Representation of the garden image in “The Wild Iris” by Louise Glück

The foundation of American poet Louise Glück’s work is rooted in myth, with each of her collections exploring a new narrative. Drawn to the use of archetypes, Glück’s poetry has inspired extensive research focused on her engagement with myth.

A few studies have analyzed the biblical narrative in her collection The Wild Iris (1992). Scholars often examine the collection through the lens of the biblical myth associated with Eden and the first humans, Adam and Eve, arguing that Glück offers a reinterpretation of the biblical myth.

However, the research problem lies in the fact that “The Wild Iris” lacks explicit elements that can definitively point to specific biblical myths. Thus, what should be understood as a biblical narrative remains an open question. Nevertheless, certain allusions appear in the collection, subtly directing the reader toward biblical imagery.

In “The Wild Iris”, the space of the garden becomes a central image – a unifying element that connects the poems and shapes the collection into a cohesive cycle. The author suggests in the article interpreting this as the topos of the locus amoenus (E.R. Curtius). Curtius’s definition reveals the multidimensionality of this topos, which is characteristic of the garden in “The Wild Iris”, manifesting through its inherent duality. Thus, the article examines the garden ton only as stylistic device, but also as a structural element of the poetic cycle within American poetry of the second half of 20^th century.

1. Curtius, E.R. (2020), Evropeiskaya literatura i latinskoe Srednevekov’e [Europäische Literatur und lateinisches Mittelalter], vol. 1, Yazyki slavyanskikh kul’tur, Moscow, Russia.

2. Davis, W.V. (2002), “ ‘Talked to by silence’: Apocalyptic yearnings in Louise Glück’s ‘The Wild Iris’ ”, Christianity and Literature, vol. 1, pp. 47–56.

3. Ganin, V.N. (2023), “Flower rituals in Louise Glück’s poetry collection ‘The Wild Iris’”, Vestnik Ryazanskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta imeni S.A. Esenina, vol. 79, no. 2, pp. 141–148.

4. Harrison, R.P. (2008), Gardens: An essay on the human condition, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, USA.

5. Likhachev, D.S. (1998), Poeziya sadov: k semantike sadovo-parkovykh stilei: Sad kak tekst [Poetry of gardens: Towards the semantics of garden and park styles. Garden as text], Soglasie, Moscow, Russia.

6. Morris, D. (2006), The poetry of Louise Glück: A thematic introduction, University of Missouri Press, Columbia, USA.

7. Schlapbach, K. (2007), “The pleasance, solitude and literary production. The transformation of the locus amoenus in late Antiquity”, Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum, vol. 50, pp. 34–50.

8. Zazula, P. (2020), “A gnostic in the garden: Myth and Religion Glück’s poems”, Academic Journal of Modern Philology, no. 10, pp. 255–268.