The Growth of Vegetal Perception in “The Weed”: The Emergence of Plant Subjectivity in Elizabeth Bishop’s Poetry

Abstract

Elizabeth Bishop’s poetry abounds with vegetal imagery. She not only depicts the plants’ forms and growth but also endows them with perception, emotion and movement, transforming them into subjects with consciousness and thought. Grounded in the theoretical framework of “phytocriticism”, this study takes “The Weed” as the central text to explore how Bishop, through her delicate portrayal of vegetal perception and movement, constructs an “intersubjective relationship” between human beings and plants. The weed that grows from the human body symbolizes the mutual penetration of life and language, revealing a non-anthropocentric logic of perception and an awareness of ecological balance. In this transformation, plants cease to be passive objects of observation and become subjects capable of engaging in an equal dialogue with the poet. This study will also draw on other poems such as “Florida” and “The Moose” to reveal how Bishop further develops her vegetal narrativity and ecological vision of coexistence. Bishop’s vegetal poetics turns the sensibility of plants into a poetic mode of perception. Within the intertwining of language, life and consciousness, her poetry accomplishes a transition from the representation of nature to an ecology of coexistence.