Analyzing Selected Poems of Elizabeth Bishop’s: A Bio-centric View of Eco-critic Attitude

Abstract

The current study explored the biocentric view in the selected poems of Elizabeth Bishop, highlighting an ecocritical arena of her poems. Furthermore, this idea represented Bishop’s anti-anthropocentric perspective; while prevailing her biocentric view. The study deployed the content analysis methodology to analyze Bishop's biocentric attitude through her representation of animals, environment, natural phenomena, and the abiding relationship of all living things, including humans. In this sense, the study further showed that Bishop's oeuvre reveals a sense of environmental consciousness. Her poetry, particularly the selected poems, demonstrate a biocentric view of life that can be easily perceived in her subjective understanding of the nature and the creatures. This is obvious through her representation of natural phenomena such as seasonal cycles, weather, and physical and ecological elements including air, earth, and water that inculcates poet’s environmental consciousness. Hence, by examining the prevailing biocentric view of the poet through an examination of her poetic language, this study shows that the expected environmental imagination elucidates social responsibility for readers, to understand the ecopoetic relationship.