Alice Oswald's Poetical Cartography of the River Dart
Oswald's Echolocating Poetics Against the Cartographical Reason
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_tropelias/tropelias.20244210357Keywords:
Alice Oswald, Nature Poetry, Echolocation, Dart, CartographyAbstract
In this paper I want to define and describe Alice Oswald’s «echolocating poetics». First, I will explore how Oswald’s polemic relationship with the label of «nature poet» points towards an original poetical proposal that tries to separate itself from some of the characteristics of the traditional nature poetry. Then, by analysing Oswald’s poem «Owl», I will propose a characterisation of Oswald’s echolocating poetics which is based on a vindication of the sense of hearing and a subsequent critique to the pre-eminence of the eye and the ensuing act of looking as privileged ways through which human knows and places itself into the natural world. Finally, the reading of Dart (2002) will present Oswald’s critique to the cartographical reason that, for her, is associated with the so criticised privilege of sight. The ear-based concept of echolocation is there the tool that Oswald uses to draw a contrapuntal map of the river Dart that defies the (anthropocentric) epistemological assumptions that are hidden under the human device of the map.
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Copyright (c) 2024 Francisco Javier Navarro Prieto
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Accepted 2024-06-03
Published 2024-07-09
