Plant Studies in Deutschland. Pflanzen als Mit-Wesen in Thomas Hettches Pfaueninsel

Abstract

Recently German philology has opened up to Plant Studies as a branch of cultural studies and literary studies. The new approach has been developed in close connection with Animal Studies, Ecocriticism and the Environmental Humanities. The first part of this essay gives a brief survey of the ongoing debates in the field, and introduces its present subdivisions (Cultural Botany, Human-Plant Studies, Critical Plant Studies, and Literary/Cultural Plant Studies). The second part proposes an illustration through the analysis of Thomas Hettche’s Pfaueninsel from the perspective of Plant Studies, focusing primarily on the ways in which plants in relation to other living beings appear in the narrated world of the novel. Moreover the descriptive plant-like that is recurrently used by the novel’s characters is of interest, as well as the protagonist Marie Strakon’s strategies to escape these constant evaluations with their frequently derogatory slant. Tentatively, the novel conceives the counter-image of an empathy-driven fellow-being and fellow-feeling not only between humans and animals, but also towards plants.