On People’s Experience Of Villages In Louise Glück’s Poetry

Louise Glück(1943-)is a significant contemporary poetess,critic,essayist and educator in America.She won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2020.The researches on her poems at home and abroad focus on the perspectives of the artistic technique in writing poems,themes,rewriting,the poetess’ s studies,semiotic studies,translation studies,ecocriticism and so forth.There are many expressions concerning people’s experience of villages in Glück’s poetry.Although some scholars pay attention to the villages in her poems,they seldom analyze the villages from the perspective of“experience”,leaving much room for this thesis to explore people’s experience of villages.A close reading of Glück’s poems from The Triumph of Achilles,Ararat,Vita Nova,The Seven Ages,Averno,A Village Life,Faithful and Virtuous Night reveals that there are many descriptions on people’s experience of villages,including sensual experience,spiritual experience,and rational thinking.This thesis will draw on the theories of the psychology of literature and art,and ecocriticism,Raymond Williams’ theory on country to analyze people’s experience of villages in Glück’s poetry.The first chapter analyzes people’s sensual experience of villages in Glück’s poems.First,her poems present that people approach to nature through observing,listening,tasting,and smelling.Second,her poems depict that people perceive nature from the natural cycles in the villages.Through the description of people’s sensual experience mentioned above,the poetess expresses her appreciation for the villages.The second chapter explores people’s spiritual experience of villages in Glück’s poems.First,her poems describe that people sense the harmonious relationships between man and nature,man and man in the villages,their awe for the villages is generated.Second,her poems describe that the poets draw the inspiration hidden in the villages,and emphasize that the poets are inspired by nature to express people’s profound experience of villages from the aspect of spirit.The third chapter interprets people’s rational thinking of the villages in Glück’s poems.First,she criticizes the serious situation of villages.She condemns the loss of connection between farmers and the lands,and the change of the familiar people and living environment.Second,she advocates the construction of awareness of harmonious villages and the practice of the lifestyle in that way.Through the arguments of the preceding three chapters,the thesis concludes that Glück contemplates people’s experience of villages,guiding people to appreciate the natural beauty and to experience the powers hidden in nature.Meanwhile,the thesis also reveals that she also criticizes the vanishing goodness in the villages.She expresses her realistic concern for the relationship between man and nature in the villages and her infinite expectation for the construction of harmonious villages.The academic meaning of this thesis lies in analyzing people’s experience of villages reflected in Glück’s poems gives research potential for studying Glück’s poetry.With regard to its realistic significance,this thesis hopes that revealing people’s experience of villages in Glück’s poems can provide some enlightenment to the village rejuvenation and village construction and the protection of ecological environment in China.