BL COLLEGE JOURNAL

“Journal writing gives us insights into who we are, who we were, and who we can become”
– Sandra Marinella

Human-Nature Connection: Eco-ethical Reading of Louise Gluck’s The Wild Iris

Author

Toya Nath Upadhyay
Central Department of English, Tribhuvan University, Nepal

&

Janak Paudyal
Ratna Rajyalaxmi Campus, Tribhuvan University, Nepal

Relationship connotes a power relation of one reaping the benefits at the expense of the other; where connection demands mutual respect and benefits on both sides. In a transactional and utilitarian view, nature has been conceptualized as a source on which humanity consumes. However, ecofeminists believe that there is another way possible that offers mutual coexistence and respect. This brings us to understand nature is neither a source nor only a victim; it is an entity that deserves ethical behavior from human beings. This paper finds a sense of such ethicality in Louise Gluck’s poetry collection ‘The Wild Iris’ (1992) where her use of images reinvents human-nature connectivity through humanity’s realization of its mortality and the natural world’s infinite spiritual renewal and potential for regeneration. Reading her poetry from an ecofeminism perspective by applying the insights of Val Plumwood, this paper claims that environmental ethics is a profitloss calculation, thus representing humanity’s relationship to nature, where eco-ethical reading demands subtle ways of forging interconnection between humans and nature.

Keywords: Relationship, Connection, Ecofeminism, Eco-ethical

References:

Davis, William V. “‘Talked to by Silence’: Apocalyptic Yearnings in Louise Gluck’s The Wild Iris.” Christianity and Literature, vol. 52, no. 1, 2002, pp. 47–56. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44313176. Accessed 20 Apr. 2024.

Gaard, Greta, editor. Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature. Temple University Press, 1993.

Glaser, Brian. “The Implied Reader and Depressive Experience in Louise Gluck’s The Wild Iris.” Amerikastudien / American Studies, vol. 60, no. 2/3, 2015, pp. 201–13. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44071905. Accessed 20 Apr. 2024.

Gluck, Louis, The Wild Iris, Eco Press, 1992.

—. “Biographical.” NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2024. Tue. 30 Apr 2024. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2020/gluck/biographical/> Landis, John Hutton. “The Poems of Louise Gluck.” Salmagundi, 36, 140-48. JSTOR, www.jstro.org/stabl/40546980.

Morris, Daniel. The Poetry of Louise Gluck: A Thematic Introduction. U of Missouri P, 2008.

Plumwood, Val. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. Routledge, 1993.

Sadoff, Ira. “Louise Gluck and the Last Stage of Romanticism.” New England Review, vol. 22, no. 4, 2001, pp. 81-92. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40244581.

Sastri, Reena. “Louis Gluck’s Twenty-First-Century Lyric.” PMLA, vol.129, no. 2, 2014, pp. 188-203. www.pmla.org/artilce/pdf

Zazula, Piotr. “To Love Silence and Darkness:” Uneasy Transcendence in Louise Gluck’s Poems.” Brno Studies in English, vol. 38, no.1, 2012, pp. 159-77. DOI: www.doi.org/10.5817/BSE2012-1-11.

Published
June 1, 2024

How to Cite

MLA 9th Edition 

Upadhyay, Toya Nath, and Janak Paudyal. “Human-Nature Connection: Eco-ethical Reading of Louise Gluck’s The Wild Iris.” BL College Journal, vol. 6, no. 1, June 2024, https://doi.org/10.62106/blc2024v6i1e2.

APA 7th Edition

Upadhyay, T. N., & Paudyal, J. (2024). Human-Nature Connection: Eco-ethical Reading of Louise Gluck’s The Wild Iris. BL College Journal6(1).

https://doi.org/10.62106/blc2024v6i1e2

 

License

Copyright (c) 2023 GOVT. BRAJALAL COLLEGE

Indexed In

Webmail login form