Study On The Thoughts Of Lawrence Buell’s Ecocriticism

Lawrence Buell is a famous ecological critics in contemporary America, and also the leading figure in the field of ecocriticism, he has a significant influence on the development of ecocriticism. In his writings of ecocriticism, he forms his main ecocriticism thoughts which including environmental imagination and the theory of place.Arounding the four elements of literature including the world, the author, the works and the reader, western literary theory has three times to have happended. From ancient Greek imitation to romanticism, appeared the author focus on literary study. The emergence of formalism, marked the text focus on literary study. Reception aesthetics marked the third turn on readers in literary study. However, at every turn, literary theory ignores the attention to the nature.The emergence of ecocriticism is a response to the problem.As a representative of the ecocriticism, Lawrence Buell tends to use the term "environmental criticism"instead of "ecocriticism", because the connotation of the former is richer than the latter. Lawrence Buel’s thoughts of ecocriticism is based on ecological centralism. Ecological centralism is the result of the criticism of anthropocentrism, and it also develops on the basis of biological centralism. Ecological centralism including Leopold’s earth ethics thought and Naess’s deep ecology thought. At the same time, environmental justice is also gradually become the ideological basis of ecocriticism.Environmental imagination theory is the core of Buell’s ecocriticism.The principle of environmental imagination is New Realism. New realism opposes the text which reflects the world as a mirror, and advocates the text should refer to environmentality, showing a tendency to environment. Environmental unconsciousness is an extension of the environmental imagination, it deeply hiddens in the text and inspires our environmental consciousness. Buell has summarized some characteristics of the environment text which meets the requirements of environmental imagination. There are three modes of environmental imagination, each of them is the rhetoric mode, performanced mode and the mode of remaking the world.Environment and place is inseparable. The theory of place is also an important ideological content in Buell’s ecocriticism. There are five aspects on place attachment, each of them is concentric circles dimension, islands of dimension, decentralized and unstable dimension, and place embodies the memory, the correlation between place and imagination. Place attachment is of great significance to people’s life and art. In the present society, place attachment has suffered from external forces like the modernization process and the nonplace. Against this challenge, Buell puts forward the advice of reinhabitation to call for people to establish the place attachment.