Writing About Animals in the Age of Revolution

by Jane Spencer Narrated by Cat Gould

Overview

Writing About Animals in the Age of Revolution shows how an appreciation of human-animal similarity and a literature of compassion for animals developed in the same years during which radical thinkers were first basing political demands on the concept of natural and universal human rights. Some people began to conceptualize animal rights as an extension of the rights of man and woman. But because oppressed people had to insist on their own separation from animals in order to claim the right to a full share in human privileges, the relationship between human and animal rights was fraught and complex.



This book examines that relationship in chapters covering the abolition movement, early feminism, and the political reform movement. Donkeys, pigs, apes, and many other literary animals became central metaphors within political discourse, fought over in the struggle for rights and freedoms; while at the same time more and more writers became interested in exploring the experiences of animals themselves. We learn how children's writers pioneered narrative techniques for representing animal subjectivity, and how the anti-cruelty campaign of the early 1800s drew on the legacy of 1790s radicalism.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"There is much to admire in Jane Spencer's wide-ranging study. The breadth of reference is impressive and takes in great swathes of late eighteenth-century writing." — Julie Murray, Eighteenth-Century Fiction

"Clearly written, meticulously researched, and illustrated with intriguing artifacts from popular culture, the volume is an outstanding contribution to both literary studies and animal studies." — R. D. Morrison, CHOICE

"Writing About Animals in the Age of Revolution remains an important, well-written and richly researched work, which succeeds brilliantly in showing â to expert readers and non-specialists alike â the relevance of current research on animals and animality between 18th and 19th centuries, going beyond the â¯disciplinary boundaries between the history of literature, political history and the history of "human sciences" and knowledge about nature." — Francesca Antonelli, Clio, Women, Gender, History

"Jane Spencer's splendid book represents the result of decades of work on approaches to animals in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and perhaps a lifetime of thought on this subject." — Christine Kenyon Jones, British Association of Romantic Studies

Product Details

BN ID:	2940176365535
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	11/03/2020
Edition description:	Unabridged

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