Into the Woods

Abstract

Trees, among the world’s oldest creatures, seem to be having a moment. Not only have researchers made fascinating discoveries about their “secret lives,” these ubiquitous superorganisms have sparked the culture’s imagination as well. Trees have recently been the subject of best-selling novels, essays, and high-impact films. While most human beings would be hard pressed to name any species of tree they might encounter in their daily lives, talk about trees is becoming more and more mainstream. And logically so. The more modern technology severs our ties to the physical world—and, no less importantly, the more climate change signals the impending disappearance of that world—the more urgency we feel to reconnect. This article explores how contemporary French culture summons us to do just that. Through an exploration of a few of the most compelling recent works that testify to what I call the “arboreal imaginary” in contemporary French culture, this article posits that attending to trees in works of art is a necessarily ecological gesture, one that encourages us to think about our stewardship of the environment as much as it invites us to consider novel ways of poetically inhabiting the planet.