D. H. Lawrence and W. S. Merwin as Ecopoets

This paper studies D. H. Lawrence and W. S. Merwin as ecopoets through examining selected poems from their poetry collections. It argues that despite the distance of time and space as well as individual viewpoints and general outlooks, Lawrence and Merwin share certain basic viewpoints on nature, the environment, and ecology. Employing ecocriticism and comparative/contrastive approaches, the paper aims at identifying some thematic similarities and differences between some of these two writers’ representative ecopoems. The paper posits that the commonalities between Lawrence’s and Merwin’s ecopoems suggest the existence of an ecopoetic continuum running across their ecopoetry, beginning with the Romantic tradition of nature poetry, passing through Lawrence’s modernist ecopoems and culminating in Merwin’s postmodernist ecopoetry

Ecocriticism · Poetry · Romance · Viewpoints · Ecocriticism and Environmental Literature · Modernist Literature and Criticism · Poetry Analysis and Criticism