghen — 2017-05-18

In the Victorian period, female rights, and the idea of the ‘place’ of a woman , advanced along with the rapid pace of the Industrial era. The quick expansion of women’s rights over the last two centuries developed from this era. William Morris is considered to be both feminist, and anti-feminist, depending on which work we read. Focusing solely on Morris’s socialist utopian novel, News from Nowhere, I argue that while Morris has his moments of possible anti-feminism, as a whole, this work takes a feminist stance. Recognizing that Morris was an influential figure in the literary world and also supportive of women’s rights is vital when understanding gender roles in News from Nowhere from a feminist standpoint.

Reading Lucy, Rereading Nature: An Ecological Approach to Wordsworth's Lucy Poems

Alex Jackson — 2017-05-18

William Wordsworth’s Lucy poems, a series of intriguing meditations on a mysterious female figure, are an indelible part of the Romantic canon. The scholarly fervour to discover Lucy’s real-life counterpart has often led critics to consider these works psychoanalytically or biographically. Rather than situate these works in such a context, my paper looks to see how we can consider the Lucy poems as ecological endeavours – specifically, to observe how Lucy is used to reread nature and develop a new understanding of the environment. Using the theories of Timothy Morton’s “The Mesh” as my foundation, I argue that Wordsworth’s Lucy poems are non-anthropocentric thought experiments that seek to decenter the human and further advocate the pantheism evident in his other nature poetry. Wordsworth accomplishes this by eroding several intellectual conventions: blurring the distinctions between life and non-life, human and animal; collapsing Lucy’s linearity of being; and considering the role of perception and mediation in environmental assessment. By eschewing traditionally dualistic modes of representation that privilege human experience, Wordsworth embraces mesh-like thinking. He creates a space for ontological perspectives that disrupt the human-centric mode and remind us of our inextricability from nature – instituting new possibilities in conceiving of both Romantic canonicity and our place in the biosphere.

The Poetic Life-Form: An Analysis on the Role of Elegy and Form in In Memoriam

Effy Orton — 2017-05-18

What is the role of elegy? Can literary works preserve the memory of a person, moment, or time that has been lost? Or, is this simply a feeble attempt to console those suffering from grief and loss? Alfred Lord Tennyson explores these questions in his work In Memoriam A.H.H. The heart of the work, as in any elegy, is mourning a loss and preserving the memory of that loss. Jesse Oak Taylor works specifically with the idea of elegy and what it does for our ecologically conscious society through the Anthropocene. He argues that we cannot actually experience the concept of species; we only ever experience impressions of it. Thus in order to cope, society uses elegy as a form of expression to process extinction and preserve an image (228). In a similar fashion, cantos fifty-four to fifty-seven of In Memoriam exemplify Tennyson’s use of elegy and evolutionary concepts, but instead of mourning a “species” the poet mourns the loss of his friend, Arthur Henry Hallam. More than that, these cantos represent Tennyson’s desperate attempt to move beyond preservation of Hallam’s memory. Through In Memoriam, Tennyson attempts to recreate and clone the memory of Hallam, using the elegiac form to perpetuate his friend’s life and existence. His resulting work is not a sterile clone, but an act of cultural reproduction and the birth of a new life-form through literature.

Making Meaning of the Anthropocene: An Ecocritical Analysis of Tennyson’s Existential Crisis in “In Memoriam”

Alexis J. Fladmark — 2017-05-18

Jesse Oak Taylor describes Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “In Memoriam” as “the poem of the Anthropocene” (230). Taylor suggests that this is in part due to the subject matter of the poem, which grapples with concepts of faith, afterlife, evolution, extinction, geologic time, and advancing technologies. The knowledge that ensued from the early Anthropocene complicates Tennyson’s understanding of death and the afterlife. Tennyson writes at a moment when the Anthropocene had only just begun. Therefore he writes about a condition in which he is fully immersed. But, as Taylor suggests, Tennyson must address the Anthropocene prospectively because the concept had yet to fully emerge. In this paper, I argue that it is necessary for Tennyson to discuss death through the effects of the Anthropocene because the knowledge arising from this new geologic age changed his understanding forever, and ultimately confused his faith in the afterlife. His deep concern for Hallam’s soul makes establishing a more concrete sense of the afterlife essential to the grieving process.

