Cultural Tradition Of Natural History Behind Western Ecocriticism

Natural History has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years.Supported by the history of science&technology and field of cultural studies,a few ecological critics begin to revalue the historical,literary and ecological values of Natural History,Natural History Writing and Natural History Poetry.They argue that since one of the aims of ecocriticism is to restore the existence of nature,it is impossible for us to avoid tracing natural history,and that Natural History,one of the four traditional subjects of natural science and the ancient disciplines of learning nature,provides us with a long and reliable route back to its source.Under this background,this paper tries to trace back the occurrence context of ecocriticism from the perspective of genesis,based on the existing studies at home and abroad,and to dig out the culture tradition of Natural History behind it.Through the close reading of natural history works and ecocriticism papers,the author will further consider the indirected relationship between Natural History and literature studies,and analyze how the naturalistic thinking,knowledge and feelings were introduced into western literature and culture.At the end of the article,the author will discuss the possibility of recombining Natural History and ecocriticism based on the development trend of the latter,and provides new ideas and methods for the study of ecocriticism.The thesis is divided into six parts:The introduction will briefly describe the research perspective,research significance,domestic and foreign research survey,research ideas and methods,and define the two important concepts"ecocriticism"and"Natural History"involved in this paper.The first chapter,with the representatives of ecocriticism in Britain and the United States,briefly summarizes the origin and developing process of ecocriticism in the west,the four waves it has experienced and several important research dimensions,trying to give a panoramic introduction to ecocriticism.Chapter two,from the perspective of genesis,introduces the social background,philosophical basis and Natural History culture tradition of western ecocriticism.Among them,excavating the culture tradition of Natural History behind ecocriticism is the most important part of this paper.By tracing back to the naturalist status of early western ecocritics,the author connects the ambiguous relationship between Natural History and ecocriticism,and on the basis of reviewing the western Natural History culture,discusses the ecological connotation of“naturalistic thinking”“naturalistic knowledge”and“living as naturalists”.The third chapter further examines the attitude of Natural History towards nature and its cultural construction towards nature.The author will take the natural history writing in the“romantic natural history period”^?1?as the research object and analyze the concrete application of naturalistic thinking,naturalistic knowledge and naturalistic feelings in western literature and culture.The fourth chapter will discuss the trend of ecocriticism from the perspective of Natural History,mainly discussing three questions:?1?why did Britain,with the strongest Natural History tradition,fail to lead the wave of ecocriticism??2?does the future development of ecocriticism need the blessing of Natural History??3?is ecocriticism an expedient measure in the face of ecological crisis or the natural path of human civilization?Therefore,this paper will draw the conclusion that the combination of ecocriticism and Natural History is a feasible way,which contributes to the popularization of ecological consciousness and the construction of ecological civilization.The last part talks about the topics about rediscovering the culture tradition of Chinese Natural History,promoting natural history writing,and constructing naturalistic ecocriticism with Chinese characteristics.