S. Koteeswaran

Eco Criticism is a new crital method available to critics to analyze literature. Eco Criticism gives the readers of literatures a better understanding of nature. Eco Criticism is not just studying nature as represented in Literature. It helps human beings to have a broader view of nature. The poetry of Nissim Ezekiel not only deals with love, loneliness, human foibles, but also portrays nature merits which gives eco critical attention. The poems Squirrel, Sparrows, Poet, Lover and Bird Watcher of Nissim Ezekiel and A.K. Ramanujan’s poems Snakes, A River, and Looking for a cousin on a swing deal with nature.

Nissim Ezekiel poem Squirrel merits eco-critical attention.

An Agile flick of grey and brown

And he is gone, like a thought

To sport with leaves and sun

-----------------------------

As to a home

At any cost

Bound.

The beautiful description of the squirrel brings the figure of the squirrel before the eyes of the readers. Basically the squirrels live in trees and it is obviously found in Europe, Asia and America. There are two species in Squirrels namely, The fire striped palm Squirrel and the three striped palm Squirrel. The Squirrels always like to live with man and always dependent on man for food and shelter. It helps for pollination. Squirrels have the privilege of helping God, Rama It is a domestic animal, which was preferred by human Beings.

The cute description of the Squirrel puts forth Ezekiel’s eco consciousness. The colour of the Squirrel the author described is grey and brown. The mischievous activity of the squirrel like sporting with leaves is very attractive. The soft fingers and smooth body and its human bound nature are elegantly described by Ezekiel. Sparrows, another poem by Ezekiel describes the habits of sparrow.

You may not doubt their single aim,

Which is to fly and then to mate,

Aroused to build with twig and leaf

A nest sufficient for the need

Open, warm and planned to give

A truly bird’s-eye view of things

Perhaps there is a better creed

Among Sparrow-Communities.

Like all the nest building birds, the sparrows actively build their nest with twigs and leaves. The way it build is with all preplan to get a good nest. The making of nest is a better creed among Sparrow communities. In the poem Ezekiel points out that when statesmen are thinking of unity are larger, houses, there birds with their small rests have unity. Philosophers in their solitude ponder over the density of Sparrow.

An Ecocritical Reading of the Select Poems of Nissim Ezekiel and A.K. Ramanujan

Proceedings of UGC Sponsored ONE DAY National Workshop on LITERARY CRITICISM AND LITERARY THEORIES (LCLT-2015) 58

ISBN 978-93-84743-58-1 © 2015 Bonfring

Artists with plastic sense

Who learns to love their loneliness,

Or statesmen of a sort who say,

‘our safety dies in unity

And larger nests, prosperity’

Philosophers in solitude

The sparrows are keen on mating. But still the number of these birds are decreasing. The population of these birds are clearly on the decline. Even though the Indian culture depicts it as a mating bird, this species is moving towards extinction.

In the poem, Poets, Lover. Bird watcher Ezekiel shows the interest of the persons, who are interested to study birds. The movement of the bird watcher is explained with a kind of natural instinct. If a bird watcher wants to watch birds of rare kind, he has to got to deserted places or to a place somewhere near the source of the river. Ezekiel illustrates his view by comparing a poet to a lover and a birdwatcher In each case, he says, illumination and fulfillment come through a patient wait and through silent perseverance,

The second stanza emphasizes that slow movement is good in all the three activities poetry. love and ornithology. If one wants to watch the rarer birds, one has to go remote places just as one has to discover love in a remote place like the heart's dark place.

A.K.Ramanujan's poem, Snake's challenges culture. It is a beautiful poem which says how human beings overcome and disturbs nature. In the poem Looking for a Cousin on a Swing, the enjoyment of a girl in the past is contrasted with the girl in the present. Not only her childhood Changes in to adulthood but also the natural scenes which were in the past is changed in to an unworthy one. A River is a poem in which, the poet describes the river in Madurai and shows how it became mere stream today.

A.K.Ramanujan's poem Snakes finds a place in his first collection The Striders. The watcher in the poem sees a snake in everything, He Says:

But, walking in museums of Quartz

Or the aisles of book stacks,

Looking at their geometry

-----------------------------------

Gold on its spine

I think of, snakes.

The speaker says that he is reminded of snakes not when he walks through the woods but when he walks through rows of books stocked in a library. When he is thus reminded of snakes, he begins to hear the hissing sound which they produce, and visualizes their raised hoods and he also visualize them as shedding their skins when those skins become withered almost every month.

The most striking feature of this poem is its imagery. These are visual imagery and sound-imagery in this poem. There are the hissing sounds of the snakes, pictures of the snakes rising their hoods and discarding their withered skins, the pictures of the curves of the snakes and the snakes sucking milk from saucers. One of the most striking pictures is that of the speaker's sister tying her hair in to braids with a knot of ornamental thread, and using clean new pins to hold the braids together. The persona observes:

Sisters ties her braids with a knot of tassel.

But the weave of he knee-long braid has scales

Their gleaming held by a score of clean new pins.

In the poem Looking For a Cousin on a Swing a little village girl, just four of five years old, used to sit on a swing with her male cousin about six or seven years old and they used to enjoy the experience of the swing. After

Proceedings of UGC Sponsored ONE DAY National Workshop on LITERARY CRITICISM AND LITERARY THEORIES (LCLT-2015) 59

ISBN 978-93-84743-58-1 © 2015 Bonfring

enjoying the swing for sometime the cousin enjoyed another adventure which was to climb a tree. The tree was not very tall but it was full of leaves resembling the leaves of a fig tree.

Now that the girl is fully grown up; and she wistfully recalls the swinging movements and the pleasure she used to experience. A.K.Ramanujan's skillfully compares the past with the present. Even one can see here the Eco-centrical view of A.K. Ramanujan. The girl looks for a swing in cities which have many suburbs and which are thickly populated. This mature girl still tries to speak innocently about her desire to find a cousin who can join her on a swing and revive -the pleasure which she used to enjoy in her Childhood.

The girl in the poem did not find the trees and also the swing in the city. The mere atmosphere was fully changed. The earth, the dwelling place of all human beings keeps on changing everyday. Here A.K.Ramanujan slightly hints at the careless attitude of the city people upon nature.

The poem, A River beautifully picturizes the river in Madurai city. Madurai is a city of temples and poets. Once upon a time the river was flooded with water and people enjoyed by bathing there. He also heard people talking about the flood waters sweeping away three village homes, one pregnant woman, and a couple of cows, almost every year.

There was enough water in the river to inspire the poets to compose poems. The poem also says how the river is changed to narrow stream during the summer season. Because nature keeps on changing. When it is reduced to narrow stream its water cannot pass through the water gates because of the piles of straw and women's hair which obstruct its flow. The bridges over this river are marked with many patches of repair. Those stones of the bridges, which became, wet, begin to glisten (or shine) while the dry stones retains their original dull colour.

In short, the poets make a clear understanding of nature with their poetic vision.

Proceedings of UGC Sponsored ONE DAY National Workshop on LITERARY CRITICISM AND LITERARY THEORIES (LCLT-2015) 60

ISBN 978-93-84743-58-1 © 2015 Bonfring