Paganism, Anthropocentrism, Ecocriticism and Neo-Paganism: A Study of Maugham's "The Lotus Eater”

Abstract

Paganism was nature-centred. So Christianity found it a theoretical necessity to maintain an anthropocentric position. Throughout the tribal and agrarian civilization man retained pagan beliefs and lived in close contact with nature. But from onwards the technological civilization man-nature relationship became problematic and politicized. With the tool of technology man changed and re-shaped nature for his own comfort. This exploitation resulted in environmental crisis. When poets like Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats advocated  for a return to nature, they were patronizingly labeled as ‘romantics'- a group of mad lovers/worshippers of nature. Thus British imperialism denied them of their political identity. Darwin's theory of ‘ gradual evolution' was a challenge to the unique human moral status propagated by anthropocentric philosophy. Ecocriticism believes anthropocentrism to be the root cause behind environmental exploitation and its consequent environmental disaster. The capitalists, led by personal loss and gain, are constantly polluting nature by the name of industrialization and civilization. In such a context, neo-paganism emerges out. In Somerset Maugham's  short story ‘The Lotus Eater' Thomas Wilson, who rejected London for Capri, industry for nature, represents this move from anthropocentrism to neo-paganism.