Virginia Woolf’s green literature

notes on ecocriticism

Abstract

In this article, we seek to provide a dialogue with the principles defended by ecocriticism from the reading of the literary production of the English writer Virginia Woolf, focusing on her short story "Kew Gardens", in dialogue with the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre, in the novel "The Nausea", a literary work that marks the beginning of his existentialist philosophy, to be developed later by the French thinker. Ecocriticism considers all forms of life that inhabit the planet to be important and stresses the view that believes that the human is the privileged element in the web of life. Therefore, we intend to demonstrate that the arts and literature, but also philosophy, when thought in contact with nature, are valuable allies to make visible the parasitic way in which humans have approached nature, that is, only to take from it the so-called natural resources. Finally, briefly, to indicate the power of the feminine to scrutinise the plant universe. As for the short story "Kew Gardens", the translation used is that of Tomaz Tadeu, published in the collection A arte da brevidade (2020), by Editora Autêntica.