Last week, spring was in the air: the sun was shining, the birds where chirping, and the cars polluted the air.¹ But only two of these observations will presumably enter most stories that feature this season. Except when one writes specifically about pollution, that is. Such as in the famous ‘Fable for Tomorrow’ that opens the 1962 book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson.² And we might wonder whether it will be such specific works that shall survive and determine the reconstructed societal views on nature that will be attributed to our current day by the scholars of the future, when they are trying to glean these from our stories. Though, we do not need to wonder that much, as we ourselves struggle with similar questions regarding our own past.

It is therefore no surprise that many scholars have already tried to find a methodology through which they may establish the societal attitudes towards nature in the past. And in the absence of Medieval or Renaissance IPCC Reports, although there were writings on nature back then, many of these methodologies turn to the stories that were told in those days.³ These efforts started out surveying the more recent past, but have lately also made inroads in the study of antiquity. The early focus here was primarily on classical Greece and ancient Rome, but even this confined approach has resulted in some spectacular insights in a short span of time.⁴ And there have also been pioneering efforts that include the rest of the ancient Mediterranean as well as the ancient Near East.⁵ To introduce this interesting research, I will take the opportunity to explain one of the methodologies that are used in this research: storied ecology.

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The Environmental Humanities

If we want to appreciate the methodology of storied ecology, it is important that we first learn something about the field wherein this approach was thought up. Today this field is variously called ecocriticism or the environmental humanities. These are not the same thing, though. If we give credit where it’s due, the scholarly field of ecocriticism can claim seniority. It came up in the seventies, whereas the environmental humanities only coalesced in the nineties.⁶ But the environmental humanities came to encompass ecocriticism in addition to many other approaches, as they combine relevant research beyond the strict divisions that are nowadays often maintained between fields like history and ecology.⁷ The environmental humanities are therefore also able to fill in the proverbial gaps left by ecocriticism.⁸ Because, within the field of ecocriticism scholars look primarily at the arts – and especially literature – in order to figure out what tropes about and constructs of nature are used therein ⁹ They do this, simply speaking, to establish how societal notions bleed into those works and how such efforts in turn influence these notions. And this ecocritical approach did bear fruit. As a kind of “literary archeology”, it has helped us to rescue the discourse on nature from many old prejudices.¹⁰ For instance, ecocritical scholars dismantled the idea that nature consists solely of those areas that are exempt from permanent human habitation so they can stay or become wilderness – like national parks – or remain otherwise (relatively) unspoiled by our interference. Because nature is, in fact, all around us and nowadays perhaps no place on earth is free from human interference.¹¹ And when the environmental humanities finally did emerge, they certainly did not ignore the challenges presented by ecocritical research, but they also went beyond them.

Because the environmental humanities, as befits such an interdisciplinary field, have a much broader goal than ecocriticism. They aim to place humanity back in nature as an explicit part of it.¹² As such, they care about the impact nature has on humanity as well as the impact that humanity has on nature.¹³ And this includes, obviously, our attitudes towards nature as they emerge, for example, through our art and stories.¹⁴ In doing so, the environmental humanities produce both knowledge and criticism.¹⁵ They teach us about our place in nature as human animals and all that this entails, beyond common assumptions that might be lacking or even be outdated. But this field is also able to inform us about the vast array of consequences of our attitudes and actions towards all those other parts of the environment that are not human.¹⁶

The Environmental Humanities and the Ancient World

It was therefore perhaps inevitable that the environmental humanities would turn to the past and, eventually, antiquity.¹⁷ Because we can rummage the past for different perspectives on our natural environments. And getting a grasp on these perspectives might open our eyes to understandings that are no longer immediately apparent. It is important to note, though, that such different perspectives from bygone days are not likely to offer immediate solutions for our contemporary problems.¹⁸ However, they can nonetheless help us to reflect on our current relationship with our environment. Especially antiquity arguably provides a whole reservoir of interesting perspectives in this regard, that may help us conceive other views on nature.¹⁹

And this is far from a controversial statement. Even works that are considered classics within the field already harkened back to antiquity. The aforementioned book Silent Spring, for instance, alluded to the genre of pastoral literature, that has its roots in the ancient world.²⁰ Though the distance between us and antiquity is vast – even for those of us that regularly feel like they are ancient themselves! As such, we need to find a way to extract those perspectives on nature from these faraway days that might interest us. And here storied ecology comes in.

