**Contents**




## **About the Special Issue Editor**

**Joela Jacobs** is Assistant Professor of German Studies at the University of Arizona, and she is affiliated with the Institute of the Environment, the Department of Gender and Women's Studies, and the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies. She earned her Ph.D. in Germanic Studies at the University of Chicago, where she subsequently held a postdoctoral position as Humanities Teaching Scholar. Prior to coming to the US from Germany, she studied at the Universities of Bonn, St. Andrews, and the Freie Universitat Berlin to receive her M.A. in German and English Philology. Dr. Jacobs' ¨ research focuses on intersections of 19th to 21st century German literature and film with Animal Studies, Environmental Humanities, Jewish Studies, the History of Sexuality, and the History of Science. She has published articles on monstrosity, multilingualism, literary censorship, biopolitics, animal epistemology, zoopoetics, critical plant studies, cultural environmentalism, and contemporary German Jewish identity. Currently, she is working on a monograph that examines a preoccupation with non-human forms of life, such as animals and plants, in the German modernist microgenre of the Literary Grotesque (*die Groteske*). In 2016, she founded the *Literary and Cultural Plant Studies Network* (https://plants.sites.arizona.edu/), and in addition to editing two Special Issues of *Literatur f ¨ur Leser* on animals and plants, respectively, she is currently co-editing *Pflanzen: Kulturwissenschaftliches Handbuch* (under contract with Metzler).

## **Preface to "Animal Narratology"**

"Storytelling is often cited as one of the characteristics that distinguishes humans from animals. Yet a look at world literature reveals many animals as the narrators of our tales. Animals speak not only in fables and fairy tales, but also narrate novels, voice love poems, and deliver philosophical treatises. Across genres and time, both wild and domesticated animals give accounts of their lives and their worlds, which usually contain human beings. Animal narrators negotiate their relationship with humans, while defamiliarizing the human way of perceiving the world. And yet, these texts are written by human authors who chose an animal voice, a specific species, and a literary genre for a particular purpose—one that tends to be as much, if not more about the human than it is about the animal. In fact, analyses have predominantly focused on the human side of these texts until the recent "animal turn" in literary studies. This focus on the animal in literature vows to take the animal seriously, which has been generating new readings and discoveries regarding texts from the canon and beyond. Literary animal studies has the potential to reveal the history of animal narration, such as clusters of animal species, type, or even breed at certain times; to interrogate animal narrators' appeals to particular audiences, from children's books to political satire; and to uncover writers' ways of avoiding censorship and persecution by channeling an animal voice in their works. In addition, concepts from animal agency to zoopoetics have increased the theoretical complexity of the investigation of animals in literature and are connecting animal studies to some of the concerns of fields such as environmental humanities, race and gender studies.

Studies of animal narration are still scant and scattered, however, and there seems to be a need to close a perceived gap between classical scholarship on animals in literature (such as Theodore Ziolkowski's insightful 1983 genealogy of "philosopher dogs" in the Western canon) and newer theoretical premises brought forth by literary animal studies that petition for reading the animal as animal. There also appears to be a problematic tendency toward taxonomy inherent in approaches both to animals and narration that has yet to be addressed. This special issue of *Humanities* on the theme of "Animal Narratology" therefore aims to paint a fuller picture of animal narrators from various species, from different times, and from a variety of literary traditions. The breadth of this approach is to be supplemented with systematic considerations of the specific texts and contexts, so as to account for larger developments relevant to the literary history, genre, and narratological strategies exemplified by each animal narrator. *Humanities* thus invites contributions that bring together the close reading of texts containing animal narrators with (a) theoretical deliberations about narratology (such as dialogism, diegetic levels, empathy, focalization, framing, graphic storytelling, metaphoricity, realism, reliability, representation, serialization, simultaneity, structure, suspense, symbolism, etc.) and (b) relevant questions of ethics, religion, race, gender, sexuality, history, philosophy, sociology, science, and the arts. Texts from literature in any language are welcome (with translation), and an even distribution of Western and non-Western literature is desired."

In response to the Call for Papers you just read, nearly forty quality contributions were proposed in the summer of 2016, and between fall 2016 and spring 2018, twenty-four of them were published in an open-access special issue for whose e-book edition I am composing this preface. As I had hoped, the contributors hail from a wide range of disciplines, countries, and career stages, and they engage with animals in texts and films of various genres. Their articles touch on crucial questions about the nuances of accounting for and encountering animals narratologically, and they call for the acknowledgment of non-hierarchical human-animal entanglement in ways that prompt empathy for non-humans and the environment. In order to structure this wealth of ideas, the e-book has been divided into four sections: 1) *Conceptualizing Animal Narratology*, which features contributions that approach animal narratology from a more theoretical angle, 2) *Nonhuman Companions in Animal Narratology, or Horses, Dogs, and Apes*, which contains case studies of animal narratology that center on familiar companion species, 3) *Nonhuman Others in Animal Narratology, or Under-Examined Species*, which engages with instances of animal narration involving less frequently considered or more distant species, and 4) *Seeing and Hearing Animal Narratology*, which explores the role of voice and vision in animal narratology. Before turning to the details of each section and their contributions, I would like to thank the authors, the many constructive peer reviewers who volunteered their time and energy, the artist who provided our cover image and illustrations for one of the articles, Tamara Schneider, the academic editor of *Humanities*, Albrecht Classen, and the tireless journal editors, especially Jie Gu and Gloria Qi, for all the effort and time they invested in ensuring a quality outcome. Without their work, mine would not have been possible.

