Examining the Ecofeminist Elements of Bartram’s Anthropocentric Figures in Travels
Primary Source:
Harper, Francis, ed. The Travels of William Bartram, Naturalist’s Edition. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1998. Print.
I have chosen to use this scholarly edition of Bartram’s Travels, because it is the most commonly cited version in academic articles. The editor’s notes state that Travels was reproduced “with practically the same exactness as if it were the 1791 edition,” even indicating the original pagination (vii). I have confirmed this after reviewing a microfilm copy of the 1791 version and comparing the two.
Secondary Sources Used to Formulate My Claim:
Adams, Charles H. “Reading Ecologically: Language and Play in Bartram's Travels.” The Southern Quarterly: A Journal of the Arts in the South 32.4 (1994): 65-74. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 14 June 2011.
In this journal article, Adams demonstrates how with an ecological lens Bartram’s metaphorical language, along with other devices, function as a way for him to explain the interrelationships and diversity that he observes in nonhuman nature (67-69). Adams proposes that Bartram’s anthropocentric metaphors—such as a laughing trout—work to illustrate the interrelatedness of humans and animals and remind his readers “to find [their] reflection in nature” because nature is essential to humans (73). I agree with Adams, and plan to use his article to support my claim that the anthropocentric metaphors in Travels are significant because they express Bartram’s theory about human and nonhuman nature. I will suggest that in addition to reading his anthropocentric figures ecologically, reading them with an ecofeminist paradigm yields the additional insight into the metaphors—that they also express Bartram’s opposition to a conception of the man/nature hierarchy as expressed in patriarchal Enlightenment ideology.
Magee, Judith. The Art and Science of William Bartram. University Park, Pa: Pennsylvania State UP, 2007. Print.
This book provides me with information essential to understanding the context of Bartram’s views of nature including an explanation of his non-traditional Quaker background, the Enlightenment ideas that he would have been exposed to, and how his philosophy regarding nonhuman nature differed from the Chain of Being theory, which espoused a hierarchical relationship of organisms (151). Magee states that Bartram related animals and plants to humans in order to reduce the “gradation” of separation expressed in the Chain of Being theory. However, I claim that by applying an ecofeminist lens to examine the anthropocentric figures it becomes evident that Bartram used them to oppose the patriarchal ideology of the Enlightenment. I purpose a more confident stance than Magee, stating that scholars can now understand Bartram’s view of nature as not just “more egalitarian than the standard hierarchical structure” but as a heterarchical relationship between human and nonhuman nature (151).
Murphy, Patrick D. Literature, Nature, and Other: Ecofeminist Critiques. Albany: State U of New York P, 1995. Print.
This book provides me with my ecofeminist theoretical foundation which I will apply to Bartram’s Travels to prove that his use of anthropocentric metaphors work to oppose patriarchal ideology; for example, I will use Murphy’s concept of “anotherness” to examine the manner in which Bartram raises the nonhuman to a status that is equal with humans through his metaphors, ultimately illustrating that he acknowledges the interdependence of all life, which is contrary to the dominant Enlightenment beliefs of his time.
Ode-Schneider, Laurel. “Chapter Three: ‘The Dignity of Human Nature’ William Bartram and the Great Chain of Being.” Introduction. William Bartram, the Search for Nature's Design: Selected Art, Letters, and Unpublished Writings. Eds. Thomas Hallock, Nancy E. Hoffmann, and Joel T. Fry. Athens, GA: U of Georgia P, 2010. 340-46. Print.
I formulated my thesis in opposition to an idea presented in this book chapter introduction. Ode-Schneider analyzes Bartram’s views on the relationship between human and nonhuman nature as presented in two previously unpublished letters. She finds that Bartram’s anthropocentric figures in these letters are used to reverse the human/animal hierarchy in order to illustrate its unbalanced nature, thereby exposing the false ideology. Ode-Schneider remarks that the anthropocentric figures found in Travels are used “merely as a lighthearted troupe” (341).
I disagree with Ode-Schneider that the anthropocentric figures in Travels are insignificant; I find that when examined with an ecofeminist lens, they reveal Bartram’s recognition of (an)other in nature, human and nonhuman interdependence, and the necessity for diversity instead of domination. Bartram’s expression of these philosophical beliefs through his anthropocentric figures proves that they are not merely “whimsical,” but that they also function to reject Enlightenment patriarchal ideology, which claims nonhuman nature is inferior to man, should be divided into static categories and classifications, and valued as a commodity for man to dominate and use.
Other Sources Consulted:
Arner, Robert D. “Pastoral Patterns in William Bartram's Travels.” Tennessee Studies in Literature 18 (1973): 133-145. Print.
Buell, Lawrence. The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture. Cambridge: Belknap P, 1995. Print.
Cox, John D. “Representing America: The American as Traveler in the Work of J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur and William Bartram.” Traveling South: Travel Narratives and the Construction of American Identity. Athens: U of Georgia P, 2005. 19-62. Print.
Hallock, Thomas. “On the Boarders of a New World: William Bartram’s Travels.” From the Fallen tree: Frontier Narratives, Environmental Politics, and the Roots of a National Pastoral, 1749-1826. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 2003. 149-173. Print.
Kolodny, Annette. The Lay of the Land: Metaphor as Experience and History in American Life and Letters. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1975. Print.
Kornegay, Burt. “Nature, Man, and God.” Kathryn E. Holland Braund, and Charlotte M. Porter, eds. Fields of Vision: Essays on the Travels of William Bartram. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 2010. 81-90. Print.
Ralston, Ramona. “Signs of Science and the Sublime in Bartram’s Travels: Subverting the Colonialist Agenda.” Semiotics 1998. 290-298. New York: Lang, 1999. Print.
Schiebinger, Londa L., and Claudia Swan. Colonial Botany: Science, Commerce, and Politics in the Early Modern World. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2005. Print.
Slaughter, Thomas P., ed. Travels and Other Writings. By William Bartram. 1791. New York: Literary Classics US, 1996. Print.
Terrie, Philip G. “Tempests & Alligators: The Ambiguous Wilderness of William Bartram.” North Dakota Quarterly 59.2 (1991): 17-32. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 12 June 2011.
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