Storied Ecology

To scour ancient texts for different perspectives on nature is not easy. Especially with the ancient Greek and Roman texts, there is already a lot of baggage. As many ideas and perceptions have been projected unto these documents in the long time that they have been studied. And these still inform our impression of their contents.²¹ There are therefore persistent prejudices which inhibit an effective appraisal of such texts. Like the idea that ancient cultures mostly lived in harmony with nature.²² Here the importance of a reliable methodology becomes apparent.

And storied ecology might just be such a methodology. In the words of prominent proponent Christoper Schliephake, this approach “is concerned with the study of human thought and meaning-making connected to the natural environment and attitudes toward it.”²³ A storied ecological reading of ancient literary narratives can – if these texts do indeed echo the various interconnections that existed between the human beings of the time and their contemporary non-human world – uncover the landscapes of the mind contained therein.²⁴ Simply put: a storied ecological reading of our ancient sources offers us a window on the way the natural environment was constructed in ancient thought.²⁵ This constructed natural environment can potentially give us insight regarding why the humans of the ancient world appropriated the actual natural environment the way they did, how they developed ecological knowledge, and in which ways they themselves where influenced by this knowledge and that environment.²⁶

For some examples, we return to ancient Greece once again. Where last week we talked about the poignant meaning that was attributed to the word τύχη – those circumstances that are outside of our control but nonetheless influence the course of our lives – we now look for the perceptible attitudes towards the natural environment in the texts that have come down to us. And these attitudes have proven to be manifold and can be found in even the most pedestrian and unexpected of documents.²⁷ Many authors write about the dangers of nature and present the world outside the human-made environs as inimical to our presence.²⁸ While others still retain inimical presences, like cyclopes, but situate them in a veritable idyll.²⁹ And then there are those writers that emphasize our responsibility and the impact we can and do have on the state of nature.³⁰ And they were not wrong or overly optimistic, let me tell you. For example, we know of an ancient Athenian policy to clean the river Ilissos and to prohibit the dumping of industrial waste there.³¹ And these measures seem to have sorted tangible effects, if we can believe Plato’s later description of the place!³² These varied impressions present us with the task to find out what attitudes used to prevail regarding which natural environments and what circumstances were relevant therein. Considering our wealth of ancient sources, I’d wager that one could spend an entire scholarly career delving into this subject and end up merely scratching the surface.

Conclusion: Between Stories and Society

Employing the methodology of storied ecology to glean past attitudes towards the natural environment from ancient texts, is of course not the only such use of these sources. Like the ancient ideas on climate and the environment found their way into the texts of antiquity, it has been shown that the current climate crises are filtering through to contemporary popular culture. Though regularly not in a way that we might immediately recognize.³³ So, in addition to mining them for fresh perspectives, the study of ancient texts might also help us to get a better grip on this process. Though even if we recognize these and other uses, it is imperative to beware of anachronisms and to not project our current problems on ancient societies.³⁴ Even if it was only, because studying the radically different worlds of the distant past on their own terms entails rewards in and of itself.³⁵ And these rewards arguably increase when we involve more ancient cultures then is now regularly the case.³⁶

But even though we should not project our current problems on antiquity, the people back then did – to a certain extent – face similar challenges.³⁷ The industrial efforts of the Roman Empire, for instance, caused pollution of heavy metals in the ice caps of Greenland with a magnitude that would not be seen again until the industrial revolution of the 18^th and 19^th centuries CE.³⁸ And human-driven extinctions also have precursors in the distant past.³⁹ Deforestation through human action, is another example. This was a problem throughout the ancient Mediterranean a well as the ancient Near East.⁴⁰ Consequently one could argue that the Anthropocene, or the era when humans can be said to begin making their mark on the global ecosystem of this amazing space rock that we call home, begins way earlier than is usually assumed. We will therefore take up this question – when did the Anthropocene actually begin? – next week.

