An Analysis of John Kinsella's Ecological Writing and His Anti-pastoral Philosophy

John Kinsella, a globally celebrated poet, author, critic, and professor from Australia, is distinguished by his literary works that emphasize the wheat belt of Western Australia with a focus on ecological themes. These works critically explore the profound environmental damage inflicted by human attempts to modify their surroundings to suit their own needs. This paper explores Kinsella's pastoral ecological philosophy through the lenses of "environment" "humanity" and "humanity-environment", highlighting the poet's intense involvement with and concern for the existential challenges facing humans. The concept of "environment" constitutes the central theme of nearly all of Kinsella's ecological poetry, with its deep-seated implications extending far beyond local concerns to address universal issues that affect all of humanity, while the "humanity" in his poetry is the exploitative actor towards the environment, our behavior and our lifestyle being the causes of the ecological calamities. At the heart of this predicament is the flawed premise of mankind seeing themselves as the yardstick to evaluate the "environment". It is only by prioritizing the overall benefit of the ecosystem as the core principle and supreme value that humanity can hope to genuinely and effectively mitigate the ecological crises.