Victorians and their animals : beast on a leash / edited by Brenda Ayres.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Ayres, Brenda, 1953- editor.

Series:

Perspectives on the non-human in literature and culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English literature--19th century--History and criticism.

English literature.

Animals in literature.

Human-animal relationships in literature.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Literary criticism.

Physical Description:

xv, 212 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : Routledge, 2018.

Summary:

"Victorians and Their Animals: Beast on a Leash investigates the notion that British Victorians did see themselves as naturally dominant species over other humans and over animals. They conscientiously, hegemonically were determined to rule those beneath them and the animal within themselves albeit with varying degrees of success and failure. The articles in this collection apply posthuman and other theories, including queer, postcolonialism, deconstruction, and Marxism, in their exploration of Victorian attitudes toward animals. They study the biopolitical relationships between human and nonhuman animals in several key Victorian literary works. Some of this book's chapters deal with animal ethics and moral aesthetics. Also being studied is the representation of animals in several Victorian novels as narrative devices to signify class status and gender dynamics, either to iterate socially acceptable mores or to satirize hypocrisy or breach of behavior or to voice social protest. All of the chapters analyse the interdependence of people and animals during the nineteenth century"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: Beast on a leash / Brenda Ayres

Gaskell's activism and animal agency / Brenda Ayres

Old and new beef: caring for animals in household words / Liam Young

George Eliot's use of horses in measuring the moral maturity of characters in her novels / Constance M. Fulmer

Pigs in great expectations: class, dehumanization, and Marxist animal studies / Jessica Kuskey

Ants, insects, and automatons: classifying Hardy's creatures in the return of the native / Anna West

It's raining cats and dogs in George Eliot's novels / Brenda Ayres

A fine kettle of fish: cultural (and culinary) preservation in Anglo-Jewish ghetto stories / Lindsay Katzir

Gendered metamorphoses in Richard Marsh's The beetle and the natural history museum / Pandora Syperek

The "animality" of speech and translation in the jungle books / Christie Harner.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

ebook version :

ISBN:

9781138359567

1138359564

OCLC:

1041479297