This chapter explores Elizabeth Bishop’s animal poems within an ecofeminist framework, referencing her subversion of traditional religious teachings when engaging with animal otherness. Bishop’s incarnations of female animals in “Brazil, January 1, 1502,” “The Moose” and “Pink Dog” are discussed in contention with her more typical casting of animals and nature as male. With a focus on “Rainy Season; Sub-Tropics,” her use of anthropomorphism and her manipulation of boundaries is suggested as a means of traversing the expectation of what is human and what is animal. Her encounters with animal otherness are considered as reaffirmations of human selfhood and, at the same time, as gestures toward an idea of spiritual otherness. The chapter culminates with an in-depth analysis of “Roosters,” drawing together the ideas of female and animal otherness, while examining the suggestion of transcendence through nature.
Animals
This chapter explores Elizabeth Bishop’s animal poems within an ecofeminist framework, referencing her subversion of traditional religious teachings when engaging with animal otherness. Bishop’s incarnations of female animals in “Brazil, January 1, 1502,” “The Moose” and “Pink Dog” are discussed in contention with her more typical casting of animals and nature as male. With a focus on “Rainy Season; Sub-Tropics,” her use of anthropomorphism and her manipulation of boundaries is suggested as a means of traversing the expectation of what is human and what is animal. Her encounters with animal otherness are considered as reaffirmations of human selfhood and, at the same time, as gestures toward an idea of spiritual otherness. The chapter culminates with an in-depth analysis of “Roosters,” drawing together the ideas of female and animal otherness, while examining the suggestion of transcendence through nature.