Becoming a Tree: Exploring the Entanglement of Bodies, Soil, and Trees in Natural Burials. Issue 4 (2nd October 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Becher, Christina
• Is Part Of: Green letters. Volume 25:Issue 4(2021)
• Page Start: 403
• Page End: 414
• Publication Date: 2021-10-02
• Subjects: Literary and cultural plant studies -- sustainable burials -- care -- Philemon and Baucis -- Tristan -- Fontane's Ribbeck of Ribbeck in Havel-Land -- Munro's Heirs of the Living Body; Ecocriticism -- Europe -- Periodicals; Ecocriticism; Europe; Periodicals; 809.933553
• DOI: 10.1080/14688417.2022.2029717
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1468-8417

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Environmental awareness has led to an increasing interest in natural burials, but relatives of the deceased often complain about the graves becoming invisible. This article approaches this conundrum by exploring the entanglement of bodies, soil, and trees as matter in this context, and it shows how literature contributes to the symbolic dimension of this relationship between death and 'nature.' Instead of understanding trees as a replacement for headstones, I argue that many literary examples propose the idea of becoming a tree, hence making the transformation from life to death more visible. Located within the field of literary and cultural plant studies and drawing on material ecocriticism, this article brings together literature from antiquity and the Middle Ages to the present with environmental burial methods that put the idea of becoming a tree into practice.