Study On The Pastoral Ideology In European And American Ecocriticism

As an important literary genre in the history of Western literature,pastoral literature has been cultivating people’s pastoral ideology through its depiction of beautiful nature and ideal life for thousands of years,which has generated research on various issues such as pastoralism,pastoral ideal,pastoral imagination,and pastoral nostalgia.Since its birth,ecocriticism has been particularly concerned with pastoral literature that depicts wilderness and countryside.Its research on pastoral ideology has broken through the traditional research horizon,revealing the spatial perception,emotional structure,and political ethics contained in pastoral ideology,and striving to explore the ecological significance of pastoral ideology under the guidance of ecocentrism.The thesis mainly consists of introduction,four chapters and conclusion.The introduction focuses on sorting out pastoral studies at home and abroad,revealing the possibility of studying pastoral ideology from the perspective of ecocriticism.The first chapter focuses on the different spatial representation of pastoral ideology,summarizes the differences between pastoral and wilderness based on the analysis of the concept of "wilderness",points out the absence of pure wilderness and the possibility of transforming wilderness into pastoral,and sorts out the development process of country and city from a diachronic perspective,analyzing the background of rural and urban areas moving towards dual opposition as heterogeneous spaces.Using the theory of urban ecocriticism,this thesis explores the multiple reasons for constructing a garden city and its aesthetic,emotional,and ecological significance.The second chapter focuses on the emotional structure of pastoral ideology.The pastoral ideology embodies two emotions: nostalgia for the past and longing for an ideal society.Influenced by nostalgia,the natural ecology,social morality,and human living conditions in pastoral all exhibit idealized characteristics.Guided by the utopian complex,pastoral ideology has a direction towards the future and shows concern for a good natural ecology.Therefore,it is possible to construct an eco-centric pastoral utopia.The third chapter brings pastoral ideology into the perspective of postcolonial ecocriticism and ecofeminist criticism.This chapter focuses on analyzing the infiltration of colonial discourse and ideology into pastoral literature and pastoral imagination,paying particular attention to the formation mechanism of the cultural phenomenon of the conversion of colonies into pastoral,and exploring the environmental and social problems caused by colonialism and imperialism to colonies using the theory of "slow violence" for reference.At the same time,it explores the process and purpose of pastoral feminization in pastoral imagination,its internal logic and ideological connotation,analyzes the absence of female images in pastoral literature under patriarchal ideology,and reflects on the male tradition of pastoral imagination and pastoral writing.The fourth chapter focuses on the aesthetic dimension of pastoral ideology.Using the knowledge of environmental aesthetics for reference,the chapter analyzes the composition and characteristics of pastoral landscapes,explores the aesthetic process and value of pastoral landscapes.The thesis will absorb the theory of aesthetic anthropology,analyze pastoral as a place and their relationship with local aesthetics,and explores how pastoral as a place can play their important value in the era of globalization through the comparison between placeness and globalization.The conclusion summarizes the issues of pastoral ideology in European and American ecocriticism,pointing out that pastoral ideology has an ecological dimension in emotional,ethical,political,and aesthetic aspects.This thesis also looks forward to the future trend of pastoral ecocriticism,exploring the significance of dialogue between Chinese and Western pastoral ideology,and the role of pastoral ecocriticism in building a life community.