Winter Studies and Summer Rambles and Power Relations: Integrating Experiential Knowledge into Canadian Discourses of Ecology

Mitch Bringeland — 2017-05-18

This paper explores the relationship between settler and First Nations groups in the nineteenth century and today. Anna Brownell Jameson’s account of settler/indigenous relations is similar to contemporary power imbalances between First Nations and governmental/corporate organizations. First Nations groups are frequently ignored in discussions of eco-development, and their concerns and fears over land use are often brushed aside by developers. In the case of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, Tsleil Waututh concerns regarding their quality of life and environmental degradation to their territories have not been addressed by Kinder Morgan. By integrating postcolonial concerns into discussions of the environment, Canada can ensure that First Nations voices are heard and that their concerns are assuaged, potentially preventing ecological destruction and protecting food security and cultural practices. Additionally, by rejecting the Cartesian binary view of nature and society as inherently in opposition and incompatible, we can ensure that hierarchical colonial mindsets, which marginalize and derogate certain groups of people by placing them “outside society,” are also rejected.

To “Hear the Call of the Singing Firs”: (Re)Reading E. Pauline Johnson’s “Lost Lagoon” as Eco-Elegy

Steve Dickinson — 2017-05-18

“Come Buy, Come By”: Miscommunication across Culture, the Imagined Market, and Colonialism in "Goblin Market"

Suyu Chen — 2017-06-02

Christina Rossetti’s popular poem, Goblin Market, “continues to captivate with its critical yet ambivalent assessment of the overlapping sphere of Victorian economics and sexual politics despite its deceptively simple form” (913), as Victor Roman Mendoza has pointed out. However, I will provide a colonial reading of Goblin Market in this essay. Who are goblins? Why they are portrayed like “animals”? What is “goblin market” in the poem? What causes the violence on Lizzie at the end of the poem? I suggest that while goblins’ fruits appear as exotic products, Lizzie’s carrying juice with her body symbolizes importation and colonization. I argue that Goblin Market represents a misunderstanding of foreign gift-exchange culture from the capitalist point of view. Either “market” or the “merchant” is two sisters’ misinterpretation of goblin’s feast activity and their “remote” identity, rather than Goblin’s self-recognition. Lizzie’s value of trade enforces capitalism in Goblin’s area, which implies and reveals the colonization in nineteenth century.

Defining Nature: Exploring the Human vs. Nature Opposition

Emiope Mimiko — 2017-06-02

This paper explores the question of what is nature. What can we know about nature given that the concept has many definitions? This paper argues that language has skewed the way humans perceive the word nature to the point where we associate the material world around us with ourselves. That is, we define nature from within the limits of our anthropocentric biases. Postcolonial ecocriticism attempts to explore both the environment and the social issues arising from the legacy of the imperial era; but how do we explore the two, nature and society, in relation to one another when postcolonialism focuses on the past and nature appears to be timeless? Humans need to seek justice for nature. But often we pursue conservation and preservation of landscapes not because nature is suffering but because of our own idea of what nature should be. We assume that nature and humans interact with one another, and while humans do interact with nature, nature does not necessarily reciprocate human desires. Arguably, the reciprocal interactions of humans with nature are the result of misconceptions brought about by how we define nature. This paper focuses on Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm (1883) and explores the division between nature and humans and the tendency to impose our perception onto nature. The Story of an African Farm poses an interesting question: who owns the land on which the farm was built? And essentially, who owns the farm - Em or the aboriginal inhabitants of the land? This paper examines the role the natural environment plays in the text and how Schreiner asserts her own ideas of what nature should be.

Making Nineteenth-Century Literary Environments

Dr. Margaret Linley — 2017-05-18

An overview of the course.

Acknowledgements

Dr. Margaret Linley — 2017-06-02

Jane Eyre and The Atmoscene: Early Expressions of Ecofeminism in Literature

Tyler Knoll — 2017-06-02

This essay addresses the connection in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre between the protagonist and the atmosphere. Specifically, I address the issue of why Brontë associates the atmosphere with womanhood in the novel. My argument is that Brontë’s novel offers an early example of an ecofeminist text or a “proto-ecofeminist text” as I refer to it within the essay. This essay explains how ecofeminism connects the exploitation of the environment with the degradation of womanhood and utilizes Justine Pizzo’s article “Atmospheric Exceptionalism in Jane Eyre” to provide evidence. I use Jason Moore’s work on oikeios to show how Jane Eyre rejects dualism by finding conceptual means of reconnecting humanity with nature. Elaine Freedgood’s work on colonial exploitation of resources shows how Jane’s ecofeminism does not extend to the colonial other and how it problematizes the text as ecofeminist in nature. Finally, I analyze Dipesh Chakrabarty’s “Four Theses,” with a focus on the second and third theses, and how they help illuminate Jane’s own inner struggles with atmospheric influence and passivity in the face of colonial resource extraction. Ultimately this paper concludes that despite Jane’s dilemmas, her womanhood and consciousness of connection to nature preserve her status as a proto-ecofeminist figure.