#### **1. Conceptualizing Animal Narratology**

The first article in this e-book was also the first to be published, and as such, it set a high standard and became a point of reference for many of the contributions that followed in its wake. In *Animal Autobiography; Or, Narration beyond the Human*, **David Herman** (Freelance Writer) puts forward a nuanced account of autobiographical acts that entail speaking for or on behalf of animals. Drawing on linguistic semantics, politeness theory, and discourse analysis, and focusing in particular on Erving Goffman's analysis of framing and footing, Herman explores the relevance of this work for modes of narration that include but extend beyond the human. He interweaves these ideas with a wide range of case studies to establish two categories of autobiographical acts that cross species lines: 1) those in which, anthropocentrically, the human teller remains the principal as well as the author (in Goffman's terms), while the animal serves chiefly as a means for expressing human priorities and concerns; and 2) those which can be understood as arising from more biocentric acts of co-authorship, where solidarity-building projections of animal voices both reflect and help create hybrid, humanimal principals. Herman's book *Narratology beyond the Human* (2018) expands on these considerations, while also juxtaposing animal autobiographies with other forms of narration beyond the human.

**Corinne Donly** (Lecturer in English at Brooklyn College, CUNY) proposes an alternative approach to storytelling in *Toward the Eco-Narrative: Rethinking the Role of Conflict in Storytelling*, which is meant to create stories that can help humankind adapt to the catastrophic conditions of the Anthropocene. Engaging with ecocritical and ecological thought, Donly suggests a mode of composing *with* non-human characters, which problematizes the typical plot structure of conflict/climax/resolution for its anthropocentric approach to the animal other. The analysis juxtaposes the conflict-motivated storyline of the Pew Commissions' report on *Industrial Farm Animal Production* with Annette Watson and Orville H. Huntington's *They're here—I can feel them*, whose

playful approach to narrative helps Donly construct, in conjunction with James P. Carse's theory of "infinite play," a new, flexible storytelling framework called the eco-narrative.

In *More than Stories, More than Myths: Animal/Human/Nature(s) in Traditional Ecological Worldviews*, **Amba J. Sepie** (freshly minted Ph.D. in Geography at the University of Canterbury) turns to indigenous traditions, particularly so-called myths and stories about human encounters with animals and the natural environment. Arguing against a dismissal of these stories as "mere myths," she calls for the decolonization of westernized selves, defined as a mode of being in the world that is attuned to our human entanglement in ecological relationships with more-than-human life. Bringing in a wide range of ethnographic and posthumanist research, especially by indigenous scholars, Sepie makes a case against the biases that discredit intuitive and instinctive knowledge, which she considers inherent to our species-being as humans.

**Christina Gerhardt** (Associate Professor of German at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa) ¯ pursues the question of the non-anthropocentric autobiography in *Narrating Entanglement: Cixous' "Stigmata, or Job the Dog."* By engaging with acts of border-crossing in Hel´ ene Cixous' ` autobiographical essay, which prominently features deliberations about being and narrating dog, Gerhardt maps the shifts in narrative voice from human, to entangled, to animal. Based on these epistemological moves in the text, she argues for a zoopoetic mindfulness of entanglement; one that makes humans realize that, even in autobiographical voice, the human I is always entangled with and in kinship with others. This research expands Gerhardt's publications on animals in the work of Adorno, Horkheimer and Schopenhauer, and in the writings of Adorno read together with Derrida and Levinas.

In *Animal Poetry and Empathy*, **Tirza Br ¨uggemann** (Ph.D. Candidate in the Humanities at the Free University Amsterdam) discusses the concept of empathy, showing that our understanding of it is based on Cartesian dualism, so that narrative empathy has become associated with the high-level, imaginative work of the mind, while empathy prompted by non-fictional work is said to be a low-level act of bodily mirroring. She rejects these dichotomies by drawing on Merleau-Ponty, who considers consciousness as embodied and speaks of a human-animal intertwining of experience that takes place in interweaving landscapes. Her analysis of two animal poems, *Inventing a Horse* by Meghan O'Rourke and *Spermaceti* by Les Murray, demonstrates that aesthetic empathy requires a retraining of the senses in order to see animals and ourselves as psychophysical wholes who are intertwined with each other and the environment.

