Animality in British Romanticism: The Aesthetics of Species (Routledge Studies in Romanticism) - Hardcover

Heymans, Peter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415507308 ISBN 13: 9780415507301

Publisher: Routledge, 2012

Synopsis

The scientific, political, and industrial revolutions of the Romantic period transformed the status of humans and redefined the concept of species. This book examines literary representations of human and non-human animality in British Romanticism. The book’s novel approach focuses on the role of aesthetic taste in the Romantic understanding of the animal. Concentrating on the discourses of the sublime, the beautiful, and the ugly, Heymans argues that the Romantics’ aesthetic views of animality influenced―and were influenced by―their moral, scientific, political, and theological judgment. The study reveals how feelings of environmental alienation and disgust played a positive moral role in animal rights poetry, why ugliness presented such a major problem for Romantic-period scientists and theologians, and how, in political writings, the violent yet awe-inspiring power of exotic species came to symbolize the beauty and terror of the French Revolution.

Linking the works of Wordsworth, Blake, Coleridge, Byron, the Shelleys, Erasmus Darwin, and William Paley to the theories of Immanuel Kant and Edmund Burke, this book brings an original perspective to the fields of ecocriticism, animal studies, and literature and science studies.

About this title

About the Author:

Peter Heymans is a Research Affiliate at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium.

Review:

"Peter Heymans' Animality in British Romanticism: The Aesthetics of Species is densely written and theorised, exploring and arguing its subject matter minutely.  [Its] focus on the aesthetic representation of non-human animals, and the detailing of the complex interaction between aesthetics, ideology and biology is scholarly and impressive." - Catherine Parry, Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0415507308
• ISBN 13: 9780415507301
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224