Animals in literature I 3700-KON4-AZ

During the course students will be acquainted with selected works of literature representing different genres and periods, in which portrayals of animals and human-animal relations affect the understanding of cultural determinants of the non-literary reality.

The course is based on examples from European culture, with a special focus on Polish literature. Analyses of texts and discussions about them will deal with the main problems of literary portrayals of animals from within the following themes: the culture-nature divide, anthropocentrism and its criticism, animal fables and their contemporary versions, the history of human-animal relations.
Students will be encouraged to take an analytical and critical look at the literature under consideration, be independent in formulating arguments in a discussion, and will also learn how to identify texts that problematize or even change the cultural image of animals or propose something new for the interpretation of world and Polish literature.
Syllabus:
Introduction: Literature and animals – multitude of themes, problems and the issue of interpretation (2 h)
I The culture-nature divide – how the notions function, how they are presented and understood in literature (6 h)
1. The definition of the notions of “culture” and “nature”; “culture – nature” as a classical opposition in Western thought and ways in which it has been redefined (recommended reading: Kultura a natura [Culture Versus Nature] by Jan Gwalbert Pawlikowski). We will be interested in how animals function within this opposition through literature. We will read excerpts from the book Pisarze w zwierzyńcu [Writers in the Menagerie] by Janina Abramowska, who has proposed a way of organizing animal themes in literature. We will consider the difference between the terms “natura” (nature) and “przyroda” (natural features and phenomena), and also new proposals for approaching the relation between culture and nature resulting from the reinterpretation of sources that are key to Western civilization (reading: an excerpt from Reinventing Eden. The Fate of Nature in Western Culture by Carolyn Merchant). Moreover, we will consider on what basis animal cultures are distinguished and what changes in the understanding of culture as a result (extra reading: The Question of Animal Culture edited by Kevin Laland and Bennett Galef).
2. The human-animal divide as a version of the culture-nature divide. On the example of George Orwell’s Animal Farm and part four of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms), we will trace the reversal of this relation and consider its significance.
II Anthropocentrism and examples of its criticism in literature (6 h)
1. Pros and cons of anthropomorphism of animals; humanism versus anthropocentrism. We will consider the pitfalls of anthropocentric reading and ways to avoid it. On the example of Franz Kafka’s Red Peter, we will look at the species that is biologically the closest to humans: the chimpanzee, and the dangers of presenting animals as being similar to humans.
2. Literature sensitive to harm done to animals. On the example of texts by John Maxwell Coetzee, Witold Gombrowicz and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, we will analyse what ethical issues in relations between humans and animals are raised in literature.
3. Animals in poetry. On the example of selected works (The Tyger by William Blake, Oczy tygrysa by Tytus Czyżewski, Snake by D. H. Lawrence), we will ask about the status of wild animals in the past and today. We will be interested in the role fascination and fear play in the perception of animal wildness.
III Animal fables and their impact on literature (6 h)
1. The history and characteristics of the genre; medieval bestiaries versus animal fables; the use of animal anthropomorphism, allegory and symbolism. Animal fables are the literary genre associated the most often with animals. We will consider how animals were portrayed in the oldest fables of Aesop, La Fontaine, Ignacy Krasicki and Jan Ursyn Niemcewicz; when the convention of a didactic tale was broken (e.g. La Fontaine in the fable The Two Rats, the Fox, and the Egg). On the example of Amos Oz’s contemporary fable Suddenly in the Depths of the Forest, we will present the evolution of this genre which today draws inspiration from human-animal studies.
2. The issue of animal language and speech. Literature that invokes animal tales includes examples of animals being allowed to speak, e.g. through poetry sensitive to other languages (Cyprian Norwid, Ostatnia z bajek) or fiction treating talking animals on an equal footing to human characters (Mikhail Bulgakov, Heart of a Dog). We will seek an answer to the question: If animals could speak our language, what would they say to us now?
3. Anthropomorphism of animals in children’s literature – what is its purpose, how does it affect the perception of animals (auxiliary reading: Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment), are non-anthropomorphic representations of animals possible in children’s literature? We will discuss attempts at adopting an animal’s perspective and departing from anthropomorphism on the example of a story about a fox: Pax by Sara Pennypacker.
IV The history of relations between humans and animals. The impact of animals on human history and remembrance (8 h)
1. Around conflict and cooperation – the function of narrative in the history of humans and animals. We will discuss The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling and Moby Dick by Herman Melville.
2. The history of hunting; critique of hunting from the perspective of animal studies; hunting versus male initiation on the example of The Issa Valley by Miłosz and The Undefeated by Ernest Hemingway (extra reading: The Bull Fight by Henryk Sienkiewicz and Los toros by Władysław Reymont). We will seek to answer the question of how sex and gender can define our relations with animals and what role it plays in changing them. Is there a connection between the emancipation of women and the liberation of animals and other social liberation movements? We will supplement the discussion by reading Olga Tokarczuk’s novel Drive Your Plough Over the Bones of the Dead.
3. Animal protagonists; literary versus historical characters. We will consider whether literature can be a source of remembrance about animals that were a direct or indirect part of human history, like the fictional mare Lotna, from the short story by Wojciech Żukrowski, which took part in the September 1939 campaign. We will learn about the perspective of animal history, distinguished from anthropocentric history, which sees an animal hecatomb especially in World War I (auxiliary reading: excerpts from The Animal Point of View and Beasts of the Trenches by Eric Baratay). We will show when literature commemorates animal heroes (Zbigniew Herbert’s poem First the Dog) and when it distorts their history (the story of Wojtek the bear, taken in by soldiers of General Anders’ army during World War II and featured in a few stories for children).
Summary and discussion on students’ final projects (2h)