Wood, Naomi. “A (Sea)
Green Victorian: Charles Kingsley and the The Water-Babies,” Lion
and the Unicorn Vol. 19, No. 2 (1995): 233-52.
Wood argues that Kingsley's naturalism, especially
as depicted in The Water-Babies, may be considered as proto-environmentalism.
Kingsley throughout this tale blames his contemporaries' too ready and
uncritical embracing of machinery and industry as responsible for Victorian
England's pervasive pollution. He contrasts this man-made wastefulness
with nature's productive ways which are invariably economical, pleasurable,
and clean. Wood considers that The Water-Babies anticipates
certain contemporary environmentalist agendas and, remaining "a rich and
many-layered commentary on the biological and metaphorical relationship
between humans and their environment," may still be a relevant environmentalist
tract (249).
The
Water-Babies;
Environmentalism;
Malthus. |
