View of NATURE AND LITERATURE

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ACCENT JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS ECOLOGY & ENGINEERING Peer Reviewed and Refereed Journal (International Journal) ISSN-2456-1037

Vol. 05,Special Issue 01, (ICOSD-2020) January 2020, Available Online: www.ajeee.co.in/index.php/AJEEE

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NATURE AND LITERATURE

1Ankita Goyal

1Research Scholar, (English Literature), Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya, Indore, M.P., India

2Aparna Banik

2Associate Professor, Dept. (English Literature), Shri Cloth Market Girls Commerce College, Indore, M.P., India

Abstract- Nature plays an important role in the construction of human’s daily life and when nature and literature combines together it even gives more options for the betterment of the people. Many writers have contributed in the field of nature by writing about its beauty and a need of it for the survival of all living beings. No literary work is complete without talking about nature and its effects whether it is in the form of beauty or disaster.

This paper shows their going hand in hand and contributing for each other equally. As time passes, thinking, mentality and ideas also transform and these affect both nature and literature. By this paper how nature and literature help each other to stand together and try their level best in contributing throughout can be seen and the impact they leave over society by showing their importance will be discussed by taking some of the writers work into consideration. It can be seen that when writing about nature one cannot just write about its presence but what impact it has on the society and what will happen if nature gets destroyed is also been researched thoroughly. Many essays, poems and stories related to nature are being written from centuries for its conservation. Today’s writers also show interest in travelling all the way just for gathering information about nature and mix it with their characters life to give it an adventurous effect. This plays a great role to understand nature and its beauty with an essence of literature in it. This is a never ending relation which can be better understood in this paper.

Keywords: Beauty, Human, Literature, Nature, Throughout.

1. INTRODUCTION

Nature is that beautiful part of our life that shows the emotions and beauty of outside world. It is not just limited to the beauty of mountains, hills, trees or oceans but what a person possesses in himself is also a kind of beauty which can be discussed by watching his natural way of dealing anything, when he smiles or help each other with clear intentions or mean. In literature, nature has an important role to play and it has become a part of every author’s life. Literary writing is all about stories where a character plays a role to depict himself and his everyday needs with emotional state of mind and heart can be seen.

But when any story starts and ends or even it is going on, a writer gives a beautiful description about nature and its beauty by combining his characters life events with it. This combination makes the story artistic and innovative. Nature is that phenomena which is present everywhere physically and also in literature as a part of it. In other words it can be said that nature is a part of life for literature. As for any living being it is impossible to survive without air, water and food so for literature it is impossible to make itself grand and worth reading without the nature. For literature, nature is its food; nature is a support system which gives an essence to it whether it is for general use or plays a very important role in the story.

Role that nature plays in literature is like a constant way that has coming through the era of letters to now on in this contemporary era. In many texts it is seen that nature is used to describe the origin which gives the idea of the scenario and the world according to its nature. Even many of American and Indian tribes told stories based on nature. Tribes are a kind of community who settled even before any other societies existed. They are the kind who is so close to the nature and its beauty. The Iliad by Homer and many writers, poet describe about the people who came and started to live in the woods and valleys.

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is a kind of tale where nature and journey goes parallel throughout the whole story. In John Milton’s Paradise Lost both Heaven and Hell were demonstrated by their distinguished sense in the mean of their appearances and what kind of nature they exhibit. In this way nature is the main part of literature which shows its existence throughout the middle ages to this contemporary age.

It shows the act of human towards itself that how they feel attached towards nature by

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conserving and loving it throughout the ages by writing about it in poems and stories. As time goes on, literature also continues to change but nature never changes its path towards the welfare of humans and this quality was also recorded according to the demand in the romantic period where nature was the main supporting actor for the characters to feel the emotion and love.

Nature has become an important subject for poets and writers but for poets; their poetry has a main essence of nature which completes it beautifully. Nature plays a living role for them which make the character to bend themselves towards it whether it is for good or bad. A story can go both in good and bad sense and mostly it depends upon the description of nature in it. Many Indian and foreign writers have shown nature beautifully even from centuries. In India, nature is like a cure to every disease and a solution to every problem. Not a single religion or religious book is out of its reach where one cannot find nature in it.

In literary art, nature is even used as comparisons between human and nature itself. Women are always a point of discussion while compared with nature. Smile and happiness are also got compared with nature. For example, when a child laughs, people say it feels like a flower is blooming, when a beautiful lady smile, it is said that sky becomes pink and birds fly together showing their happiness and sun starts to shine its rays beautifully and so on. These kind of comparisons between human and nature are a part of literature which can be used as good or bad sense.

Many writers use nature as an inspiration and create a kind of environment where nature plays a role of Goddess and Divine. Nowadays it is very important to preserve this beautiful environment because as industrialization is growing fast, nature is losing its quality and importance. Growing technologies and increase in utilization of land is decreasing natural sources and green environment. Literature has many genres and every genre uses nature as its weapon and sometimes it is all about nature in some stories.

Mystery, paradox, adventure, magic, religion and many more genres uses nature as their protagonist in the novels.

As literature has become an important part of education also helps the society to know about nature and its condition throughout. Many writers like Shakespeare, Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Dickens and many more have contributed in nature for its betterment and uses natural disasters and beauty also for constructing their works. Nature according to them plays as a theme also. For example, fire plays a role of anger; ice plays a character of soft nature and a heart of feelings. Shakespeare uses nature with dramatic effects in his plays. In Julius Caesar, nature has many faces like storm which happens just before his death. When genre of magic came in nature many unusual thing starts to happen and also shows signs of something that will happen soon.

