Plant Humanities and Biodiversity: A Textual Exploration and Reclamation in a Posthumanist Perspective
https://doi.org /10.5281/zen od o.14980147
Author(s): Bratati Barik
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14980147
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Volume 16 | Issue 1 | Feb 2025
Pages: 872-882
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The Criterion: An International Journal in English Vol. 16, Issue-I, February 2025 ISSN: 0976-8165
www.the-criterion.com
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
Plant Humanities and Biodiversity: A Textual Exploration and
Reclamation in a Posthumanist Perspective
Bratati Barik
Assistant Professor,
Vidyasagar College, Kolkata.
Article History: Submitted‐31/01/2025, Revised‐09/02/2025, Accepted‐22/02/2025, Published‐28/02/2025.
Abstract:
The objective of this research paper is to identify and find the intricate working out of
the agents of plant humanities in selected literary works. This paper seeks to identify the
relationship of human beings with plants, trees, the vegetation and the green environment, in
a global perspective. As found in literary works and also in the development of plant
humanism intricately worked out in various texts, nature acted as a healing agent. The
development of plant humanism has been considered from the sense of environmental
responsibility that helps retain its sustainability. The selected literary texts allow the observer
to consider and analyze the significance of plant humanism that finds an ever growing
environmental consciousness along the line of their own development in general. The
selected texts, intensely associated with plant humanism, show a way out for those who have
alienated themselves from Nature. This paper also seeks to explore the gradual growth and
development in the process of creating the trajectory of plant humanism in the British literary
output. A close working out of the selected texts reveal an intrinsic view where all the
experiences of the world are found to be, not isolated from the experiences of nature but, to
seek a way of human development that includes a posthumanist outlook that can maintain a
harmony and uphold a balance of human-nature relationship without which none can
872
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14980147
Plant Humanities and Biodiversity: A Textual Exploration and Reclamation in a Posthumanist Perspective
www.the-criterion.com
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
thrive. Only reclamation of the ancient pristine nature can save the earth and the human
beings.
Keywords: Plant humanism, biodiversity, environment, anthropocentrism, literary
texts.
The relationship between plants and human beings is as old as the origin of human
beings itself, in the history of origin of life on the earth. Planthumanism studies also evince
the close bonding and dependence of human beings on the plants and trees. Human beings are
directly dependent on the plants for oxygen, food and nutrients and even for shelter, as their
basic needs for survival and sustenance. Human beings are directly dependent on plants and
trees because they cannot survive even for a moment without the natural oxygen that they get
from the plants and trees. A large amount of food articles from plants are consumed by
human beings. Even the plants and trees provide shelter to the human beings and human
beings depend on plants also because of the medicines that they get from the plants and plant
parts. Besides, plants and trees also provide aesthetic delight to human beings. Plants and
trees are so intricately associated with human beings that they have been found in literary
presentations with a close kinship that reflect on human life, society, culture and aesthetic and
spiritual life of human beings. A look back into the history of human civilization would
definitely trace the dependence of human beings on the plants, trees and the vegetation not
only for survival means that they provide but also for religious associations of plants with
human beings also. Human beings and plants have been creating an indispensable bond and
are continuing to do so since the time of creation of the living beings including human
beings. The relationship between plants and humans has been reflected in literature in a close
proximity to the extent of all the benefits that plants provide to human beings.
873
The Criterion: An International Journal in English Vol. 16, Issue-I, February 2025 ISSN: 0976-8165
www.the-criterion.com
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
However, the anthropogenic effects on plants have not been so clearly exposed in the
literature of the past. It has been only in recent times that the significance of ecocriticism,
environmental studies and planthumanities have come to the forefront to resist the
detrimental effects of the anthropogenic causes that are showered down on to the green world
and the environment. Human beings have been depicted in literature to take the benefits of
plants and the green vegetation and consume their gifts only, but very few texts have dealt
with the importance of plants and the trees as living and natural entities that deserve dignity
of their existence on the planet. This aspect of the planthumanities has been ignored in major
texts. Human beings have accepted the bounty of the green plants but never have thought to
return something or preserve them except in very recent times. Rachel Yerbury in the article,
“Reconceptualizing human-wildlife interaction places and bonds through ecopsychology:
Healthy reciprocal relationships” observed, ‘Humans need to alter the path down which we
are headed, regarding the natural world and wildlife’(Human-Animal Interactions 3).
