Writing about Everyday Beauty: Anthropomorphizing and Distancing as Literary Practices

Abstract

In this paper two ways to communicate a relation to one's everyday life environment are discussed: anthropomorphizing and distancing. Both are often thought to convey hierarchically anthropocentric relations to nature and as such to be undesired. The basis of this paper is empirical research conducted in a small northern Finnish village. Four villagers participated in writing letters about beauty in their everyday lives. In this paper the letters of two participants are discussed in detail. I conclude that anthropomorphism and distancing serve as literary practices of negotiating a meaningful relation to one's everyday life environment by conceptually framing the interplay of one's perceived proximity to and distance from the not-her.

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