Wordsworth's Ecological Imagination

We live in an age when the concern for environment is uppermost in our mind. This state of affairs has been brought about as a result of the headstrong development of industry and technology for the last two centuries without any regard to what kind of consequence this kind of technological development would usher in. In the process of single-minded industrialization, nature has been exploited as a means to achieve the maximum level of production. In this respect, nature has simply been considered as something to be exploited without having its own intrinsic value. In reaction to this kind of reckless industrial development, there have emerged a group of people who think that this kind of nature-exploiting industrial and technological development is detrimental, not only to the well-being of human beings, but also to the environment as well. One of the pioneers in this kind of new thinking was Ernest Haekel, a German zoologist, who has first used the term, ecology, as "the investigation of the total relations of the animal both to its intrinsic and to its organic environment." Since Haekel has pointed out the importance of the environment to the animal world, his concept of ecology has caught on in the scientific community. Later in the 20th Century James E. Lovelock has come up with "a new insight into the inteactions between the living and the inorganic parts of the planet." Recent developments in ecological and environmental thinking have provided us with an opportunity to read Wordsworth's poetry from a new perspective. Even though there is a group of critics who consider nature in Wordsworth's poetry is not an end in itself but a means to reach something beyond, we should take into account the fact that Wordsworth considered nature as a living entity. He has thought that nature and human beings have very intimate relationship. In this respect, man is not alienated from nature. In his view, nature is always in the process of creation, that is, natura naturans. Furthermore, Wordsworth "gave a moral life/To every natural form." To Wordsworth, therefore, it is unthinkable to separate man from nature. This kind of Wordsworthian thinking should be valuable in considering Wordsworth as ecology-friendly and environment-minded poet. We see exmples of his ecological imagination very clearly in his poetry, especially "Goody Blake and Harry Gill" and The Prelude