Hariz Aftab

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY, The Department of English, Doctoral Researcher

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Doctoral Researcher at Lovely Professional University, Punjab, India, with a passion for world literature, cultural studies, and literary theory. My academic pursuits center on Environmental Humanities, particularly the intersection of Romanticism and climate change, which forms the core of my doctoral thesis. Hailing from Doda, Jammu and Kashmir, I bring a diverse perspective to my work as a columnist and creative practitioner contributing insights on literature, culture, and social issues.

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Affective Ecology and the Emotional Archive of Climate Collapse in Lord Byron's Darkness

International Journal of English Language and Literature Studies, Sep 25, 2025

This paper examines Lord Byron's apocalyptic poem "Darkness" (1816) through affective ecology, ex... more This paper examines Lord Byron's apocalyptic poem "Darkness" (1816) through affective ecology, exploring how metaphors express the emotional and psychological impact of environmental collapse. Composed after Mount Tambora's eruption, which caused global climatic anomalies and "The Year Without a Summer," the poem captures the atmospheric and emotional fallout. Drawing on Glenn Albrecht, Lawrence Buell, and Sara Ahmed, this study approaches affect not as an emotion but as an ecological condition shaped by environmental instability. Through close textual analysis, the paper investigates how the poem engages five core affective-ecological concepts: biophilia, naturalist intelligence, fascination, affiliation, and emotional bonds. It argues that "Darkness" provides poetic form to solastalgia, disorientation, and ecological despair. Employing a qualitative, interdisciplinary approach combining affect theory, ecocriticism, and Romantic studies, the study contends that Byron's poem functions as a creative response to ecological trauma and an archive of emotional distress rooted in environmental crisis. Rather than reading "Darkness" solely as an apocalyptic Romantic vision, the study reinterprets it as an early literary record of emotional collapse in response to climate change. The findings highlight Byron's relevance to contemporary eco-anxiety and illustrate how Romantic poetry can be re-evaluated as a conduit for ecological and emotional witness in the Anthropocene. Contribution/ Originality: This study contributes to the existing scholarship on Romantic studies by demonstrating how metaphors in Byron's "Darkness" express ecological trauma and emotional collapse following the Tambora eruption. It integrates affect theory and ecocriticism to interpret the poem as an early archive of climateinduced anxiety and a precursor to eco-anxiety discourse.

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Eco-Anxiety in the Romantic Visions of Lord Byron and P.B. Shelley: A Literary and Environmental Perspective

Forum for Linguistic Studies, Apr 22, 2025

This study explores the manifestation of eco-anxiety in the poetic works of Lord Byron and Percy ... more This study explores the manifestation of eco-anxiety in the poetic works of Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, two eminent figures of the Romantic movement, whose literary expressions encapsulate profound ecological concerns. Romanticism, as a literary and philosophical movement, emphasized the sublime beauty of nature while simultaneously expressing apprehensions about its destruction due to human intervention. This paper employs an eco-critical framework to analyze how Byron and Shelley engage with themes of environmental degradation, the consequences of industrialization, and the fragility of the natural world. Through a comparative textual analysis of Darkness by Byron and Ode to the West Wind by Shelley, the study examines the poets' prescient environmental sensibilities and their reflections on ecological decline. Byron's apocalyptic vision in Darkness portrays an uninhabitable world, mirroring fears of climate catastrophe, while Shelley's Ode to the West Wind embodies both the destructive and regenerative power of nature, highlighting an intrinsic ecological awareness. The analysis underscores how both poets critique the anthropocentric worldview and foreshadow contemporary eco-critical concerns, positioning their works as early literary articulations of eco-anxiety. The findings suggest that their poetry, though rooted in the Romantic era, remains highly relevant in contemporary environmental discourse, offering insight into the emotional and philosophical dimensions of ecological crisis. This study thus contributes to the intersection of Romantic literary studies and environmental humanities, demonstrating the enduring significance of

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Climatoglossia: Exploring the Linguistic Impact of Tambora Eruption in Byron and Shelley’s Poetry

Bodhi International Journal of Research in Humanities, Arts and Science, Jan 2025

As one of the most catastrophic eruptions in recorded history, the eruption of Mount Tambora, als... more As one of the most catastrophic eruptions in recorded history, the eruption of Mount Tambora, also Tamboro, in 1815 led to unparalleled ecological and socio-cultural upheaval such as crepuscular light, frigid temperatures, storms, food riots, and the "Year Without a Summer" (1816). This paper engages the theoretical framework of Climatoglossia to examine the linguistic implications of this ecological disaster, zeroing in on how environmental perturbations influence poetic lexicon. Relying on the poetic compositions of George Gordon Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, this study argues that their post-Tambora poetry articulates an unprecedented engagement with climatic volatility in an apocalyptic linguistic register, destabilized diction, and heightened glossary of environmental anxiety. The literary endeavors of Lord Byron and P. B. Shelley, commencing in 1816 and extending into subsequent years, are paradigmatic texts that enunciate the dialectic between the vulnerability of humankind and the omnipotent forces of nature. The paper deals with the volcanic atmospheric anomalies that, by recalibrating Romantic sublime attitudes, evoke feelings of wonder but turn devastating. Close textual analysis reveals the unique climatoglossic imprint wrought with broken rhythmic patterns, stark juxtaposition, and grotesquely haunting images of desolation, mimicking the ecological disturbance of the Tambora aftermath. This article positions its findings within the larger discourse of environmental humanities, arguing that the poetic response to Tambora anticipates the ecology-based concerns of today. Byron and Shelley, through their climate-oriented language, articulate a proto-ecological consciousness and emphasize the capacity of poetic language to articulate and store anthropogenic anxieties created by environmental disasters.

