Ecological Ethics in Emily Dickinson's Nature Poems

Emily Dickinson's ecological ethics is notable for her humble and tolerant attitude toward nature, namely her reverence for natural wonders and mysteries, her non-discriminatory appreciation of natural diversity and complexity, her recognition of the significance of nature itself rather than that of "human value." With such ethical attitude toward nature, Dickinson presents her ethical choices correspondingly through the personae and narrators in her nature poems. First, they remain humble to nature, no matter it is spectacular or trivial, graceful or destructive, and choose to be modest observers and admirers to honour the sublimity and inscrutability of nature. Second, they are always sympathetic with "Nature's People" no matter these wild lives cater to human beings or not. They choose to live in a state of symbiosis, namely a state of harmony instead of cutthroat competition. Third, Dickinson establishes positive abstinence with her "ascetic paradoxes", which proposes to abstain human beings from their animal-like appetite to prevent the unprotected nature from being spoiled and keep themselves open to higher possibilities. Her ecological ethics is positive: it is mutually beneficial to sustainability of nature and human spiritual self-realization, and to potentialities of coexistence of human beings and nature in the long run.