ABSTRACT
Despite its attempts to re-write the canon, ecocriticism, to some extent, has only succeeded in creating a canon of its own. The centrality, in the US, of Lawrence BuelPs The Environmental Imagination, which establishes Thoreauvian Romantic nature writing as the origin of 'ecocentric' thought, and the dominance in the UK of Jonathan Bate's book on Wordsworth, Romantic Ecology, has installed 'Romanticism' as pivotal within this ecocritical canon. Yet even its most literal statement, Bate's, is somewhat paradoxical. Bate argues that it is 'valuable and important to make claims for the historical continuity of a tradition of environmental consciousness'. Yet, parts of the book are less about Wordsworth and more about a Victorian tradition. For instance, his third chapter ends by stating (the italics are mine):
My intention in this essay, then, is to muddy the waters - and to propose a 'Victorian ecology' that stands in an obvious, critical relation to 'Romantic ecology'. 'Victorian ecology', I believe, offers a rich mine of sources for the 'tradition of environmental consciousness'. It could (and should) be the subject of a far broader study than I can offer here. However, this essay will outline the main trajectories of 'Victorian ecology' and indicate some central, literary sources in ways not previously attempted.