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Reading Byron’s “Darkness” and Rasa Javidani’s “Tūfān” [Storm] as Cross-cultural Connective Catastrophe Narratives

BODHI International Journal of Research in Humanities, Arts and Science, 2025

This paper presents English Romantic poet George Gordon Byron's "Darkness" and Kashmiri-Urdu poet... more This paper presents English Romantic poet George Gordon Byron's "Darkness" and Kashmiri-Urdu poet Rasa Javidani's "Tūfān" [Storm] as conflating cross-cultural narratives of catastrophe that illustrate the interplay between nature's destructive forces and their profound impact on human sphere. Byron's "Darkness" demonstrates global ecological collapse, reflecting an apocalyptic vision of devastation and societal disorder during the "Year Without a Summer" (1816) triggered by the eruption of mount Tambora, Indonesia (1815). In congruence, Rasa Javidani's "Tūfān" [Storm] captures widespread destruction originating from a cloudburst, vividly expounding catastrophic effects of the flood on human life and community. Employing close reading method, textual and thematic analysis, and a connective research approach, this paper explores the representation of nature's power and its impact on humanity in the selected compositions, investigating the scale of destruction. It explores the shared themes of catastrophe, survival, and examines the tone of the poets in the works. It also evaluates the psychological impact of catastrophic events on the psyche of the creative writers uncovering the existential despair, and intimate portrayal of loss in the face of adversity. The research findings elucidate the enduring connections between Byron's and Rasa Javidani's descriptions of ecological catastrophes and their aftermath. The paper achieves an in-depth understanding of the psychological dimensions of eco-anxiety, mapping how the writers, across cultures, are equally affected by eco-crises in a broad cultural and historical context. In the end, this research expands the understanding of ecocriticism, widening the discourse on Western and Eastern readings of environmental catastrophes and human vulnerability.

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Echoes of Castastrophe: Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley as Ecodoom Pessimists

BODHI International Journal of Research in Humanities, Arts and Science, Mar 2025

Climate impacts the creativity of artists significantly. Climate change conceived by Tambora erup... more Climate impacts the creativity of artists significantly. Climate change conceived by Tambora eruption (1815)considerably influenced the writings of Lord Byron and P. B. Shelley. This paper attempts to examine the poetry of the selected poets to analyse the influence of the eruption on their imagination, embedding an incipient form of ecodoom pessimism. Through close readings of Byron's "Darkness" (1816), "The Prisoner of Chillon" (1816), Manfred (1817), and Shelley's "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" (1817) and Mont Blanc" (1817), this study reveals how their works articulate a deep anxiety about natural forces as both powerful and vengeful. Byron and Shelley foreshadow modern ecological despair, capturing the sense of foreboding which parallels the contemporary characterization of eco-anxiety. This paper highlights how their poetry resonates the environmental challenges, amplifying their enduring relevance as eco-conscious thinkers.

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Romantic Concerns About Toxicity and Public Health: Literary Exploration of Contaminated Environment and the Significance of Literature in Historical Toxicology

South Eastern European Journal of Public Health, 2024

Poems of William Blake, William Wordsworth, S. T. Coleridge, Lord Byron, P. B. Shelley, and their... more Poems of William Blake, William Wordsworth, S. T. Coleridge, Lord Byron, P. B. Shelley, and their contemporaries are freighted with allusions to the contaminated environment during the industrial revolution and post Tambora eruption (1815), reflective of socio-environmental realities of the Romantic period and their concerns about public health. This paper endeavors to examine Romantic poetry and assess early 19th-century toxic English landscapes to comprehend how environmental contamination was culturally perceived during this period. The study follows a critical convergence design between historical toxicology and Romantic literature for the synthesis of scientific analysis to reveal the thematic preoccupations of Romantic writing. Findings of the study demonstrate substantial references to the impact of direct release of industrial toxins into atmosphere and Tambora eruption’s toxic fallout. Literary engagements such as these foreground profound socio-ecological ramifications of toxic pollutants and offer richer insights for modern environmental policy-making and sustainable development. The study also follows an interdisciplinary approach to serve as a resource for the integrative analysis presented here and benefit the future research from its insights in filling out the understanding of how early 19th-century poets approached industrial and volcanic pollution.

