Green World is a literary concept defined by critic Northrop Frye in The Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton; Princeton University press, 1957), pp. 182–4. In some comedies by William Shakespeare, the main characters escape the order of a city for a forested and wild setting adjacent to the city. This natural environment is often described as a green world. It is in this more loosely structured, fantastic environment that issues surrounding social order, romantic relationships, and inter-generational strife, which are a prominent part of the "city world", become resolved, facilitating a return to the normal order. Recent literary critics drawn to eco-criticism have occasionally found the concept valuable to their work as well.
Famous quotes containing the words green and/or world:
“Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath;
We have drunken of things Lethean; and fed on the fullness of death.
Laurel is green for a season, and love is sweet for a day;
But love grows bitter with treason, and laurel outlives not May.
Sleep, shall we sleep after all? for the world is not sweet in the
end;
For the old faiths loosen and fall, the new years ruin and rend.”
—A.C. (Algernon Charles)
“Is it for now or for always,
The world hangs on a stalk?”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)