Animal Presence and Human Identity in Modern Literature - (Dis)figurations of Humanimality From Shakespeare to Desai

Animal Presence and Human Identity in Modern Literature is an exploration of literary representations of the human-animal encounter in modernity that press human "being" to its limits. Texts studied include Shakespeare's King Lear, Eliot's Middlemarch, Wells's The Island of Doctor Moreau, Atwood's Surfacing, and Desai's Clear Light of Day.

List of contents

Introduction: Literature and "The Animal" As Such; "Why Should a Dog, a Horse, a Rat Have Life?": King Lear and the Ethics of Encounter; "The Roar on the Other Side of Silence": Middlemarch and Sympathetic Imagination; "When Suffering Finds a Voice": The Island of Doctor Moreau and the Language of Pain; "The Power to Kill": Surfacing and the Ethics of Abject Humanimality; "Eat Your Meat": Clear Light of Day and the Borderlands of Animal Ethics; Conclusion: Toward an Ethics of Humanimality as First Philosophy.

About the author

Kimberly W. Benston is Francis B. Gummere Professor of English and Africana Studies at Haverford College, where he has also served as Provost and President.

Product details

• Authors: Kimberly W Benston, Kimberly W. Benston, Benston Kimberly W.
• Publisher: Anthem Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 31.12.2020, delayed
• EAN: 9781785279607
• ISBN: 978-1-78527-960-7
• No. of pages: 250
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; LITERARY CRITICISM / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / Subjects & Themes / Nature, Ireland, United Kingdom, Great Britain, Literature: history & criticism, Nature and the natural world: general interest, Literature: history and criticism