Endorsing For Nature

Gary Snyder(1930-)is a renowned American poet,essayist in 20th century.He has published 18 poetry and essay works and won Pulitzer Prize in 1975 by his Turtle Island.His poems are concise,remarkable,and full of religious wisdom and penetrating insights towards nature.Snyder published his poem collection Mountains and Rivers Without End which is composed by 39 poems in 1996.In this work,by writing down his memories,imaginations,dreams and his experiences in different cultures of eastern and western backgrounds,Snyder showed his thinking of nature,lives,and relationship between human beings and the material world.When describing the nature and beings living in nature,Snyder showed a lot of deep ecological concerns in Mountains and Rivers Without End.Deep ecology is a non-anthropocentric thinking involving human society,natural environment and relationship between them It breaks the binary opposition between man and nature that existed in traditional shallow ecological thinking,and emphasizes the importance of ecological integrity.Biocentric equality and self-realization are two significant concepts of deep ecology.This thesis uses Arne Naess' deep ecology theory as the framework,and deals with Gary Snyder's ecological consciousness reflected in Mountains and Rvivers Without End in terms of biocentric equality and self-realization.By analyzing the poems collected in this work,this thesis aims to study Snyder's ecological consciousness reflected in this work and reveal the environmental crisis and living predicaments human beings is facing in the modern world.This thesis contains three chapters.The first chapter analyzes the main factors that affected Snyder's ecological consciousness which are living environment,literary inheritance and Zen Buddhism The second chapter deals with the reflection of Snyder's thought of ecological integrity and biocentric equality reflected in this work.This part firstly analyzes the importance of ecological integrity and equality reflected in Snyder's poems and interprets human's non-leading position in ecological system.Secondly,by analyzing mountains,rivers,plants,and animals' participations and contributions in ecological system,this chapter emphasizes that all sentient beings benefit each other,and they are essential parts of the whole world.The third chapter demonstrates Snyder's thinking about issues in the real world:what human beings should do during the process of achieving Self-realization in the deteriorative environment and how to turn the ego-self to eco-Self with body and mind getting back to nature.Only when we realized and understood that we are part of the nature,can we pursue human's self-realization in the process of nature's Self-realization.This thesis holds that,as an eco-poet and an environmentalist,Gary Snyder had witnessed a series of impressive changes that human brought to nature in the urbanization process.By working and writing in nature,he generated inspirations and thoughts about lives,nature,and relationship between man and nature which are key concerns in his poems.He is a true spokesman for nature.