Why read about animals: On the formation of the animal autobiography as a literary genre in the 18th–19th century British literature
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu09.2023.306Abstract
The article presents an analysis of the genesis of the genre of animal autobiography in English literature at the turn of the 18th–19th centuries. The emergence, formation and evolution of the genre is considered in three contexts. The ideas of Adam Smith and David Hume together with the pedagogical teachings of John Locke and Sarah Trimmer form the central philosophical concepts of the new genre: sentimental feeling, sympathy, concern for the well-being of another living being. Comparison of the animal autobiography with “novel of circulation”, a popular in the XVIII century type of novel about adventures of a thing, focuses readers attention on animate and inanimate narrator which leads to the didactics of a new genre. Autobiographical narratives such as “The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse” of Dorothy Kilner, “Adventures of a Donkey” of Arabella Argus, and “Black Beauty” of Anna Sewell are studied in the context of the 18th and 19th century novel culture and since the authors of such autobiographies were predominantly women, who were responsible for caregiving and education, within the female narrative strategies in biographies. Written over two centuries ago by women who appropriated the voices of animals and spoke of their well-being, animal autobiographies are studied in terms of ecofeminist critique and human-animal studies. It is concluded that this genre may be regarded as an enlightenment project, which had and still has not only a didactic, but also an emancipatory function.
Keywords:
animal autobiography, children’s literature, Enlightenment, British literature, empathy
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Литература
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Herman 2016 — Herman D. Animal Autobiography; Or, Narration beyond the Human. Humanities. 2016, 5 (4): 82–99.
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Jelinek 1986 — Jelinek E. The Tradition of Women’s Autobiography: From Antiquity to the Present. Boston: Twayne Publishing, 1986.
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Loveland 2005 — Loveland J. Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon’s Histoire naturelle in English, 1775–1815. Archives of Natural History. 2005, (31): 214–235.
Marie 2015 — Marie C. (Re-)Imaging the imaginary of a children’s story by Virginia Woolf: Nurse Lugton… through the Prism of Three Illustrators. The Imaginary: Word and Image. Leiden; Boston: Brill; Rodopi Publishing, 2015. P. 29–46.
Melson 2001 — Melson G. Why the Wild Things Are. Animals in the Lives of Children. Cambridge; London: Harvard University Press, 2001.
Middelhoff 2017 — Middelhoff F. Literary Autozoographies: Contextualizing Species Life in German Animal Autobiography. Humanities. 2017, 6 (2): 23.
Mullan 2008 — Mullan J. How Novels Work. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Pickering 1981 — Pickering S. John Locke and Children’s Books in Eighteenth Century England. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1981.
Pickering 1993 — Pickering S. Moral Instruction and Fiction for Children 1749–1820. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1993.
Piveteau 2023 — Piveteau J. “Georges-Louis Leclerc, count de Buffon”. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Georges-Louis-Leclerc-comte-de-Buffon (accessed: 19.09.2023).
Ratelle 2015 — Ratelle A. Animalism and Children’s Literature and Film. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
Shapiro et al. 2004 — Shapiro J., Morrison E., Boker J. Teaching empathy to first year medical students: evaluation of an elective literature and medicine course. Education for Health. 2004, 17 (1): 73–84.
Shaw 2015 — Shaw M. Children’s Animal tales. 2015. https://www.bl.uk/animal-tales/articles/childrensanimal-tales (accessed: 19.09.2023).
Smith 2015 — Smith, J.A. Representing Animal Minds In Early Animal Autobiography: Charlotte Tucker’s ‘The Rambles of a Rat’ and Nineteenth-Century Natural History. Victorian Literature and Culture. 2015, 43 (4): 725–744.
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