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Neurochemical Effect on Creativity of the Romantic Writers: A Theoretical Framework of Econeurochemical Critical Reading

European Chemical Bulletin, 2023

All the living beings are neurobiologically driven beings. Creative writers and artists are no ex... more All the living beings are neurobiologically driven beings. Creative writers and artists are no exception to it. We as literary critics, think that creative writers and artists are also living beings and they are mostly driven by neuro-chemical reactions in the brain. In the world of neurology, each body and the parts of the body are the cause of all the information received by the neurons and through certain processes, they are revealed in the form of Human behavior. Creativity is one of the human behaviors which is mostly governed by neuro psychological impacts of the external world. The paper argues for this kind of neuro chemical reactions, processes, and knowledge receptions as subject matters of romantic poets. The romantic poets were deeply influenced by the French Revolution, and Tambora eruption effects. The paper presents how these effects were received by the poets neurologically and being under some certain neurotransmitters and neuromodulators like norepinephrine (NE) and Epinephrine, Histamine, and Serotonin, and how they could use a specific kind of diction which is conceptualized as "Climatoglossia." Climatoglossia is defined for interpreting used images and symbols concerning severe shifts in the climate of Europe and Britain as reflected in the select poems of Byron, Shelley, Campbell, and Keats.

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Compatibility of John Ruskin's Moral Considerations in "Unto This Last" With the Islamic Rulings on Business and Trading

Journal of The Gujarat Research Society, 2019

Honesty and justice coupled with no room for exploitation are few accentuated moral consideration... more Honesty and justice coupled with no room for exploitation are few accentuated moral considerations in Islamic teachings that should regulate the institutions of production, business and trading. Never this moral line is to be overpassed but followed unbendingly. The "Preface" and "The Roots of Honour" in the treatise "Unto This Last" written by John Ruskin also articulate some moral considerations in one context or the other for the augmentation and stability of economy. This paper attempts to evaluate the compatibility of moral considerations proffered by John Ruskin with the Islamic rulings on business and trade.

Rebirth of Mansur al-Hallaj in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick - A New Interpretation

SMART MOVES JOURNAL IJELLH, 2019

A text is agape to extensive interpretations and different people interpret a text distinctively.... more A text is agape to extensive interpretations and different people interpret a text distinctively. Suchlike is the predicament of Herman Melville's magnum opus and one of the greatest American novels "Moby-dick." The relationship between Captain Ahab and the whale Moby-Dick all along is sketched in abounding ways like egoistic hunger for revenge, tussle between good and evil, doom of a person who defies God's authority and at the same time scads of references pertaining to Ahab like Oedipus Rex, King Lear or King Ahab mentioned in the Bible revealed. This paper attempts to interpret the aforementioned relation (between Captain Ahab and Moby-Dick) as an odyssey of a Sanit who endeavors to seek the knowledge of unknown but in course of his journey does something which begets his end in the light of biography of Islamic Sufi saint Mansur al-Hallaj.

Commencement and Evolution of Stereotypes Identified with Saracens/Moors/Turks in European and British Literature and their Exemplary Achievements in Culture and Arts

SMART MOVES JOURNAL IJELLH, 2018

The spread of Islamic kingdoms by way of incursion like any other incursion of a nonIslamic kingd... more The spread of Islamic kingdoms by way of incursion like any other incursion of a nonIslamic kingdom once instilled fear in European minds for the reason that these Islamic kingdoms overtured the political, religious and cultural challenges. The stereotyping campaign in the European and the British literature bounced exaggerating image of Muslims known with the names Saracens, Moors, Turks (not to be confused with Turkish people) as barbarians, licentious, uncivilized and destroyers of arts and culture. After fall of Constantinople in 1453, this campaign expedited and the literature served as the mode of propagation. The stereotype "Destroyer Turk" (Destroyer Muslim) became apparent in the works of prevalent men of letters and at the same time the noble and exemplary achievements of Turks and their contributions to the advancement of civilization found no extolled corner in the European and the British literature. This campaign commenced exclusively to ravage the image of Turks and extol the European side.

"Of Unity in Religion" and "Of Boldness" by Francis Bacon as the literary works accommodating prevarication and offhand comments on Islam and Prophet Muhammad

SMART MOVES JOURNAL IJELLH, 2018

Contortion, deceit and false impressions with reference to the religion of Islam, Prophet Muhamma... more Contortion, deceit and false impressions with reference to the religion of Islam, Prophet Muhammad and further fragments of Islam are not the approbates of post 9/11 literature, they subsisted in Western literature erewhile. The creed of distortion and double-dealing is ingrained in general, also employed as an exemplification mark in moderate number of eminent pre 9/11 Western literary works. "Of Unity in Religion" and "Of Boldness" two essays written by Francis Bacon embody arguments which undeniably are fecund and advantageous for impending generations but concurrently they too promulgate counterfactual picture of Islam and Prophet Muhammad. There have been aforethought experiments to blend untruths created out of repugnance into literature for their effortless and apperent continuance.

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