How green was my valley: the critique of the picturesque by Irish and Galician women poets

Abstract

Since the 1970s there has been a growing interpenetration of both ecology and feminism which has been accompanied by a parallel increase in environmental literature written by women.1 In this paper I intend to show how these recent cultural and literary changes and innovations have brought about a critique of the traditional canon of nature writing. Although the literary canon is never a monolithic formation, it has, of old, been predominantly constructed as male; nevertheless, the last three decades have seen the accession of numerous women writers to, among other literatures, the Irish and Galician ones, so there is an evident coalition of forces and interests along gender lines that deserves analysis from the perspective of ecocriticism. Since Françoise d'Eaubonne introduced the term ecoféminisme in France in the 1970s, this movement for social change has highlighted the connection between the exploitation of nature and the oppression of women.2 Parallelisms have also been identified between the marginalization of women's writing and that of environmental writing. Therefore, it is not surprising that an important component of the struggle for the liberation of women should concern itself with the preservation of the environment as well.Recent developments of ecofeminism have questioned the misleading simplicity of the opposition male/female and have introduced in the debates

Poesía, espolio e degradación medioambiental.

“…As visións idealizadas das paisaxes rural e mariña predominan nunha boa parte dos discursos poéticos da literatura galega contemporánea, matizadas tan só por voces sociais que puxeron de relevo a dureza dos traballos no agro e no mar ou que denunciaron os efectos causados por conflitos puntuais que supuñan unha ameaza para a natureza e o modo de vida dunha comunidade. É non obstante nos discursos revisionistas xurdidos a partir dos anos noventa onde aparecen descricións desidealizadoras dos espazos naturais, especialmente dos rurais (Palacios, 2005;Nogueira, 2008;Palacios e Nogueira, 2014).…”