Çağdaş İngiliz Şiirinde Antroposen’in Posthüman Poetikasi: Mario Petrucci’nin Bosco Eserinde Ekomerkezci Yankılar

Abstract

This study aims to question the discursive construction of the hierarchical order attributed to the human/nonhuman dichotomy through an ecocentric reading of Mario Petrucci’s Bosco (1999). Bosco consists of poems that represent catastrophic consequences of deforestation, and it demonstrates how the more-than-human world reacts to egocentric schemes of humankind via its delineation of the agential faculties of the trees. In the collection, trees can no longer remain silent about the desolation that has been wrought upon nature, and they start addressing humankind to make them realise that they have long turned the planet into a barren space. Although it is too late to mitigate the ecological loss, Bosco explores the self-annihilating capacity of the anthropocentric mindset and warns against the imminent extinction that threatens all life forms. Given the increasing impact of the human imprint on Earth, therefore, it is seen that cultural modes of representation are bound to re-evaluate the undercurrents of the dialogue between human and nonhuman agents. In this manner, the Anthropocene functions as a material-discursive foundation that raises questions not only about the ecological crises triggered by humankind, but also about the exceptional status of the human ‘subject.’ Relatedly, it can be argued that traditional ‘nature’ poems fall behind in representing the complexity of human-nonhuman, culture-nature relations in the Anthropocene, and that contemporary ‘nature’ poetry needs a more inclusive dictionary that is devoid of egocentric insinuations. In this way, it will be possible to deal comprehensively with the multi-dimensional and intricate features of human-nonhuman relationship(s) in contemporary British poetry. While such terms as environmental poetry and/or ecopoetry have been used to denote a less anthropocentric position, none of them has been able to exhibit a well-developed ecocentric stance that can address the entanglement of human and nature thoroughly. Thus, the term ‘posthuman poetry’ is presented as an alternative tool that does not flatter the egocentric hubris of humankind but keeps the necessary aesthetic distance between humans and nonhumans by putting neither of them in the centre or in the periphery. Within this perspective, this study argues that, exploring the nonhuman agent’s inherent capacity to counter the negative consequences of egocentric mindset, Bosco serves as an ecocentric critique problematising the rationale for human authority over the more-than-human world in the Anthropocene.