“Why are we by all creatures waited on?”1 Situating John Donne and George Herbert in Early Modern Ecological Discourse Abstract

Laura Ralph

Scholars of early modern literary ecocriticism have focused much deserved attention on writers whose works abound with the images and themes of nature. Little attention has been paid in this regard to the works of John Donne, for his writings focus more intently upon the inner workings of the human subject than they do the physical environment. However, it is precisely Donne’s philosophically inclined, interrogative mode of thinking that enables him to consider the human relation to the material world with a heightened degree of sensitivity. Donne’s treatment and discussion of nonhuman nature are less frequent than many of his contemporaries. Yet when Donne’s literary representations of the natural environment are contrasted to the abundant nature poetry of contemporary poet George Herbert, it is Donne, who interrogates anthropocentric assumptions of his era, while Herbert, reasserts the prevailing framework without question. Although Donne’s poetry does not consistently resonate with ecological sentiment, in his willingness to question assumptions of human superiority, Donne emerges as an ecologically conscious early modern poet and a worthy contributor to the discourse of early modern ecology.