Ecofeminist Insights into Contemporary Poetry by Irish and Galician Women Writers

Abstract

[Abstract] Since the 1960s, there has been a growing ecological awareness which has had its impact on the production and analysis of literature. Ecofeminism, in particular, denounces the androcentric exploitation and subordination of both nature and women. This rise of ecofeminism has coincided in time with the emergence of an unprecedented number of women poets in the Irish and Galician literary traditions. In this essay, I would like to consider the possible ways in which gender becomes a relevant notion in the relationship of human and non-human nature and to find out whether contemporary poetry by Irish and Galician women writers has an ecofeminist import. Central to this discussion are the issues of the mediation of language and the recourse to tropes of nature to interrogate social prejudices, traditional politics of desire and to vindicate new spaces for women.