https://doi.org/10.67147/literariness.v1i4.107
A Requiem for the Anthropocene: Ecocriticism, Slow Violence, and Eastern Spirituality in O. N. V. Kurup’s Poetry
NAMITHA MOHAN
PhD Research Scholar
PG and Research Department of English
Govt. Victoria College, Palakkad, Kerala
Affiliated to University of Calicut
Email: namithamohan882@gmail.com
DR. ABUBAKKAR K.K.
Associate Professor
PG and Research Department of English
Govt. Victoria College, Palakkad, Kerala
Affiliated to University of Calicut
Email: pathamkulam@gmail.com
Abstract: Environmentalism is often employed as a critical approach to literary analysis. Over the decades, environmentalism has shifted from looking with a nostalgic approach to seriously discussing global, economic, political and systemic issues. Ruthless human activities such as unrestrained fossil fuel combustion, mass deforestation, and overconsumption have led our environment to face catastrophic hazards. Reports say that the global annual temperature has increased in total by a little more than one degree Celsius, or about two degrees Fahrenheit and the planet has never been this hot. Global warming is one of the major challenges that the earth is facing at present because it is a “threat multiplier” that drives extreme weather, threatens the security of food and water and can even lead to the spread of infectious diseases. Discussing global warming is essential to train societies with knowledge to predict climate expectations for future.
With the help of active writers all over the world, literature at present is transfiguring passive studies about nature into building a dominant voice for ecology. Prominent cultural theories like new historicism often treats nature as an eternal, universal concept that examines how particular societies envision the earth to justify economic upsurge, urbanisation and political power. This paper explores environmental hazards through the lens of new historicism, on a specific author to study its ubiquitous and alien nature which ultimately questions our relationship with the natural world.
Keywords: Ecocriticism, Planetary Crisis, Environmental Lament, Plasticity, Greenhouse effect, Global Warming
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