Romantic Ecology: Nature, Ethics and Environmental Consciousness in the British Romantic Poetry

This research paper explores environmental themes in Romantic poetry, examining how major Romantic poets conceptualize nature as sacred, dynamic, restorative, and morally instructive. Through close readings of selected poems by William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, and William Blake, this study demonstrates that Romantic poetry offers a proto-environmentalist critique of human domination over nature. The paper situates Romantic ecological thought within its historical context and connects it to contemporary environmental criticism, particularly ecocriticism.