Writing Phytophilia

Philosophers and Poets as Lovers of Plants

Authors

  • Patricia Vieira Georgetown University

Abstract

This essay considers the effects of phytophilia (the love of plants) in philosophy and in literature through an analysis of texts by French thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau and by Brazilian poet Manoel de Barros. In his relation to vegetal beings, the phytophile philosopher grapples with something as elusive as sophia, namely the process of plant growth. Such an encounter radically changes the philosopher in that it opens his thought to the flux of becoming and metamorphosis, inaccessible from the standpoint of Western metaphysics. Like philosophers, phytophile poets are transformed by their love of plants. Through literary imagination, they can portray the being-in-the-world of plants, an experience that, in turn, will profoundly impact their poetic language and praxis.

Author Biography

  • Patricia Vieira, Georgetown University

    Patricia Vieira is Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese, the Comparative Literature Program and the Film and Media Studies Program of Georgetown University. She is the author of Seeing Politics Otherwise: Vision in Latin American and Iberian Fiction (UTP, 2011); Portuguese Film 1930–1960. The Staging of the New State Regime (Bloomsbury, 2013); and co-editor of Existential Utopia: New Perspectives on Utopian Thought (Continuum, 2011). More information is available at: www.patriciavieira.net.

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Published

2026-05-04

Issue

Vol. 26 No. 2 (2013): Ecocriticism

Section

Main Section

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Vieira, P. (2026). Writing Phytophilia: Philosophers and Poets as Lovers of Plants. FRAME, Journal of Literary Studies, 26(2), 37-53. https://platform.openjournals.nl/FRAME/article/view/27420