Abstract
Ecocriticism offers a broader horizon than the concept of world literature. Instead of treating culturally bonded beings and political events of a zeitgeist, ecocriticism sees human history and lifeworlds as only one trajectory among myriad evolutions of species and the earth. The Anthropocene, with its focus on post-natural universals such as “man as geological agent,” obscures the fatal contradictions within capitalism, which has inherent eco-destructive tendencies. As a mode of production aimed at robbing the worker and robbing the soil, capitalism is destined to pursue capital accumulation, profit, and growth to the destruction of ecospheres and human communities. Alternatively, eco-socialism sees humans as an organism integral to nature but believes that human production must protect human lives and community from nature's blind forces in order to survive and to thrive. The utopian dream resonates with the myths of the goddess and ideas of substantial rationality imbued with aesthetic aura and ecological bonds with nature and the earth. This present work seeks to recover the utopian dream of the reconciliation of humans and nature.
