Abstract
How a writer's love for his or her fellow persons is (or is not) connected to his or her love for the natural environment is the topic of this comprehensive collection of essays, examining the association of Marxist (red) and eco-critical (green) perspectives in literary studies spanning the period of the late eighteenth to the late twentieth century. In a more detailed analysis of the poem 'The Ragwort' (1832), Gorji argues that the triumph of this persecuted plant is political in so far as it is a critique of anthropocentrism that goes beyond being socially levelling but in fact levels the conventional hierarchy that presume the human/social world to be superior to the natural world. While Wilson crossed the Atlantic and explored vast expanses of the North American continent, his attention to the details of natural world, and his efforts to preserve it in his art, make him Clare's peer in the tradition of labouring-class contributions to environmental literature.