When the Grass Sings: Poetic Reason and Animal Writing

Abstract

In this article I shall propose María Zambrano’s poetic reason as a suitable method for developing a knowledge of animal being. To do so, I will follow the analyses (Derrida, Coetzee) that place animal thinking in the poetic sphere, thus showing the need for a poetic/literary knowledge to make a philosophical knowledge of the animal possible. Animal writing expresses our nature in relation to animal nature; it discloses our animal interbeingness. Finally, I will point to some of the principles of ecofeminist/animal ethics, like care and empathy, which arise both in what I propose to call animal writing and in Zambranian poetic reason.