Wow! eBook
Romanticism and Animal Rights
Author(s): David Perkins (Author)
- Publisher: Cambridge University Press
- Publication Date: 21 Aug. 2008
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 212 pages
- ISBN-10: 0521045983
- ISBN-13: 9780521045988
Book Description
Demonstrating how English Romantic writing took up issues of what we now call animal rights, this study joins the growing number of studies that seek precedents or affinities in English Romanticism for ecological concerns. An unprecedented amount of writing advocated kindness to animals in England during the second half of the eighteenth century. This theme was carried through many genres, from sermons to encyclopedias, scientific works to literature for children, and to the poetry of Cowper, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Clare and others.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Perkins is so steeped in the poetry, novels, philosophy, and sermons of the 18th and early 19th centuries–and he writes with such clarity, verve, and commonsense on a subject often befogged by violent passions–that this volume can be recommended with confidence to anyone interested in the long and bitter controversies over animal rights…. [The] concluding biographical essay will be immensely helpful to those interested in pursuing the suprisingly extensive writings on the subject, and the index is a model of its kind. Highly recommended.” Choice
About the Author
David Perkins is Marquand Professor, Emeritus, at Harvard University. He is the author or editor of nine books including The Quest for Permanence, Wordsworth and the Poetry of Sincerity, English Romantic Writers, A History of Modern Poetry, and Is Literary History Possible?
