Ecology, Literature and Environmental Education

The first part of this article refers to the initial attempt to relate Nature to Literature since the age of Hellenistic Alexandria in Egypt. Alexandria was a metropolis of its time with a quite lively character of urban life. Influenced by that character Theocritus was the first to lay the foundations of what is defined as pastoral poetry. In the course of this article and after the significance of contemporary Literature of Ecology is appraised, the results of a research--with regard to the excerpts of both prose and poetry cited in the primary school textbooks in Greece--will be presented. Finally, an educational method is proposed which, we premise, would attribute a more experiential character to Literature for Instruction purposes.