John C. Ryan, an eminent writer in the field of Planthumanities has observed that ‘the
world’s literary traditions feature a diversity of poems elucidating the spiritual, aesthetic,
moral, political and ecological importance of plant life’ (Plant Perspectives 259).The plant
communities of forests, gardens, and individual plants of special importance have found place
in literature and fueled the imaginative sustenance of both the readers and the writers. Anglo-
Saxon texts within the British literary output abound in the depiction of the natural
environment and the plant communities. Since ancient times plants and trees have been used
to denote life, victory, spiritualism, growth and development. In symbolic representations the
plant and tree communities have been used for denoting strength, power, resistance,
longevity, peacefulness, calmness, interconnectedness among others. In literary works like
“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” green girdle has been depicted to be acting like a
protective shield to Sir Gawain. The green girdle is made of gold threads and green silk,
874
Plant Humanities and Biodiversity: A Textual Exploration and Reclamation in a Posthumanist Perspective
www.the-criterion.com
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
hatched from the eggs laid on tree leaves and tree barks. The silk belt, an admixture of the
organic and metallic elements in right proportion, was believed to provide an appropriate and
apt protection to Sir Gawain. In the Elizabethan age, the wide upsurge of Renaissance
humanism strengthened the position of human beings and marginalized the nonhuman
entities. Though human beings dominated the centre, the relevance of the plant and tree
community occupied some space in the works of Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare and other
minor writers of the time. Sidney’s pastoral romance, “Arcadia”. The shepherds and
shepherdess find a perfect atmosphere in the green world of Arcadia where the humans
mingle with the plants and the singing birds in an infinite interconnectedness of the sense of
merrymaking and joyfulness. Arcadia turns into almost a pastoral fantasy.
Use of plant and tree communities abounds in the plays of Shakespeare. In
“Macbeth”, the approaching Birnam wood towards Dunsinane provides one of the major
twisting turns to the tragic play. The approaching soldiers, each holding a branch of a tree in
their hands for deceiving the actual number of soldiers in their group, in the hindsight
produces the impression of a forest stalking gradually towards the Dunsinane castle from far.
The association of human and plant communities, the forest tree and the tree branches used
by the approaching soldiers evinces the mechanism of deception in war, where plant
communities are made to act in a congenial and friendly manner with the humans in the
ancient warfare.
Shakespeare’s use of the Forest of Arcadia in “As You Like It”, exhibits a close
association of human plant communities. The gradual transformations, brought about in the
characters are all due to the benevolent effects of the forest woodland of Arden. Orlando
hangs love letters on the barks of trees, in praise of Rosalind. Oliver and Duke Frederick, the
wicked are transformed as soon as they set for the Forest of Arden. The Forest of Arden
seems to cast a spell in all the human beings- wicked or bad and are finally transformed into
875
The Criterion: An International Journal in English Vol. 16, Issue-I, February 2025 ISSN: 0976-8165
www.the-criterion.com
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
noble ones. The human characters make a happy ending of the play and spread an air of
freshness of the evergreen romantic forest for all ages to be remembered.
Various myths, legends, landscape features with trees, home decor and even trees of
life have been depicted in literature. In Eclogues, plants and the green environment along
with the pastures, sheep and shepherds have served as a vital source of materials.
Vegetal bodies are among the many sources in literature that found expression as
similes, metaphors, personifications and other literary devices. Man-eating plants, walking
plants, hybrid plant-humans have been catering to the taste of contemporary literary genres
like- science fictions, fairy tales and terror fictions.
While post-anthropocentrism challenged anthropocentrism and established its place
with the focus on ‘species egalitarianism’ (belief in the principle that all species are equal and
deserve equal rights and opportunities) and ‘monistic vitalism’(belief that the universe is
made of life force), and posthumanism replaced humanism, suggesting that it reflects a
systematic attempt to challenge humanist assumptions underlying the construction of ‘the
human’, the concept of critical posthumanities advocated a fusion of both post-
anthropocentrism and posthumanism. Posthuman Condition, on the other hand, brings to light
human engagements with the world which are constantly shaped by the confluence of ‘zoe-
’(living), ‘geo-’(geological) and techno-based (technological) dimensions. Rosi Braidotti’s
framework advocates for ‘species egalitarianism’ that seeks a ‘monistic vitalism’ taking into
account all living beings in the form of an interconnectedness through a ‘zoe/ geo/ techno
assemblage’ in the post human era. The basic justification for this framework as per Rosi
Braidotti’s Posthuman Knowledge (2019) is the assertion that all living beings are
interconnected and thus it rejects the idea of ‘species supremacy’ and ‘human
exceptionalism’.
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Plant Humanities and Biodiversity: A Textual Exploration and Reclamation in a Posthumanist Perspective
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https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
The fundamental idea behind the ‘posthuman condition’ includes the “Fourth
Industrial Revolution” involving the advanced technologies like robotics, artificial
intelligence, biotechnology, nanotechnology on one hand and the “Sixth Extinction”
involving the extinction of different species due to anthropogenic effects, on the other. The
blurring of the boundaries between digital, physical, and biological forces, and the extinction
of species and the hazardous climatic conditions together mark the ‘posthuman condition’ in
the era of anthropocene. While the first idea involving technological innovation pertains to
the systemic accelerations, generated by advanced capitalism at the economic level, the
second includes environmental accelerations, associated with climate change at the ecological
level. The first and the second modes of accelerations coalesce and collide to enhance the
‘posthuman condition’ in the anthropocene era where humans have turned into geological
agents rather than being biological agents of the planet we inhabit.
