Poetic Animals and Animal Souls

RANDY MALAMUD is Professor of English at Georgia State University, and Associate Chair of the department. He has written several books about T. S. Elliot and modern British literature, and he is author most recently of Reading Zoos: Representations of Animals and Captivity.

This book offers a new paradigm for reading and appreciating animals in literature and addresses how human culture views animals in poetry.This book offers a new paradigm for reading and appreciating animals in literature and addresses how human culture views animals in poetry. Part one sets up a theoretical overview and posits some aesthetic and ethical ideals for transposing animals into art, while part two presents a more focused practical application of these ideals in one strain of animal poetry (as seen in the works of Marianne Moore, José Emilio Pacheco, Gary Snyder, Pattiann Rogers and others). The poetry analyzed in the book is respectfully and non-invasively insightful into animals; it is tinged with a distancing, and a kind of spiritual awe, regarding their existence.