[ 17 ] LANDSCAPE AS ETHICAL TERRITORY: ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP IN THE POETRY OF JUDITH WRIGHT: ARTICLE INFO: Date of Submission: Feb 25, 2026, Revised: Mar 7, 2026, Accepted: Mar 10 , 2026, CrossRef D.O.I : https://doi.org/10.56815/ijmrr.v5i3.2026.183-190. How To Cite: Mrinal Kanti Mahata (2026). Landscape as Ethical Territory: Environmental Stewardship in the Poetry of Judith Wright. International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research & Reviews 5(3), 183-190.

Mrinal Kanti Mahata

[ 17 ] LANDSCAPE AS ETHICAL TERRITORY: ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP IN THE POETRY OF JUDITH WRIGHT

ARTICLE INFO: Date of Submission: Feb 25, 2026, Revised: Mar 7, 2026, Accepted: Mar 10 , 2026, CrossRef D.O.I : https://doi.org/10.56815/ijmrr.v5i3.2026.183-190. How To Cite: Mrinal Kanti Mahata (2026). Landscape as Ethical Territory: Environmental Stewardship in the Poetry of Judith Wright. International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research & Reviews 5(3), 183-190.

Authors

Mrinal Kanti Mahata Research Scholar, University Department of English, Ranchi University, Ranchi, Jharkhand-829205, India.

Abstract

Judith Wright's poetry does something most nature writing never quite manages: it makes the land morally demanding. This paper argues that across poems like "South of My Days, ""Bora Ring,"" Lyrebird," and "Dust," Wright turns the Australian landscape into ethical ground — not a backdrop or a metaphor, but the source of obligations that human beings are answerable to. Reading her through Val Plumwood's ecological animism, Robin Wall Kimmerer's grammar of animacy, and postcolonial ecology, the paper shows
that Wright was practising a form of ecocriticism decades before anyone named the field.