Refiguring the Human and the Animal: Anthropomorphism and Zoomorphism in Twentieth Century American Poetry

Degree Awarded: Ph.D. English Language and Literature. The Catholic University of AmericaAnthropomorphism 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