A critical review of the Ecological Consciousness and human needs in Alice Oswald’s poetry: An exploration of environmental sustainability in modern English verse
Main Article Content
Abstract
Ecological Consciousness is clearly articulated in the poetry of Alice Oswald as she uses the poetic language to address the environmental and ecological concerns. The present paper argues that the poetry of Alice Oswald serves as a vital, imaginative counterpart to the pragmatic frameworks of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Through a close reading of her poetry including Dart, Nobody, and Weeds and Wild Flowers, this analysis demonstrates how Oswald’s verse highlights several aspects environmental Sustainability, Human Health, the provision of Basic Needs, a critique of Energy & Industrial Leadership, and a reimagining of Future Economics. Oswald's work transcends conventional nature poetry by establishing an ecological awareness that blurs the distinction between human and non-human, prompting a significant reassessment of our role within a living, interrelated system. This study asserts that the humanities, especially poetry, are vital for cultivating the profound, sympathetic comprehension necessary to attain the Sustainable Development Goals, rendering Oswald's work not only artistic but a crucial instrument for ecological and social transformation.
Downloads
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
This open-access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.
You are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format. Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.
Under the following terms: Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
No additional restrictions You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
How to Cite
Share
References
Baker, R. (2017). 'All voices should be read as the river's mutterings': The Poetry of Alice Oswald. The Cambridge Quarterly, 46(2), 99–118. https://doi.org/10.1093/camqtly/bfx013
Bate, J. (2000). The Song of the Earth. Picador.
Bennett, J. (2010). Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822391623
Bowen, W. (2002). An analytical review of environmental justice research: what do we really know?. Environmental Management, 29(1), 3–15. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-001-0037-8
Bristow, T. (2014). The Anthropocene Lyric: An Affective Geography of Poetry, Person, Place. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137380090
Crystal, D. (1998). Language Play. Penguin Books.
Derkenne, S. (2022). Living death: reading ecological necropolitics in the Poetry of Mary Oliver, Alice Oswald, and Fiona Wright [Doctoral dissertation, Macquarie University]. Macquarie University Research Portal. (No DOI - Thesis)
Drangsholt, J. S. (2011). Sounding the landscape: dis-placement in the poetry of Alice Oswald. In A. Karhio, S. Crosson, & C. I. Armstrong (Eds.), Crisis and contemporary poetry (pp. 167–179). Palgrave Macmillan UK. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230306097_10
Drangsholt, J. S. (2016). Homecomings: Poetic reformulations of dwelling in Jo Shapcott, Alice Oswald, and Lavinia Greenlaw. Nordic Journal of English Studies, 15(S1), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.35360/njes.376
Farrier, D. (2014). 'Like a Stone': Ecology, Enargeia, and Ethical Time in Alice Oswald's Memorial. Environmental Humanities, 4 (1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-3614719
Figueroa, R. M. (2022). Environmental justice. In B. Hale & A. Light (Eds.), The Routledge companion to environmental ethics (pp. 767–782). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315768090
Garrard, G. (2004). Ecocriticism. Routledge. (No DOI - Book)
Goursaud, B. (2019). 'The river's mutterings': Lyrical Discretion, Communal Utterances, and Poetry Beyond the Human in Alice Oswald's Dart. Études britanniques contemporaines, (56). https://doi.org/10.4000/ebc.6636
Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. Milkweed Editions.
Kirby, V. (2014). Human exceptionalism on the line. SubStance, 43(2), 50–67. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24540645 (No DOI - Stable URL provided)
Lewis, S. L., & Maslin, M. A. (2015). Defining the anthropocene. Nature, 519(7542), 171–180. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14258
Linne, L., & Niederhoff, B. (2018). '[M]emories and similes laid side by side': The Paratactic Poetics of Alice Oswald's Memorial. Connotations: A Journal for Critical Debate, *27*, 19–47. (No DOI - Journal)
Malhi, Y. (2017). The concept of the Anthropocene. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 42, 77–104. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-102016-060854
Mansfield, N. (2012). The God of the River: Geography and Memory in the Work of Alice Oswald. The Wordsworth Circle, 43(3), 155–159.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962). Phenomenology of Perception (C. Smith, Trans.). Routledge & Kegan Paul. (Original work published 1945).)
Mohai, P., Pellow, D., & Roberts, J. T. (2009). Environmental justice. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 34, 405–430. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-082508-094348
Morton, T. (2010). The Ecological Thought. Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvjf9vz4
Naess, A. (2005). The basics of deep ecology. The Trumpeter, 21(1), 61–71. (No DOI - Journal)
Oswald, A. (2002). Dart. Faber & Faber.
Oswald, A. (2005). Woods etc. Faber & Faber.
Oswald, A. (2009). Weeds and Wild Flowers. Faber & Faber.
Oswald, A. (2019). Nobody. Jonathan Cape.
Parham, J. (2012). The Poetics of the Anthropocene: Ecology, Environment and the Nature of Nature in Contemporary British and Irish Poetry [Doctoral dissertation, University of Sussex].
Pinard, M. (2009). Voice (s) of the Poet-Gardener: Alice Oswald and the Poetry of Acoustic Encounter. Interdisciplinary Literary Studies, 10(2), 17-32. Prieto, F. J. N. (2024). Alice Oswald's Poetical Cartography of the River Dart: Oswald's Echolocating Poetics Against the Cartographical Reason. Tropelías: Revista de Teoría de la Literatura y Literatura Comparada, (42), 301–315. https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_tropelias/tropelias.20244210206
Raworth, K. (2017). *Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist*. Random House Business Books.
Ruskin, J. (1856). Modern Painters: Volume III. Smith, Elder, and Co.
United Nations. (2015). Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. United Nations. https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda
Walker, G. (2012). Environmental justice: Concepts, evidence and politics. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203610671
Wolfe, C. (2010). What is posthumanism? (Vol. 8). University of Minnesota Press. (No DOI - Book)
Wright, J. (Ed.). (1905). The English Dialect Dictionary. Henry Frowde.