ECO-CRITICISM: A NEW DIRECTION OF MODERN LITERARY CRITICISM

Abstract

At the last periods of the 20th century, inparticular, during the 1990s, the relationship between literature and environment has started to be studied in the same framework as a discipline. The most significant element affecting the emergence of ecocriticism is the degradation of nature and the repercussions of life-threatening events into literary works together with industrialization. The increase of factors which imperil life steadily widens the framework of ecocriticism or environmental criticism theory. Ecocriticism, whose coverage enlarges gradually, is of significant importance in terms of offering possible solutions to these problems. The aim of this study is to explain the theory of ecocriticism highlighting the relationship between literature and environment as an interdisciplinary method and to examine the application of this criticism. When the environmental movement began to gather political force during the 1970s, ecological literary criticism grew into activism, and lead to the spread of eco consciousness and awareness. Various texts in the modern era (post-1900) offered the changing trends in this manner.