Ecological Literary Criticism ― Romantic Imagining and the Biology of Mind

Kroeber argues that literary criticism needs to reestablish connections to a wide range of social activities, especially the thinking of contemporary scientists.

This new kind of criticism, "ecological literary criticism," sets out to correct the abstractions of current theorizing about literature, and to make humanistic studies more socially responsible. Though applicable to any writer of any period, Kroeber points out that the proto-ecological tendencies of the English Romantic poets make them especially useful as a starting point for this approach. Since the Romantics believed that people were, and should be, at home in the natural world.

Ecological Literary Criticism asks that we examine poetry from a perspective that assumes that the imaginative acts of cultural beings offer valuable insights into how and why cultural and natural phenomena have interrelated in the past and how they could more advantageously interrelate in the future. Kroeber argues that this approach to criticism will help us to develop mutually enriching links between humanistic and scientific modes of understanding humankind and the earth we inhabit.

Karl Kroeber is Mellon Professor of Humanities at Columbia University. He is author of numerous books on the Romantic poets and their period.