This thesis examines the depiction of pastoral nature in four novels set in the Interbellum period and written in the 1940s, using ecocritical theory to explore how these authors view the English...Show moreThis thesis examines the depiction of pastoral nature in four novels set in the Interbellum period and written in the 1940s, using ecocritical theory to explore how these authors view the English landscape. The chosen novels, Philip Larkin’s A Girl in Winter, Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle, Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh and L.P. Hartley’s The Shrimp and the Anemone, show different views on the English rural landscape but also share elements like childhood innocence and country estates. The analysis focuses on topics such as nostalgia, escapism and “Englishness”, using ecocritical concepts, for example retreat and return and the machine in the garden. The text argues that although nature is often idealised in connection with the past, the authors do not represent the landscape before the war as a merely idealised one. Realistic aspects disturb the harmony and nostalgic elements can become active examples for the future, which shows that the pastoral can be a functional genre in the field of ecocriticism.Show less
