Beasts of the Modern Imagination

Norris, Margot

doi:10.1353/book.69483

Cited by 74 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…Litteraturvetaren och pionjären inom djurstudier Margot Norris har effektivt visat hur exempelvis Kafkas biocentriska skrivande i delar kan läsas som en misstroendeförklaring mot det mänskliga språket som medium för djurerfarenhet. 25 Norris huvudexempel är Kafkas sena novell "Josefine, sångerskan, eller råttfolket", originalpublicerad 1924, där musen Josefine försöker berätta sin historia, men där denna gradvis upplöses och raderas eftersom hon saknar minneskapacitet och språk för att uttrycka sin subjektivitet. Ett annat tänkbart exempel är Kafkas något tidigare novell "Redogörelse framlagd för en akademi" som berättar om apan Röde Petter som blir människa genom en formidabelt genomförd mimesis-process, men i samma veva glömmer och förlorar förmågan att rapportera om sitt forna liv som djur.…”

Section: Den Språkskeptiska Traditionenunclassified

Zoopoetikens tankar om språk och art

Björck

2022

TfL

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Thoughts on Language and Species in Zoopoetics – a Background Sketch Amelie Björck Zoopoetic studies investigate “texts that are, in one way or another, predicated upon an engagement with animals and animality (human and nonhuman),” to quote Kári Driscoll and Eva Hoffman. A central question in this field concerns the relation between language and species. This article suggests that two basic views can be discerned: one that conceptualizes language as a human-specific capacity, and another that frames language as a broader phenomenon that humans and most other species have in common. These two starting points – the first accentuating differences, the second emphasizing similarities – give rise to two different approaches to zoopoetry. In the first case, zoopoetry is associated with the deconstruction of human semantics and, thus, of human power. In the second case, zoopoetry is seen as an experiment in which the attentive human poet comes together with animals in a natural act of mutual poiesis. The aim of the article is to uncover the genealogy of these two views – here named the “language sceptic” perspective and the “language affirmative” perspective, respectively – and to problematize them as scholarly reading positions. Using examples from Les Murray’s animal poetry, the article argues that the two perspectives might more fruitfully be explored as two dimensions that exist and create interesting friction within zoopoetic texts – hence an oscillation between the perspectives is preferable.

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Section: Den Språkskeptiska Traditionenunclassified

Zoopoetikens tankar om språk och art

Björck

2022

TfL

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“…It is no surprise, therefore, that Nietzschean ideas have appeared occasionally in Saki criticism, 16 mainly with reference to the attitudes associated with Nietzsche's designation of the übermensch (the super-or overman), the model, as Margot Norris explains, of a 'human creature cured of its pathogenic culture and vitally reclaimed by its instinctual nature'. 17 It is worth noting that the Saki/Nietzsche connection involves some disturbing ideological material; there are undoubtedly fascist elements in Saki's work that may remind us of how eagerly the Nazis laid claim to Nietzsche's thought. 18 Although this troubling politics is a part of this chapter, it is not its main focus.…”

Section: Saki Nietzsche and The Superwolf John Millermentioning

confidence: 99%

Saki, Nietzsche and the Superwolf

MILLER

2017

Werewolves, Wolves and the Gothic

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“…For example, Murray states that bugs can be 'more than mere metaphors', the adjective disparaging the sophistication of metaphorical readings, or perhaps of metaphorical animals (2). In fact, already in 1985, Margot Norris criticized the way that literary animals have often been 'pressed into symbolic service as metaphors', 10 and this perception of figurativity as oppressive has become a model for subsequent criticism of metaphors. In the theoretical chapter dedicated to metaphor in The Palgrave Handbook of Animals and Literature, Ann-Sofie Lönngren categorizes metaphor together with terms such as 'hierarchical,' 'passive,' and 'silent,' thus associating figurative readings with repression.…”

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confidence: 99%

More Swallows to Follow: Sweeping, Swirling, Wheeling Turns in H.D.’s Asphodel

Trejling¹

2023

Modernist Cultures

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In comparison with other modernist writers, little has been written on the role of animals in H.D.’s works. This article examines the significations – the significances and the signifying – of the peripheral yet reoccurring swallows in her posthumous novel Asphodel, thus exploring their contribution to the meaning of the text. Since most of these swallows signify metaphorically, the widespread skepticism toward metaphor within animal studies is also addressed. Employing a Derridean perspective with a focus on iteration, metaphor, and irreplaceability, the swallows’ significations are analyzed in relation to the themes, style, and imagery of Asphodel, demonstrating how they repeatedly turn the direction of the narrative around, while also providing a pattern for stylistic turns. This not only shows the role of swallows in Asphodel, but also indicates the importance of peripheral animals to modernist literature.

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Beasts of the Modern Imagination

Cited by 74 publications

References 0 publications

Zoopoetikens tankar om språk och art

Zoopoetikens tankar om språk och art

Saki, Nietzsche and the Superwolf

More Swallows to Follow: Sweeping, Swirling, Wheeling Turns in H.D.’s Asphodel

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