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References

1. This example was partly inspired by: Cheryl Lousley, “Ecocriticism”, in: Paula Rabinowitz (ed.), Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), p. 2.
2. Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962), p. 1-3.
3. Christopher Schliephake, The Environmental Humanities and the Ancient World: Questions and Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), p. 16.
4. Ibidem, p. 13.
5. Wolfgang Haber, “Anthropozän: Folgen für das Verhältnis von Humanität und Ökologie”, in: Wolfgang Haber, Martin Held & Markus Vogt (eds.), Die Welt Im Anthropozän: Erkundungen Im Spannungsfeld Zwischen Ökologie Und Humanität (München: Oekom, 2016), p. 19–38; Stephanie Dalley, “The Natural World in Ancient Mesopotamian Literature”, in: John Parham & Louise Westling (eds.), A Global History of Literature and the Environment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), p. 21-36; Massih Zekavat, “Ecocriticism and Persian and Greek Myths about the Origin of Fire”, Comparative Literature and Culture, 16 (4), p. 10:1-9.
6. Christopher Schliephake, “Introduction”, in: Christopher Schliephake (ed.), Ecocriticism, Ecology, and the Cultures of Antiquity (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2017), p. 2.
7. Robert S. Emmett & David E. Nye, The Environmental Humanities: A Critical Introduction (Cambridge: The MIT Press 2017), p. 101-102.
8. Ibidem, p. 3-5.
9. Greg Garrard, Ecocriticism (Third edition) (Abingdon: Routledge, 2023), p. 7. Some even equate ecocriticism with studying “the relationship between literature and the physical environment”, see: Cheryll Gotfelty, “Introduction: Literary Studies in an Age of Environmental Crisis”, in: Cheryll Glotfelty & Harold Fromm (eds.), The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology (Athens: University of Georgia Press), p. xviii.
10. Schliephake, “Introduction”, p. 1-2.
11. Ibidem, p. 2; Steven Vogel, Thinking like a Mall: Environmental Philosophy after the End of Nature (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2015), p. 1-31.
12. Brooke Holmes, “Foreword: Before Nature?”, in: Christopher Schliephake (ed.), Ecocriticism, Ecology, and the Cultures of Antiquity (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2017), p. xii.
13. Louise Westling, Deep History, Climate Change, and the Evolution of Human Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022), p. 18-20.
14. Schliephake, “Introduction”, p. 3.
15. Emmett & Nye, The Environmental Humanities, p. 2.
16. Ibidem, p. 6-8.
17. Schliephake, The Environmental Humanities and the Ancient World, p. 1-2.
18. Ibidem, p. 2-5.
19. Ibidem, p. 6-8; Brooke Holmes, “Greco-Roman Ethics and the Naturalistic Fantasy”, Isis 2014, 105 (3), p. 570.
20. Schliephake, “Introduction”, p. 7; Garrard, Ecocriticism, p. 2, 6.
21. Schliephake, “Introduction”, p. 3-4.
22. Ibidem, p. 6.
23. Schiephake, The Environmental Humanities and the Ancient World, p. 24.
24. Hubert Zapf, “Cultural Ecology, the Environmental Humanities, and the Transdisciplinary Knowledge of Literature”, in: Serpil Oppermann & Serenella Iovino (eds.), Environmental Humanities: Voices  from the Anthropocene (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), p. 65.
25. Schiephake, The Environmental Humanities and the Ancient World, p. 27; Roger Buxton, Imaginary Greece: The Contexts of Mythology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 81.
26. Schiephake, The Environmental Humanities and the Ancient World, p. 18, 24.
27. Ibidem, p. 28.
28. Buxton, Imaginary Greece, p. 87.
29. Richard Buxton, “Landscapes of the Cyclopes”, in: Greta Hawes, (ed.), Myths on the Map: The Storied Landscapes of Ancient Greece (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), p. 54.
30. Cinzia Bearzot, “Ancient Ecology: Problems of Terminology”, in: Orietta D. Cordovana & Gian Franco Chiai (eds.), Pollution and Environment in Ancient Life and Thought (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2017), p. 54, 58.
31. Livio Rossetti, “Il Più Antico Decreto Ecologico a Noi Noto e il Suo Contesto’, in: Thomas M. Robinson and Linda Westra (eds.), Thinking about the Environment: Our Debt to the Classical and Medieval Past (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2002), p. 44–57.
32. Plato’s Phaedo, 227a-230e, see: Bearzot, “Ancient Ecology”, p. 55.
33. Emmet & Nye, The Environmental Humanities, p. 94.
34. Oliver Rackham, “Ecology and Pseudo-Ecology: The Example of Ancient Greece”, in: John Salmon and Graham Shipley (eds.), Human Landscapes in Classical Antiquity: Environment and Culture (New YorkRoutledge, 1996), p. 17.
35. Schliephake, “Introduction”, p. 4.
36. Ibidem, p. 10.
37. Schliephake, The Environmental Humanities and the Ancient World, p. 5.
38. Ibidem, p. 23. And yet again I made you think of the Roman Empire!
39. Ibidem, p. 28.
40. John Donald Hughes, “Deforestation and Forest Protection in the Ancient World”, in: Orietta Dora Cordovana & Gian Franco Chiai (eds.), Pollution and the Environment in Ancient Life and Thought (Stuttgart: Franz-Steiner-Verlag, 2017), p. 203; Marc van de Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East (Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2016), p. 7; Roger Sands Forestry in a Global Context (Wallingford: CABI Publishing, 2005), p. 16.