Evidently, the past decades have been witnessing the rise of the posthuman condition
that arose from an entanglement of the socio-cultural and political world order with that of
the material and energy cycles of the earth. Locating humans in entanglement with
nonhumans have gained prominence in recent times in the hands of Bernard Stiegler, Bruno
Latour, Michel Serres, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Dona Haraway and others. The term
‘anthropocene’ is being intensively used as an operative critical tool for questioning and
assessing our understanding of the present relation between humans and nonhumans. A return
to the atavistic world that existed with its naturalizing tendencies and anti-colonial outlook
has been a need of the present world order.
Coined by Ihab Hassan in Prometheus as Performer: Towards a Posthumanist
Culture? (1977), the term, ‘Posthumanism’ came to be a concept that criticized humanism’s
Eurocentric, rationalistic, anthropocentric and patriarchal assumptions that rejected
essentialist views of human nature. Posthumanism examines the relationship between humans
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The Criterion: An International Journal in English Vol. 16, Issue-I, February 2025 ISSN: 0976-8165
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https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
and other life forms, including both animals and plans, and explores the entanglements
between humans and nonliving matter. A recently developed multidisciplinary field called
plant humanities promotes new perspectives on the botanical world and human-plant
relations. Plant humanities blur boundaries against plants, people and ecologies. Plant
humanities interrogate multiple issues relating to human-plant interdependence, food
security, climate disturbance, loss of biodiversity and even botanical heritage. The complex
human-plant relations and interdependence find representation in literatures of varied ages.
The relationship between plants and human beings is as old as the origin of human
beings itself, in the history of origin of life on the earth. Planthumanism studies also evince
the close bonding and dependence of human beings on the plants and trees. Human beings are
directly dependent on the plants for oxygen, food and nutrients and even for shelter, as their
basic needs for survival and sustenance. Human beings are directly dependent on plants and
trees because they cannot survive even for a moment without the natural oxygen that they get
from the plants and trees. A large amount of food articles from plants are consumed by
human beings. Even the plants and trees provide shelter to the human beings and human
beings depend on plants also because of the medicines that they get from the plants and plant
parts. Besides, plants and trees also provide aesthetic delight to human beings. Plants and
trees are so intricately associated with human beings that they have been found in literary
presentations with a close kinship that reflect on human life, society, culture and aesthetic and
spiritual life of human beings.
A look back into the history of human civilization would definitely trace the
dependence of human beings on the plants, trees and the vegetation not only for survival
means that they provide but also for religious associations of plants with human beings.
Human beings and plants have been creating an indispensable bond and are continuing to do
so since the time of creation of the living beings including human beings. The relationship
878
Plant Humanities and Biodiversity: A Textual Exploration and Reclamation in a Posthumanist Perspective
www.the-criterion.com
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
between plants and humans has been reflected in literature in a close proximity to the extent
where all the benefits that plants provide to human beings support a collaborative survival
with different planetary cohabitants in this rich biodiverse world.
However, the anthropogenic effects on plants have not been so clearly exposed in the
literature of the past. It has been only in recent times that the significance of ecocriticism,
environmental studies and planthumanities has come to the forefront to resist the detrimental
effects of the anthropogenic causes that are showered down on to the green world and the
environment. Human beings have been depicted in literature to take the benefits of plants and
the green vegetation and consume their gifts only, but very few texts have dealt with the
importance of plants and the trees as living and natural entities that deserve dignity of their
existence on the planet. This aspect of the plant humanities has been ignored in major
texts. Human beings have accepted the bounty of the green plants but never have thought to
return something or preserve them except in very recent times.
The plant communities of forests, gardens, and individual plants of special importance
have found place in literature and fueled the imaginative sustenance of both the readers and
the writers. Anglo-Saxon texts within the British literary output abound in the depiction of
the natural environment and the plant communities. Since ancient times, plants and trees have
been used to denote life, victory, spiritualism, growth and development. In symbolic
representations the plant and tree communities have been used for denoting strength, power,
resistance, longevity, peacefulness, calmness, interconnectedness among others. In literary
works like “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” green girdle has been depicted to be acting
like a protective shield to Sir Gawain. The green girdle is made of gold threads and green
silk, hatched from the eggs laid on tree leaves and tree barks. The silk belt, an admixture of
the organic and metallic elements in right proportion, was believed to provide an appropriate
and apt protection to Sir Gawain. In the Elizabethan age, the wide upsurge of Renaissance
879
The Criterion: An International Journal in English Vol. 16, Issue-I, February 2025 ISSN: 0976-8165
www.the-criterion.com
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
humanism strengthened the position of human beings and marginalized the nonhuman
entities. Though human beings dominated the centre, the relevance of the plant and tree
community occupied some space in the works of Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare and other
minor writers of the time. In Sidney’s pastoral romance, “Arcadia”, the shepherds and
shepherdesses find a perfect atmosphere in the green world of Arcadia where the humans
mingle with the plants and the singing birds in an infinite interconnectedness in the sense of
merrymaking and joyfulness. Arcadia turns into almost a pastoral fantasy.
