ABSTRACT
It is hard to give a single, satisfactory definition of Romanticism and equally difficult to say what unites all the different accounts of ecology. Viewed as a science, ecology is a recognized and established discipline; as a politics or a system of values, it is highly contested. Environmentalists, conservationists, ecologists, and green activists all differ, often passionately, about what should be done and why it should be done - about how people should treat the world they live in and how they should conceive of their place within it. Similarly, literary critics argue about what defines Romantic poetry - its sublimity, its simplicity, the high value it places on imagination, or its mode of engagement with political, often revolutionary events. However, because Romanticism and ecology can both be understood in several ways, very different points of contact may be found between them.
