Social, Psychological and Environmental Effects of Pollution in London from the Eyes of British Poets

Abstract

This study aims at studying social, psychological and environmental effects of pollution in London in British Poetry within the framework of ecocriticism. Since pollution is a growing problem in London since Middle Ages, the paper will focus on how pollution problem has been reflected in British Poetry with a brief background information on the history of pollution in London. Since England is the first industrialized country, London had been the first city that faced with the environmental pollution in the modern term. This problem which threatened the environment has been the subject of literature of the period especially to the poetry which had been the voice of the society for ages. However, it is ecocriticism, a new literary movement initiated in 1990s that paved the way to the analysis of literary texts under the light of environmental aspects. For this reason, environmental pollution problem in British Poetry will be handled within the frame of ecocritical method. In conclusion, with a study on environmental pollution problem from social, psychological, environmental aspects in the poems of selected poets from seventeenth century to the contemporary period within the frame of ecocriticism, the paper aims to emphasize that as the problem of pollution gets more serious, its reflection to the poetry is equally felt more obviously in the poetry.

Keywords: environmental pollution, British Poetry, ecocriticism, environment

DOI: 10.7176/JLLL/61-07

Publication date:October 31^st 2019