It is not compulsory that whenever talks about nature come it just have to be normal but it can be unusual and magical also. As for many writers nature leads the story magically and mysteriously also. People turning into plants, animals and fairies, magical herbs helping in different symptoms is also a part of nature. But now research is made according to the demand of the world and what this society has to focus for their welfare and to conserve like deforestation, climate change and disappearance of species is the main concern of modern world. Nature plays an important role here in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet.

According to Emerson, Thoreau believes that laws are not made by humans but it is decided by nature. Whitman says that nature possesses all the necessary information that a man needs to know if it is studied carefully. When nature is taken properly into consideration its messages starts to look clearer and life becomes easier to live. Nature is connected with literature as a guide, narrative treatment, symbolism, magical qualities and thematic overview. As literature reflects people’s culture same nature reflects life. When a seed starts to grow it continues to become big, dense and one day it gives fruits, shadow and at last wood. As same as life plays the part. This cycle helps the society to build their identities and philosophies about their life in this world.

When a relation between nature and human set properly it affects people’s mental and physical state. They start to react positively and increase their interests towards natural issues and try to get benefitted from the nature. They get experiences from nature also by watching it grow and to stick in every kind of situations. Even people feel connected

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and their emotions towards nature begin in them which lead to a secure future of both human and nature. It is seen that as time changes people in comparison to past is now not much connected to nature as they were that time. To live comfortably and with all means they cut the nature day by day and this leads to the growing distance with nature.

In India and other countries many efforts are made to conserve our environment through seminars, workshops, government efforts, and now it is a great point of discussion in children syllabus too. In schools and colleges many program related to nature conservation has started. Through literature many writers are playing great role in writing about its condition and how to make it secure again. Present time is very different from the time when people used to be connected with nature. Many civilizations existed because of nature. They in past centuries took shelter under trees, eat its fruits, burn its woods and started to grow more in numbers and this happens all because of the use of water and greenery which they were conserving.

All this information that we have now is because of literature. In this way literature is a great medium to discover new ideas by taking past into consideration. It can be better understood when some examples about novels can be seen. As in Isabel Allende’s novel, City of the Beasts, she has described about Amazon forests and its locals. She has described about the condition of Amazon forest and how the locals are surviving there. It is dense and also horrible to survive there but then too the locals are happy and soft hearted.

They don’t want to leave that place and conserving every possible area through their knowledge about those areas.

They are used to of those dense forests and rain. According to them it is beautiful to be connected with mother Earth and nature with such closeness. They have whole society residing there with not many outside facilities but they are happy and continue to live there throughout. In one of the other novel of Allende, Kingdom of the Golden Dragon, she has described about Himalayas and its condition according to the global warming issues. She has said that people used to live there in very past and now also it is not bad to live there.

She has described about the Yetis who used to live there but now is disappearing because of global issues and mixing of poisonous chemicals in the water and in air.

Her effort makes us feel that we are not limited to our land areas but also making efforts beyond our reach.Not only in novels but also poetry has a theme of nature through the ages. As seasons change according to the weather so the theme of poems also and this makes it more innovative and creative. Romantic Movement is best known for beauty described in the form of natural phenomenon where nature plays the main role. Some of the nature poets who have contributed in literature belong to 19th century and made the nature more beautiful are John Keats, William Wordsworth, Emily Dickinson, Alfred Tennyson and many more.

Nature for the romantics means everything which is presented as an art mixing with divine thinking and imagination in artistic language. Nature has every power that can heal, built, and can talk also. But it can also be possible as weather changes due to global warming, environmental degradation, overpopulation and pollution so will literature too according the demand and theme of literature about nature will play kinds of role for its preservation and for the safety of our planet.

2. CONCLUSION

In this way nature is that part of Universe which has a proper cycle as is grows and dies also according to its time and this thing has been noticed by our writers and poets. They observe the changes and style of the life cycle of the nature and try to paint it in their writings. They write about its beauty, danger, its relation with us, and its comparison with us also. People are so close with nature is all because of the writings provided by the writers to us in the form of literature. In S.T. Coleridge’s poem, The Rime of the Ancient Marinerwritten in 17^th century, nature was so beautifully described that after reading it we almost scream in both excitement and also in fear.

Nothing in life is easy; if one insults the law of life it will throw that insult with double impact and so the nature too. Rain or flood, earthquakes, volcano eruption, tsunami, fire in the woods are the worst faces of natural disasters that cause due to their bad use and ignorance of humans. When nature is taken good care, we see its beautiful face also in the form of flowers, fruits, rivers, birds, animals, sun rays and ice.Nature is

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huge to explain but when one started to love it nothing looks huge, everything seem to be lovable and respectful. Nature is said as Heaven’s beautiful reflection on Earth. Man has divided nature as per categories where urban point of view and rural view about nature has come in front.

People nowadays use nature as per their need and for decorative purposes and in rural areas nature is worshiped as God. In Alice Hoffman’s Nightbird written in present century, people stood together for preserving tress from cutting down because that area was full of owls. Trees were being cut for the construction of Mall in that area. From this novel people find out the importance of nature and what unity can do. In this way literature plays a great role for nature. It is a kind of bond that human and nature share for preserving each other in every possible way. Nature has always been the centre of attraction and is inspiring people to write about it from whole heartedly and with pure soul.

REFERENCES

1. Allende, Isabel. “City of the Beasts.” United States: Rayo, 2002. Print.

2. Allende, Isabel. “Kingdom of the Golden Dragon.” United States: Rayo/Harper Collins, 2005. Print.

3. Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Canterbury Tales.” England. C.1400. Manuscript.

4. Coleridge, Samuel. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” Bristol, 1798. Book.

5. Hoffman, Alice. “Night bird.” Great Britain, United Kingdom: Simon and Schuster, 2015. Print.

6. Milton, John. “Paradise Lost.” England: Samuel Simmons, 1667. Print.