Abstract

Canadian poet Angela Rawlings’ Wide Slumber for Lepidopterists (2006), a book of experimental ecopoetry, raises questions about the violence of language in the context of a settler-colonial nation. This article argues that Rawlings’ “unsettling” use of the nonhuman environment in her poetry allows her to critique the role that anthropo-, phallo-, and eurocentric language has played in the (discursive) settling of Canada. By exploring how Rawlings employs what Cynthia Sugars calls the “postcolonial gothic,” I show how a postcolonial ecocritical reading of Wide Slumber reveals the (at times violent or difficult) intertwining of national, cultural, and ecological concerns. Ultimately, the concept of “unsettling” utilizes gothic disturbance in order to challenge the process of colonial settlement and discourse and show concern for the well-being of the natural environment.

pdf

Share