Use of plant and tree communities abounds in the plays of Shakespeare. In
“Macbeth”, the approaching Birnam wood towards Dunsinane provides one of the major
twisting turns to the tragic play. The approaching soldiers, each holding a branch of a tree in
their hands for deceiving the actual number of soldiers in their group, in the hindsight
produces the impression of a forest stalking gradually towards the Dunsinane castle from far.
The association of human and plant communities, the forest tree and the tree branches used
by the approaching soldiers evince the mechanism of deception in war, where plant
communities are made to act in a congenial and friendly manner with the humans in the
ancient warfare.
Shakespeare’s use of the Forest of Arden in close association with Arcadia in “As
You Like It”, exhibits a close association of human and plant communities. The gradual
transformation, brought about in the characters is all due to the benevolent effects of the
forest woodland of Arden. Orlando hangs love letters on the barks of trees, in praise of
Rosalind. Oliver and Duke Frederick, the wickeds are transformed as soon as they set their
foot towards the Forest of Arden. The Forest of Arden seems to cast a spell in all the human
beings- wicked or bad and are finally transformed into noble ones. The human characters
make a happy ending of the play and spread an air of freshness of the evergreen romantic
forest for all ages to be remembered. Rueckert remarks in his essay, “Literature and Ecology:
880
Plant Humanities and Biodiversity: A Textual Exploration and Reclamation in a Posthumanist Perspective
www.the-criterion.com
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
An Experiment in Ecocriticism” (collected in the theoretical work The Ecocriticism Reader)
(1996) that, “the conceptual and practical problem is to find the ground upon which the two
communities – the human, the natural-can coexist, cooperate, and flourish in the biosphere”
(107).
Various myths, legends, landscape features with trees, home decor and even trees of
life have been depicted in literature. In “Eclogues”, plants and the green environment along
with the pastures, sheep and shepherds have served as a vital source of materials. Vegetal
bodies are among the many sources in literature that found expression as similes, metaphors,
personifications and other literary devices.
Man-eating plants, walking plants, hybrid plant-humans have been catering to the
taste of contemporary literary genres like- science fictions, fairy tales and terror fictions. Pat
Murphy’s short story, “His Vegetable Wife” (1986), Ronald Fraser’s “Flower Phantoms”
(1926 ), John Boyd’s “The Pollinators of Eden” (1969) are a few interesting literary works on
plants humanities, falling close to the genre of Science fiction.
Plant humanities have observed the co-evolution of humans and nonhumans with
respect to social relations and environmental justice. Dipesh Chakrabarty in “The Seventh
History and Theory Lecture: Anthropocene Time” (2018) asserts, “the term Anthropocene
helped focus public attention on the possibility that human beings now so dominated the
planet that their collective impact was comparable to those of very large-scale planetary
forces” (7). Val Plumwood (1939- 2008) observes, “We need to understand and affirm both
otherness and our community in the earth” (qtd. in Garrard 29). The posthumanist
methodology employed in the theoretical concept of plant humanities thus focuses on the so
far neglected and unappreciated elements, relationships and interdependence on the non-
human subjects called plants in the Anthropocene.
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The Criterion: An International Journal in English Vol. 16, Issue-I, February 2025 ISSN: 0976-8165
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https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
Works Cited:
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. “Anthropocene Time.” History and Theory, vol. 57, no. 1, Mar. 2018,
pp. 5–32, www.10.1111/hith.12044. Accessed 24 Aug. 2024.
Garrard, Greg. Ecocriticism. New York: Routledge, 2012.
Rueckert, William. “Literature and Ecology: An Experiment in Ecocriticism”. The
Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology, Ed. Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold
Fromm. Athens: Georgia Univ. Press., 1996. 105-123.
Ryan, John C.. “On Being Called by Plants: Phytopoetics and the Phytosphere”. Plant
Perspectives.2024.
Yerbury, Rachel. “Reconceptualizing human-wildlife interaction places and bonds through
ecopsychology: Healthy reciprocal relationships”. Human-Animal Interactions . Human-
Animal Interactions. 2024.
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Bratati Barik