John Ruskin and Eco-Criticism

John Ruskin is not only a writer,an aesthete,an architect and a poet,but also an environmental protector with great foresight.Along with the development of global industry and the aggravating environmental problems,some scholars have started to approach environmentalism from a historical perspective,and they have found that Ruskin and his strong ecological awareness are too important to be neglected.Based on a close reading of Ruskin,this paper intends to analyze his ecological awareness and its commonalities with contemporary eco-criticism.Although Ruskin's ecological awareness arises from his reflections on the 19th-century industrial revolution in Britain,it is necessary for us,in face of our increasing sense of anxiety towards the 21st-century living environment,to re-read and re-explore him from the ecological perspective.