셸리의 생태학적 이상

Abstract

Like other poets in the Romantic era, Shelley also sings Nature. But unlike them nature in his poems never appears benevolent or generous to human beings; rather overwhelmingly awesome and devastating. His poems show that the enmity is not against us human beings but against anything that we have builded under the name of “culture.” Removing “the disturbance” which has been imposed on nature by us helps us see exactly where we are in, not beyond or out of, the nature. In the ecological perspective, this alienation of the priority to nature can be the prototype of anti-anthropocentric perspective on nature. Shelley's anti-anthropocentric thought fathoms the depths of ecological consciousness. As far as human's conscious will is concerned, nature is still subject to the human control. For human beings are easily subject to the comfort and easiness which come from the exploitation of nature. In Shelley's works, human subjectivity on and activity toward nature are basically removed to be on the alert against the fragile will of human beings. Seen from the world of today deeply absorbed in the material prosperity, Shelley's ecological perspective give us the deepest insight into the nature. Many environmental movements start from the premise that the earth is fragile waiting for the hands of human beings. But the movement can be restricted in that the premise still hold the rights of human beings on nature vested by ourselves. Shelley sees that only when we recognize the superiority of nature and thus weave ourselves into the network of nature comes the Golden Times of human beings. When we grow old we separate from Mother's bosom to initiate the world. But in what sense is it more valuable to become an adult and a member of the tough world than to be in the cozy bosom of Mother Earth? Shelley appeals to us to go back to our nest, Mother Earth's bosom.