The Song of the Earth

Rating:
Summary: 'ecocriticism' comes of age
Review: Jonathan Bate's short book, 'Romantic Ecology'(1991) was a landmark in literary ecocriticism. In 'The Song of the Earth' Bate has developed his theme further and in doing so has produced an instant classic.

The purpose of the book is to show how poetry is not only relevant but necessary in an age of increasing environmental unease. It is a manifesto for the urgency of 'ecopoetics'. Bate writes: 'This is a book about why poetry continues to matter as we enter a new millennium that will be ruled by technology. It is a book about modern western man's alienation from nature. It is about the capacity of the writer to restore us to the earth which is our home' (vii)

Chapters are as follows: 1. Going, Going 2. The State of Nature 3. A Voice for Ariel 4. Major Weather 5. The Picturesque Environment 6. Nests, Shell, Landmarks 7. Poets, Apes and Other Animals 8. The Place of Poetry 9. What are Poets For?

My favourite chapter is 'Major Weather' which, in some quite startling and original ways, charts the influence of climate on writing . The centre piece of the chapter is a reading of Keat's 'Ode to Autumn' as a 'weather poem', resembling 'a well-regulated ecosystem'. For Bate, the ode 'is not an escapist fantasy which turns its back on the ruptures of Regency culture, as late twentieth century criticism tended to suggest. No: it is a meditation on how human culture can only function through links and reciprocal relations with nature.'(103-4). I learned 'Ode to Autumn' as a schoolchild, and it has always stayed with me. Now I see eloquently expressed the reasons for its significance to me.

Bate has set himself a difficult but worthy task, to argue for poetry as 'the place where we save the earth', that if culture is the cause of environmental destruction it can also be its remedy. This, then, is a book that should be read by everyone with an interest in literature, by everyone with an interest in the continuation of life on the planet.