My thesis project focuses on the current literary field of Ecocriticism, its historical transmutations, and the correlation of the pastoral genre, as one begins to understand current human understandings of nature. By applying a deeper understanding of the Deep Ecology movement, along with shifting understandings of the human and the non-human, specifically in our usage and attention to landscape and wilderness, I hope to explore the role that the aesthetic, and the function of the poem, can play a crucial role in the environmental movement. By building a foundational understanding of our cultural context and critical theories of Environmental criticism, I hope to illuminate the necessary ways that place, body, and language/perception all interact with each other to create a specific experiential moment of nature. This environmental epiphany can be modeled best in the poem that reflects the thisness of nature, as Hopkins calls it, and emphasizes the aura/essence of the land with which we interaction. This project will apply its theoretical concerns to the poetry of Brian Teare, who illuminates many of the concerns of landscape, perception, and bodily engagement
