Elements for an ecopoetic by Mohammed Dib

Abstract

The article aims to identify constitutive elements of a dibian ecopoetry based on the two Algerian and Nordic trilogies. It starts from the depiction of the land and, in particular, of the author's city of origin, which appears as a unit culturally marked by diversity. This article identifies the poetic transposition of this depiction, as an entity bindingunity and diversity. Its first objective is to define what characterises the place of origin, and the way in which, poetically, the conditions of a habitat, understood as oikos, shelter, refuge, and as an appropriated share of space, are poetically outlined. It then considers man's position in this permeable space both in it and from it, and the crossing from the inside to the outside and vice-versa. He shows how the Dibian protagonist, observer and watchman, can "open up to the world", so to speak, and become an adventurer and an explorer when he responds to the command of the "outside".