Constructing Nature:The Poetry Of Philip Larkin,Ted Hughes And Seamus Heaney

Nature has been one of the most important themes of English poetry. There are dreadful monsters in Old English poetry, blissful pastures in Renaissance poetry, sublime mountains in Romantic poetry, evolutionary species in Victorian poetry and nostalgic villages in Georgian poetry. It is thus meaningful to examine how the nature theme is developed in Postwar English poetry. For such an examination, this thesis will apply Kate Soper’s ecocritical theory of construction to the works of three major postwar poets, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney.Ecocriticism is a new critical approach developed in response to postwar ecocrisis and focused on the relationship between literature and nature. In fact, ecocritics hold different views of the relationship. Some believe that literature should represent nature in a strictly objective way and that strict objectivity ensures a true respect for nature. Others like Kate Soper borrow from postmodernism and point out the constructiveness of nature:in spite of the objective existence of the natural world, man’s concept of nature is always constructed-nature in literary works are heavily influenced by the author’s perspective and thought as well as by cultural and social context. Even the idea that nature should be respected is already a construct.Soper’s theory can be readily applied to the nature poems of Larkin, Hughes and Heaney. All the three poets recognize the constructiveness of nature and they construct nature in connected ways. As for the constructiveness, Larkin believes that man feels nature with subjective intention and supposition; Hughes understands that the image of nature changes with man’s perspective and is always conveyed through language; Heaney holds that a poet has the right to interpret nature and even to replace reality with imagined nature.All the three poets construct nature in relation to faith, nation and ecology. First, nature is constructed as a certain faith. Faced with the decline of Christianity, Larkin seeks a new faith in the life-giving nature but his faith is still tentative. In comparison Hughes has a much firmer faith, criticizing Christianity as fake and advocating a return to the primitive Goddess of Nature. Heaney, meanwhile, finds residues of Celtic worship of nature in Irish Catholicism and believes in nature’s sacredness since his childhood.Nature is also constructed as a national symbol. Larkin regards the countryside as a symbol of England, and thus he is disturbed about erosion of the countryside by industrialization and urbanization. Hughes views the sparsely populated moors as a different symbol of England, and he firmly believes that the Goddess of Nature will wipe out all factories and cities, restoring the nation to a primeval state. Inspired by Larkin and Hughes, Heaney sees the land as a symbol of Ireland. He traces Irish history and politics in topography, place names and the land-related sacrificial rites, and later he envisions a land beyond political turmoil.Informed by growing environmentalism, the three poets also construct nature with green awareness-the awareness that man has responsibilities toward nature. They give different opinions of animal rights and environmental pollutions, and discuss larger issues like ecological holism and climate change. To sum up, all the three poets deliberately construct nature, and their constructions all involve faith in nature, nationalism based on nature, and green awareness. Such constructions, closely related to the cultural and social condition, can be seen as major features of postwar nature poetry.