Swamp Thing - Modern Pastoral - William Blake similarities

Researching into the Alan Moore Swamp Thing comics, the sense of detachment from the natural world and longing for a return to nature is obvious throughout the series. This is, in English Literature, what usually defines a Pastoral text. William Blake, a Romantic poet, covered the same topics in his work, which he wrote in the time of the Industrial Revolution, where society was focused on technology's advancement and disregard for nature. And in the 1980s, this culture was very much at a height with the global focus on capitalism, and lack of investment into environmental concern. In this regard, contextually the works of Blake and Moore are responding to similar societies.


This panel is rooted (HAHA) in Pastoral motifs, the lamentation of man's arrogance and destructive capability, religion based values of an all powerful God, and the glimmer of hope that often comes at the end of a pastoral text,


These panels are indicative of Alan Moore's comparison between the Justice League and Western government. They are largely uninterested in the natural world until it starts to threaten their personal safety, and even then they are unprepared and don't know how to deal with it. Green Arrow's lament; "We were watching out for New York, for Metropolis, for Atlantis... But who was watching out for Lacroix, Louisiana?", defines how Western governments of the late 20th century were largely ignorant to the natural world, and how we as a species must now pay the price and rectify these mistakes.
This idea of making up for the protection of nature is prevalent throughout Moore's work on Swamp Thing, as it is largely a commentary on our modern apathy towards the natural world and continued focus on bigger and better.