RT info:eu-repo/semantics/article
T1 Ornithological passions of American poet Celia Thaxter
A1 Taylor, Ellen M.
K1 Birds
K1 Ecology
K1 Poetry
K1 Audubon
K1 Thaxter
K1 Aves
K1 Ecología
K1 Poesía
K1 Literatura
K1 Literature
K1 Medio ambiente
K1 Environmental science
AB American poet Celia Leighton Thaxter (1835–1894) was shaped by both environmental beauty and destruction she witnessed in her New England community. As a woman who spent much of her life on a small wind-swept island, she was educated by seasons and migrations that later informed her work. A brief education among Boston’s literary elite launched her creative career, where she focused on her local ecology. At that time, over-hunting and newly fashionable plumed hats and accessories had created a serious possibility of avian decimation. By creating awareness of humans’ culpability for birds’ endangerment, Thaxter’s work evoked public sympathy and contributed to social and political change. This essay applies ecofeminist and cultural analyses to Thaxter’s work written as part of the 19th century bird defense movement, by examining the emotional rhetoric employed and activism implied in her poems and prose about birds, specifically: “The Kittiwakes,” “The Wounded Curlew,” and “The Great Blue Heron: A Warning.” Little attention has been paid to Thaxter’s didactic poems which use birds as subjects to instruct children and adults about the fragility of birdlife and to warn of humans’ destructive behaviors. These works illustrate Thaxter’s ecological sensibility and her use of emotion and reason to communicate an ecological message. Her poetry and prose about birdlife fortified the budding Audubon Society and contributed to the birth of the environmental movement. We can learn from such poetic activism, from attention to nature turned commodity, and the dangers of depleting finite resources. In our global environmental crisis, we recognize the interwoven relationships between birds and humans. Perhaps poems can help stymie our current ecological trajectory.
PB Universidad de Alcalá
SN 2171-9594
YR 2021
FD 2021
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10017/47889
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10017/47889
LA eng
DS MINDS@UW
RD 24-abr-2024