"Symbiosis or Death": - Rhodes University

21
The puzzle of ecology, then, is that in order to attain it we would have to lose our
humanity, or at least the position into which it has led us. We are and we are not part of
nature. Our consciousness separates us from nature, while our instinct unites us with the
Earth. Is it possible for modern humankind to become reconscientised? Bate is, I think,
calling for a synthesis between consciousness, expressed through language, and instinct.
Towards the end of The Song of the Earth he returns to the premise of using language as
a bridge between humankind and the Earth.
Locked in the prison-house of language, dwelling in the logos not the oikos, we
know only the text not the land. Unless, that is, we could come to understand that
every piece of land is itself a text, with its own syntax and signifying potential. Or
one should say: come to understand once again, as our ancestors did. For the idea
that the earth itself is a text is a very old one. And there used to be an agreed
answer about who the author is. (237)
Bate is here talking about logos as relation. He posits it as a possibility or an ideal shown
through the repeated phrase “come to understand”.
While Bate does not make it clear what he means by “author”, I read this as the
maker. The logos is sometimes interpreted by scholars as the Word: “In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1.1). Perhaps
Bate, in using the word “author”, assumes a source or organising principle of life on
Earth. This is akin to Livingstone’s Creative Principle. For example, in “Science and
Truth” Livingstone says:
Truth seems to reserve for itself a quality of subtlety or elusiveness, which would
infer that the pursuit of a definitive proof of the truth, as opposed to truth itself, is
reminiscent of trying to ‘prove’ the existence of God (or a Creative Principle)
whereas, by all accounts, ‘awareness’ of God is essentially ‘experiential’. (1986:
106)
Language and the way in which it is used constitutes the basic ingredient of
literature. Literary ecocriticism offers an ecological interpretation of texts. Cheryl
Glotfelty says: “Simply put, ecocriticism is the study of the relationship between
literature and the physical environment” (Glotfelty & Fromm xviii). She lists a number of
the questions which could be asked by literary ecocritics ranging from the focussed “How
is nature represented in this sonnet?” to the much broader “What cross-fertilization is
possible between literary studies and environmental discourse in related disciplines such
as history, philosophy, psychology, art history and ethics?” (xix). She also points to the
central concern of culture in ecocriticism: