Ecocriticism

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A scholarly approach that investigates the portrayal of nature in literature while assessing ecological concerns and cultural contexts within narratives
2. An analytical framework aimed at understanding the effects of environmental issues on literary works and the reciprocal influence of culture on ecological themes
3. The examination of literary texts focusing on the relationship between human culture and the natural world

Etymology: Ecocriticism is a compound built from two parts: the prefix "eco-", taken from "ecology" (itself from Greek "oikos", meaning household or dwelling), and "criticism", the familiar term for the systematic study and interpretation of texts. Put together, the word names an approach to literature that asks how the natural world and environmental concerns shape stories and poems, and how literature in turn shapes people's ideas about nature. The "eco-" element is the surprising part of the story. It travelled from the biologist's vocabulary into literary study, so a term born in the study of living systems ended up describing a way of reading novels, poems and essays. The compound follows the same pattern as other academic coinages that pair a scientific prefix with an established humanities word, which is why it sounds technical even to readers who know both halves. Because the word is a straightforward combination of existing parts, its meaning follows directly from them: "eco-" supplies the environmental focus and "criticism" supplies the method of close reading and analysis.