Ecocriticism is an umbrella term that refers to a number of approaches that have in common their concern with the reader's reevaluation of cultural constructions of the environment.

In an age of massive environmental degradation, and when the project of unfettered material progress begins to crumble down, ecocriticism tries to give an answer to human relations with the environment as culturally constructed and also aims to explore and provide alternatives.

For the last 20 or 30 years, ecocritical approaches have emerged in the academic world to provide new insights into environmental issues from the perspective of art, literature, geography, philosophy, architecture, anthropology.

for instance, an ecocritical approach to a poem might investigate what kind of perception of the environment does the poem enact. Jonathan Bate's The Song of the Earth is possibly the best example of this kind of approach. From a more general perspective, the most recommendable book is The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology, by Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm.