Reconstruction Of A Harmonious Ecological Holism

Our world is now facing many unprecedented ecological threats. Being aware of the increasingly severeenvironmental crisis and modern man's heart-deep sense of alienation and estrangement from nature, more andmore environmentally-concerned theoreticians and activists began to ponder upon the destructive way ofdevouring natural resources as well as the pervasive grand conceit of anthropocentrism which was greatlycommitted to the predicament in modern civilization. Gary Snyder is one of the most prominent twentiethcentury's ecological figures, as well as the poet, essayist, translator, Zen student, and the environmental activist.According to him, ecological problems are not merely a scientific and technological matter, but a philosophical,ethical and political reevaluation and modification on man's relationship with nature.Gary Snyder has devoted his life to practicing his belief. Most of his poems are concerned with the theme ofenvironmental protection and ecological balance. His Turtle Island won him the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1975.Snyder has pursued an ecological vision which integrates American cultural traditions, Native American practicesand Oriental cultures, especially Chinese Taoism and Buddhism. Snyder criticized the ecological destruction byindustrial civilization, and anthropocentrism, and rather advocated ecological holism with harmony betweenhuman and nature. Snyder's unique ecological views have drawn great interests of contemporary literary critics,and a lot of researches have been done ranging from his ecological views to Oriental influence. Different fromthe researches done in the past few years, this thesis will give a deep and thorough analysis to the ecologicalmetaphors in Snyder's poems, with an attempt to illustrate his unique ecological views.This thesis falls into five parts.The first chapter will have a general introduction to Snyder's life and works, with a general explanation ofecological elemen ts from his life. The second part is the literary review from critics at home and abroad aboutSnyder's works. Then the purpose and significance of the thesis will be presented in the end.The second chapter will be a brief introduction to the ecocriticism. Part one begins with a short discussion ofecological crisis and then states the development of ecocriticism. Part two analyses three origins of Snyder'secological views: American Native culture, Oriental culture and his life style. The last part defines ecologicalmetaphor and makes a classification of ecological metaphors in Snyder's poems.The third chapter shows the deconstruction of industrial civilization through analyzing metaphors in hispoems. Part one refers to the opposition to"city"metaphor and to express man's estrangement and incongruityfrom nature. Part two reveals human overexploitation of wilderness and thus refers to hazards caused byanthropocentrism.The fourth chapter analyses the reconstruction of ecological civilization, which is based on the ecologicalholism with the harmony between human and nature. The first part focuses on the harmony of man and nature with analysis of relationship between man and flora, fauna and landscape as metaphors. The second part analysesthe ecological holism from three perspectives: man as a member, coexistence as a net and Mother Gaia.Expression of man's tininess, and equality of human and non-human families show fairness in nature withoutsuperiority. Indra's net, food chains and prey web metaphors mean the connection and binding of nature. MotherGaia metaphor expresses the organic holism of the earth.In the end, the thesis will get the conclusion that Snyder reveals the anthropocentric origin of ecologicalcrises and criticizes industrial civilization for its damage to nature. On the other hand, he holds harmonious coexistencebetween human and nature, and advocates reconstructing holism-oriented civilization.