Anthropocentrism versus Ecocentrism: An Ecocritical Analysis of the Selected Poems of Robert Frost and Elizabeth Bishop

Abstract

Nature poets, Robert Frost and Elizabeth Bishop, are concerned with the natural world and the human world. Anthropocentric and Ecocentric outlooks are explored here in terms of their dominant behaviour towards environment. This paper analyzes that: To what extent do these poets go beyond the anthropocentric world to reach the ecocentric world? And do both the poets create a sympathetic attitude towards the natural world of flora and fauna? Or do they have different outlooks of perceiving nature? The dealing of these poets with environmental degradation can reveal the inherent politics of anthropocentric ideology. Moreover, their poems are concerned with the relationship of the humans to the land and other creatures of the earth and also reveal the interaction and contact between the man-made/materialistic/human and natural/non-human world. So, the focus is on how both the poets depict, present and use the natural scenario and natural world in their poems in order to depict the relationship between the human and non-human world.