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Anthropomorphism & Zoomorphism in Twentieth Century THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA Refiguring the Human and the Animal: Anthropomorphism & Zoomorphism in Twentieth Century American Poetry A DISSERTATION Submitted to the Faculty of the Department of English School of Arts and Sciences Of The Catholic University of America In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in English Language and Literature By Michael Levi Manglitz Washington, D.C. 2016 This dissertation by Michael Levi Manglitz fulfills the dissertation requirement for the doctoral degree in English Language and Literature approved by Rosemary Winslow, Ph.D., as Director, and by Glen Johnson, Ph.D., and Ernest Suarez, Ph.D., as Readers. ____________________________________ Rosemary Winslow, Ph.D., Director ____________________________________ Glen Johnson, Ph.D., Reader ____________________________________ Ernest Suarez, Ph.D., Reader Refiguring the Human and the Animal: Anthropomorphism & Zoomorphism in Twentieth Century American Poetry Michael Levi Manglitz, Ph.D. Director: Rosemary Winslow, Ph.D. Anthropomorphism and zoomorphism date back to ancient times: even before the existence of the fable genre, artists have found creative ways of attributing human characteristics to animals, and have likewise attributed animal characteristics to humans. My dissertation addresses the question of how American poetry of the twentieth century participates in this tradition. Through a study of human-animal comparisons in the work of key American poets, I argue that the nature of comparisons between animals and humans changes within American poetry over the course of the twentieth century. My dissertation measures the growth of an anti- anthropocentrism movement within American poetry, a movement whose poetry esteems animals and humans equally (or even esteems animals over humans), as opposed to the traditionally predominant anthropocentric representations of humans and animals. My study combines and extends elements of perspectives that are already outlined in fields such as ecocriticism and animal studies in literature. The dissertation examines a variety of American poets, focused on Marianne Moore, Robinson Jeffers, Randall Jarrell, Denise Levertov, Galway Kinnell, Gary Snyder, and the poets surrounding them. I conclude with an examination of the relationship of my findings to broader cultural and historical trends. Chapter One: Introduction Statement of the Problem/Question Anthropomorphism and zoomorphism date back to ancient times: even before the existence of the fable genre, artists have found creative ways of attributing human characteristics to animals (or non-living things), and have likewise attributed animal characteristics to humans. Twentieth century American poetry participates in this tradition, but what unique contexts and perspectives does it bring to that tradition? How, if at all, does the nature of comparisons between animals and humans change within American poetry over the course of the twentieth century? A study of human-animal comparisons in the work of some key American poets, organized chronologically, may yield answers to these questions. Poetry about animals (and humans, and the relationships between them) is often considered a subset of nature poetry. Nature poetry has long occupied a prominent place among the subjects of professional literary criticism, and nature poetry of the twentieth century is no exception. A pivot point, however, occurs during the decades of the middle of the century. This period of time marks the beginning of what eventually came to be called “ecocriticism” (which, at least as a term, predates “ecopoetry,” itself a term whose use only appears very late in the century). Public concern for environmental issues developed and matured dramatically during the 1960s and 1970s, and its spread eventually gave rise to this ecologically-minded study of literature. Such criticism often discusses the larger trajectory of the tradition of American nature poetry and pertinent themes like vestiges of the Great Chain of Being concept and the recently growing mistrust of anthropocentrism, but animal representations and animal-human comparisons or relationships often receive secondary attention. Alternatively, the work of critics who focus specifically on the role of animals and human-animal associations in twentieth 1 2 century poetry often seeks to highlight the potential of poetry to enlighten or reform its readers’ perceptions of animals and human-animal relationships, without much concern for presenting such potential within the broader context of a historical development. My study combines and extends elements of these perspectives by investigating how human-animal comparisons in American poetry have changed and developed over the course of the twentieth century, and subsequently explores the degree to which such developments connect to any rise in a mistrust of anthropocentrism. Literature Review Representation of animals and animal-human relationships, as a topic, receives adequate attention in critical studies of modern drama and performance theory. However, although some criticism has addressed the importance of animals and animal figurations in the work of individual poets, no intensive study of animal representation in American poetry exists that is devoted to describing a broader chronological development. I hope that my study begins to fill this absence. It explores whether or not the manners and contexts of human-animal comparisons in American poetry differ across various time periods of the twentieth century and, as any such differences are discovered, offers an account for the nature of those differences and their relationships to cultural and/or historical trends. A fair amount of literary criticism already exists that addresses the importance of animals and animal figurations in individual poets. Several of these critical works, mentioned in detail in later chapters, focus on a single author (or on a small group of authors), and offer explanations of the significance of animal themes in the author’s work, and of how such themes correspond to other themes or fit into the author’s broader oeuvre. These works of criticism provide already- invaluable analyses and recognitions of the work of animal-interested poets. Providing broader 3 context for such works of literary criticism, however, can help further unearth their value. Outlining how such poets create and interact with concepts of anti-anthropocentrism, and accounting for a broader chronological development of the work of such poets across the twentieth century, would re-contextualize the bodies of criticism on these individual poets. The poets, then, could be seen as participating in a larger poetic tradition of anti-anthropocentrism, one that grows, changes, and develops in form over the course of the century. The Ecocritical Context: Achievements, Problems, and Opportunities Of the current dominant trends in literary criticism, the one that offers the most relevance to my study is ecocriticism. However, ecocriticism primarily concerns itself with the treatment and representation of nature, the environment, the ecosystem, etc., thus making it a double-edged sword for the purposes of my study. Ecocriticism bears significant importance to my study, yet its focus is only adjacent to my study’s particular focus. Scholars of ecocriticism very often devote their attention to the very poets most germane to my own study, yet concern themselves primarily with nature as their (and the poets’) subject, with the subject of animals or animal- human comparisons being relegated to secondary discussion, if treated at all. Therefore, each chapter of my work will use and refer to multiple works by ecocritical scholars, but will contextualize those works with my own study in a variety of ways. Often I will present my own examination as simply an extension or augmentation of the ecocritical perspective, or as a clarification or observation that falls under the ecocriticism umbrella. Just as often, however, my findings will clash in some way with various ecocritics, and my study will then take a corrective or even oppositional stance towards ecocriticism. Some of the specific poets covered in later chapters will present various examples of this, whether through questions of their rhetorical stances, implicit value systems, primacies of subject matter, or other aspects. 4 Defining Terms Literary critics have long taken up the subject of nature poetry, with many scholars, among them John Elder and Bernard Quetchenbach, addressing it in twentieth century American poetry specifically. Indeed, the widespread growth of public concern for environmental issues in the 1960s and 1970s eventually helped give rise to the term “ecocriticism,” an ecologically- minded study of literature introduced by William Rueckert (in his 1978 essay “Literature and Ecology: An Experiment in Ecocriticism”) and others (e.g. Lawrence Buell, Karl Kroeber, Joseph Meeker). Such criticism often discusses the larger trajectory of the tradition of American nature poetry and pertinent themes like vestiges of the Great Chain of Being concept and the recently growing mistrust of anthropocentrism, but animal representations and animal-human comparisons or relationships often receive secondary attention. The term “anthropocentrism” itself, for instance, both for ecocritics and for students of animal-human comparisons and relationships, carries the primary meaning of “considering humans as central or of most importance.” For ecocritical
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