Humans as Geological Forces of Nature: How Jane Eyre Establishes a Common Ground between the Natural and Social

Sera Akdogan — 2017-06-02

This essay applies ecocriticism to Charlotte Bronte’s presentation of landscape and society in Jane Eyre in order to address Victorian society’s attempt to use the concept of nature as a means of naturalizing class and gender hierarchies and thus impose strict social rules and standards. Jane’s interactions with nature and society serve to deconstruct the binary that opposes humans and natural environments. In so doing, the novel represents the ways in which Victorians manipulate nature to help make social structures appear natural, while simultaneously socializing and altering their natural environments in the process. Jane’s collapsing of the human-made and the natural allows her to embrace her naturalized social subordination through her physical appearance and, ironically, achieve a degree of autonomy. While Jane’s meditations upon her external environments offer romanticized interpretations of natural and social realms, Jane Eyre’s underlying ecological awareness manifests throughout Jane’s story and functions democratically to level social differences.

Gothic Imperial Romance in Jane Eyre

Catherine Jane Boschalk — 2017-06-01

This paper examines how the imperial gothic shapes Jane Eyre (1847). I argue that the colonial world is brought back to Victorian England in Jane Eyre as a retelling of the Bluebeard story, a chilling fairy tale that emphasizes Jane’s imperial gothic identity, which poses a challenge to her essential Englishness throughout the novel. Outside threats from England’s colonies represented through the imperial gothic quest put Jane’s life at risk and endanger her Englishness and the very nature of pastoralism and innocence. I support this argument by discussing the various elements of the imperial gothic within Jane Eyre. Firstly, I discuss the connections with the fairy tale and how the Bluebird story foreshadows some of the potential outcomes in the novel. Secondly, I look at the relationships Jane makes in the novel – most importantly, those with Rochester and Bertha. Lastly, I discuss the way in which Jane herself poses a threat to her own Englishness with her active participation and choices of engaging in the imperial gothic world. Looking at Jane Eyre through the lens of the imperial gothic allows a more sophisticated understanding of the novel and points toward what the everyday Briton may have experienced during the Victorian era. Jane Eyre is best read with the gothic in mind, and this paper serves to illuminate the connections therein.

Reconciling Conflict: Species Being and Spirituality in Jane Eyre

Alicia Ciornei — 2017-06-02

Throughout Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre, Jane struggles against the stringent, hierarchy of organized religion. Nevertheless, she strives to find a form of faith that appeals to her sensibilities concerning equality, fairness, and justice. By seeking solace in the natural realm, Jane begins to develop a sense of kinship with the larger world and those around her--although this is a sentiment she does not fully comprehend until the very end of the novel. In “The Climate of History: Four Theses,” Dipesh Chakrabarty explores the anxiety of species being and the alienating impact of capitalist organizational structures. Institutionalized religion functions in Jane Eyre to isolate individuals and create dependency on the organization. By virtue of her own, independent nature, and coupled with the aid of Helen Burns and Mr. Rochester, who guide and challenge her along the way, Jane grows to fashion her own definition of faith. Jane Eyre's divine alliance is one that remains firmly grounded in the natural world, a realm free of societal hierarchies, class, and gender barriers. Through reconciling God and Nature, Jane comes to terms with the larger web of existence, eventually asserting herself to find love and happiness.

Rossetti and the Risorgimento: An Allegorical Reading of Goblin Market

Audrey Ling — 2017-05-29

An examination of the biographical details of Christina Rossetti’s life opens up the possibility of a political allegorical reading of Rossetti’s poem Goblin Market. Rossetti’s family connections to Italian nationalism suggest that her writing expresses pro-Risorgimento sentiments in support of nineteenth-century Italian unification. Goblin Market’s politicized narrative presents Rossetti’s two female protagonists, Laura and Lizzie, as figures who embody both the oppressed landscape of Italy and the collective of local inhabitants who are threatened by colonialism and imperialism. My reading builds on Robin J. Sowards’s economic interpretations of Goblin Market in “Goblin Market’s Localism”, in which he analyzes dichotomies of the foreign and the local, the colonizer and the colonized. Laura’s consumption of foreign goblin fruit indicates her submission to foreign imperialist forces, and the allegory can expand further to construe Lizzie as a symbol of Britain, a cosmopolitan centre that wielded a stronger sense of national identity and economic power than other European nations in this period. Reading Lizzie’s position in Goblin Market in terms both of Italian revolutionary forces and Britain’s continental solidarity underscores Sowards’s assertion that Rossetti’s preferred alternative to a global capitalist market is a self-sufficient local community. This desire for an autonomous local community in Goblin Market parallels Italian nationalists’ desire for independence and for equal status as an individual nation amongst European relations. The exploration of Goblin Market as a political allegory seeks to draw conclusions about the influence of Rossetti’s family background in her writing, and it allows the poem to be read beyond the traditional literary confines of sexual, religious, or economic readings that have appeared in previous scholarship.