Poetry in (and after) Pandemic Times: An Ecolinguistic, Ecocritical Analysis

Epidemics and pandemics are major events that affect and cause a lot of damage to human life. These events elicit responses at all levels, including that of literature. Covid-19 has thrown up many challenges - isolation, sickness and death of loved ones – but also has given some opportunities, e.g., to cherish normal life and show sympathy for others. The pandemic has elicited a large number of poetic responses, ranging from the very satirical to the very serious. The responses have had an unprecedented facility to go "viral" instantly. This article examines some of these "viral verses", or poetic responses to the pandemic, in English and Arabic based on a theoretical background of ecocriticism and (critical) ecolinguistics, whose major aims include the investigation of human values and attitudes to nature and the environment and the relationship and interactions between humans and their environments.