Towards Plant Humanities: Changing Perspectives on the Botanical World in Literature

Abstract: Humanities, as a discipline, conventionally centers on human issues, now gesturing towards an interdisciplinary nature, has evolved to an extent where it can even encompass discourses on non-human entities like animals and plants. The development of ‘Plant Humanities’ as an academic field underscores the inevitability of incorporating botanical life into philosophical, cultural and ethical discourses. As an evolving interdisciplinary field, due to the flourishing of fields such as ecocriticism, environmental humanities, and plant humanities, the discourse on plant ontology dispels the anthropocentric biases through the attribution of sensitivity and agency to plant life. Theorists like Gilles Deleuze and Michael Marder offer frameworks that problematise hierarchical dualism and reimagines botanical existence beyond passive ontology. The literary representations in different genres, especially poetry as a genre offers new perceptions in tandem with the contemporary perspective on them, stressing the necessity for new ethical and intellectual considerations in the vegetal world. Keywords: Plant Humanities, Botany, Human-Centrism, Environment, Literature