ENGL 12015 - Animals in Literature

Course Credit: 1
(CMLT, ENVS)
To determine whether authors “personify” animals, what do readers assume about the differences between humans and other animals? Serving as an introduction to literature and analysis, this course also attempts to identify and transcend literary interpretation’s traditional human-centeredness. Students will learn, for example, how understanding terms like “metaphor” and “allegory” can propel them toward controversial interpretations, especially of how animals function complexly in a wide variety of literary works. Featured texts include Hûeg’s novel The Woman and the Ape; Vaughan and Staples’s Saga comics; poems by Atwood, Neruda, Angelou, and many others; Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Shaffer’s play Equus. [AH]