Soil-searching: Grief and Healing in Elizabeth-Jane Burnett’s The Grassling (2019)

Valeria Strusi (Universitá degli Studi di Sassari), Loredana Salis (Universitá degli Studi di Sassari)

Abstract

La frattura nel rapporto tra gli esseri umani e il mondo naturale necessita di essere sanata. La prospettiva antropocentrica inscritta in gran parte della codificazione occidentale della dinamica natura/cultura si basa sull’idea errata della preminenza dell’uomo sul resto del mondo naturale, che si è tradotta in azioni largamente sprezzanti e/o apertamente distruttive perpetrate entro i confini di una mentalità dominatrice (Eisler 2002) e nella (spesso intenzionale) noncuranza o mancanza di consapevolezza rispetto alle interconnessioni, alle influenze e alle interdipendenze che legano l’umano e il non umano (Milstein & Castro-Sotomayor 2020). Il presente articolo si propone di contribuire allo sviluppo di tale linea di indagine esaminando come la relazione umano/ non umano sia messa in discussione, ridisegnata e ricostruita in The Grassling di Elizabeth-Jane Burnett. Difatti il testo, memoir ecopoetico imperniato sull’idea di lutto, sia personale sia ambientale, si serve della creazione, tramite metamorfosi, di un organismo ibrido uomo/pianta (il Grassling eponimo) come strumento di trans-corporeality (Alaimo 2010) per colmare e sanare la frattura esistente tra umano/non umano.

DOI: 10.17456/SIMPLE-195

Parole chiave: Elizabeth-Jane Burnett’s The Grassling, ecopoetic memoir, trans-corporeality, human and non-human relations, healing, nature/culture.

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