The Function of Literature in Environmental Discourses

Maria Löschnigg

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Chapter 2 The Function of Literature in Environmental Discourses

In: Green Matters

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Maria Löschnigg

Maria Löschnigg
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 17–51

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004408876_003

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Abstract

Literature is a distinct system of knowledge characterized by trans-temporal and trans-contextual relevance. In this chapter I shall first elaborate on general questions related to why and how literature can impact culture and function as a catalyst of cultural change with regard to our human interaction with the more-than-human. Focusing on the importance of aesthetic diversity and on literature’s unique way of producing meaningful connectivity, I shall demonstrate how literature, as a distinctive imaginative and aesthetically shaped epistemological system, functions as a cultural reservoir, a pool of possibilities that fosters regenerative and dynamic models of culture. Literature, in fact, with its fluid inscription and infinite reiterability, can be understood as a “mediating agency between ecological, social and economic aspects of sustainability” (Meireis and Rippl 2019: 4).

The second and third parts of this chapter shall illustrate how ecological functions of literature are manifested in aesthetic frameworks of literary genres as well as in specific literary modes and techniques by drawing on the examples of ecodrama and intertextuality respectively. Reading Ian Meadows’ cli-fi-play Between the Waves from an ecocultural perspective yields interesting insight into the specific aesthetic potential of the dramatic text. In a similar way, the specific focus on intertextualiy as a particularly strong tool with regard to literature’s ecocultural function will be explored in the final section in connection with the example of the Canadian long poem.

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Green Matters

Ecocultural Functions of Literature

Series: Nature, Culture and Literature, Volume: 15

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004408876

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 22 Oct 2019

Subjects
- Literature and Cultural Studies

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Chapter 2 The Function of Literature in Environmental Discourses

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Green Matters

Ecocultural Functions of Literature

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