Nature, Society and the Spirit: Peter Matthiessen’s Ecological Ideas

Document pages: 7 pages

Abstract: Peter Matthiessen is widely regarded as a serious, disciplined author who wrote about wild nature, vanishing cultures, and human society. He was a dedicated naturalist from early on, and the concern for nature informed his work from the beginning of his career. This paper analyses Matthiessen’s major works from the perspective of ecocriticism, revealing his ecological ideas on natural ecology, social ecology and spiritual ecology respectively. For Matthiessen, the modern environmental crisis is inseparable from social and spiritual problems. He criticizes the anthropocentric and imperial points of view, sparing no effort to pursue justice, harmony and wholeness both in his literary imagination and real life.