Micro-Landscapes of the Anthropocene

Act 1, Scene 1: An Introduction

CLOUDS

 

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

- William Wordsworth


The ‘Anthropocene’ is a term that is heavily contested by critics and scientists alike. There is discord in regards to both its appropriateness in marking our current geological era (perhaps Moore’s ‘Capitalocene’ does hold a better argument), and in terms of its precise date of origin. However, when searched into google images, the term ‘Anthropocene’ conjures up an eidetic image of a cloud, marking a very specific historical event. 

Cloud, n. 

a visible mass of condensed watery vapour floating in the atmosphere, typically high above the general level of the ground.

(oxford languages)


One may now ask, what kind of cloud?

Is it an ancient one from Aristophanes' comedy, mocking the ways of the sophists? Or is it Wordsworth's romantic cloud floating only to encounter 'a crowd of golden daffodils'? 

There is no lacuna in 'cloud' writing within the literary tradition. Yet in representing the Anthropocene, the word 'cloud' evokes another image altogether, and that is of a mushroom cloud. For someone perhaps unknown to history, they would first get beguiled by the term's soft assonance - ‘mushroom cloud'. Yet the mellow low-vowel sounds, in the wake of WWII, signify something infinitely heavier, hollowed by the experience of unimaginable terror and violence. If the image of the Anthropocene is the image of this cloud, then ecocritic Irmgard Emmelheinz’s statement speaks volumes:

The Anthropocene is the "Age of Man" that announces its own extinction. (138) 

In the interim, as we wait for that end, the following pages hope to briefly humour the reader with some thoughts and readings on artworks, theory and other literary texts. Like a cloud, let us float through eco-critical thoughts and musings  After all, as Shakespeare's Prospero once observed: 

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. (IV.i.148–158)


I do not think that this play, like the Bard's, will be 'rounded with a sleep.' But I do think its denouement has yet to be written. 

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Cited Texts:

Aristophanes. “The Clouds.” The Internet Classics Archive. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristophanes/clouds.html

Emmelhainz, Irmgard. “Images Do Not Show: The Desire to See in the Anthropocene.” In Art in the Anthropocene: Encounters Among Aesthetics, Politics, Environments and Epistemologies, edited by Heather Davis and Etienne Turpin, 131-141. Open Humanities Press, 2015.  http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/art-in-the-anthropocene/

Moore, Jason W. Anthropocene or Capitalocene?: Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism. PM Press/Kairos, 2016.

Shakespeare, William. “The Tempest.” The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. http://shakespeare.mit.edu/tempest/full.html

Wordsworth, William. “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.” Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45521/i-wandered-lonely-as-a-cloud

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  1. What is the difference between going as the cloud goes and running like the river runs? If the cloud is without a set path and without borders, does this make it margin-less? How do we know when our path is that of the cloud which could be described as aimless and maybe even willful because it is so without fate or destiny, rolling into itself? For when the river runs, it is so much more guided by the banks and the indentations of the earth around it, even by the very tectonic plates on which it sits. Can we take these two heavenly and earthly things and combine them. Can we mave of the cloud a river and of the river a cloud? When a person is left to that which he will, there is often a lack of movement. He must be submerged in a river or a world so vastly different he finds himself the fool. And as the fool he know he must progress to be a common fellow, lest he stand apart and society punish him. Then there is movement. There is movement and there is progress to be better, and it is all the more speedy if there is a guide. A mentor which the fool could follow to improve and keep him grounded in the new river-world. Yet, still, he must be curious, and energetic, and appreciative. He must bring energy and be will to acknowledge his lack of understanding and incompetence. So then the cloud becomes the river.

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