Reverie, Wild Animals, and Gasoline: The Interrelatedness of the Human and Natural Worlds in Elizabeth Bishop

Abstract

ABSTRACT Analyzed through the lens of John Berger’s concept of daydream and Bachelard’s reverie, Elizabeth Bishop’s work can offer a poignant argument against a view of nature and civilization as fundamentally separate. However, the analysis of their relationship dynamics has hitherto been limited to a focus on human–nature conflict. This article argues that Bishop’s poetry and prose reveal elements of coexistence and communion between these two spheres. The epiphanies of environmental communion in Bishop’s poems can be explained by employing the daydream or reverie as the interpretative key that brings together human-made and natural environments. The daydream or reverie is deeply rooted into childhood and is intended by Bachelard as a momentary return to a state of being that is not self-aware, which is typical of childhood and is caused by the vision of a wild animal. It is through this perspective that this article considers an unexpected source of the interrelatedness between the human and natural words in Bishop’s work: gasoline.