**Tua Korhonen** (University Researcher and Docent of Greek Literature at the University of Helsinki) approaches the ethics of killing other beings in her discussion of Greek texts featuring animals in *A Question of Life and Death: The Aesopic Animal Fables on Why Not to Kill*. In both Aesopian fables and Homeric similes, animals plead for their lives with a powerful predator that is set on killing them. Comparing the two different genres structurally and narratologically, Korhonen focuses on the role of animals qua animals in these texts, rather than following the generic prompts to interpret them as allegories for human behavior. This methodology allows her to show that these texts, despite or perhaps precisely because of their strongly humanizing tendencies, invite their readers into the animal point of view in order to elicit ethical consideration and empathy.

In *Eloquent Alogia: Animal Narrators in Ancient Greek Literature*, **Tom Hawkins** (Associate Professor of Classics at Ohio State University) analyzes the role of speaking animals in classical Greek literature across time. Pointing to the connection between rhetorical success and social standing, he demonstrates that loquacious animals generally present a complication in ancient Greek society, which he exemplifies with detailed analyses of classical animals with linguistic abilities. While earlier ancient authors therefore explain human language in animals with divine intervention, thus invoking the notion of a past Golden Age, Hawkins argues that later writers use talking animals as a vehicle to challenge philosophical concepts and values.

#### **2. Nonhuman Companions in Animal Narratology, or Horses, Dogs, and Apes**

**Frederike Middelhoff** (now Junior Professor of German at the University of Frankfurt) turns to early nineteenth-century autobiographies of horses in German-language literature in *Literary Autozoographies: Contextualizing Species Life in German Animal Autobiography*. She shows that these texts negotiate and produce species-specific knowledge about animal emotion and cognition by drawing on historical discourses about equines in natural history and "horse-science." Outlining literary autozoographies alongside the genre of fictional autobiography, Middelhoff contends that this text form makes a case for the humane treatment of horses around 1800 and simultaneously undermines traditional autobiographical conventions. For a more comprehensive development of literary autozoographies, look for Middelhoff's articles and recently published book.

In *Narrating Animal Trauma in Bulgakov and Tolstoy*, **Anastassiya Andrianova** (Associate Professor of English at North Dakota State University) revisits the figure of the horse Strider and the titular character in *Heart of a Dog* in order to examine the depiction of animal pain in non-allegorical ways. She finds that the empathetic ventriloquism employed by the Russian authors can only result in animal-like discourse, rather than authentic animal narration. As a consequence, her close readings demonstrate that the authors approximate animal pain best in their use of ellipses and onomatopoeia. Ultimately, Andrianova urges us to take these ethical considerations about the status of animals into the classroom and expand them from literature into life.

**Anja H ¨oing** (Postdoctoral Fellow in English at the University of Osnabruck) explores ¨ *Unreliability and the Animal Narrator in Richard Adams's "The Plague Dogs,"* which tells the story of two dogs escaping from a research lab. She argues that the novel defamiliarizes the conventional talking animal story by introducing both two unreliable, mentally ill canine narrators who relay subjective-cum-fantastical perspectives and a narrative voice with zero focalization that provides sarcastic commentary on the anthropocentric conditions of the dogs' situation. The dogs are unaware of these circumstances, so that the combination of their narratives and the dark comments exposes the "rational" order of the world (in which animals rank low) as a carnivalesque farce. Hoing shows that ¨ the unreliability of the narrators oscillates between what Phelan calls "estranging" and "bonding," and that reading animals as animals requires a re-reading and reconceptualization of all the notions that contribute to the traditional place of animals in the Western world.

In *"Against the Dog Only a Dog": Talking Canine Civilizing Cynicism in Cervantes' "coloquio de los perros" (with Tentative Remarks on the Discourse and Method of Animal Studies)*, **DS Mayfield** (Postdoctoral Fellow in Comparative Literature at the Free University Berlin) demonstrates why members of the canine species are endowed with human language in Cervantes' *Dialogues of the Dogs*. Tracing the discourse-historical tradition of the talking dog to the Cynics, Mayfield interrogates animal studies methodology and discourse by drawing on Montaigne, Descartes, and Derrida, before analyzing the ways in which plausibility for the dog dialogue is crafted in the frame narrative of Cervantes' novella. Mayfield concludes that the ability for dialogue makes dogs the animal species of choice for the novella's performance of cynical discourse, thus arguing that Cervantes' text re-socializes cynicism.

By mapping the appearance of canine figures and their connections across Cervantes' oeuvre, **Ivan Schneider** (Freelance Writer) takes us on *The Search for Dog in Cervantes*. Schneider points to *Don Quixote's* less frequently investigated *galgo* (Spanish Greyhound) who is introduced in the text's beginning in a way that suggests the potential to become a talking dog. Yet, since the narratological strategy of conversing dogs is only fully utilized in the later *Dialogues of the Dogs*, Schneider argues that Don Quixote sets up the notion of human-like reasoning and speech in the canine species that the Dialogues will fully unfold. The article is accompanied by original illustrations of the *galgo* and his canine friends, and more of Schneider's work on talking dogs can be found on www.ivantohelpyou.com, where you can also sign up for his email list.

In *Narrative Transformed: The Fragments around Franz Kafka's "A Report to an Academy"*, **Doreen Densky** (Lecturer in German at New York University) approaches Kafka's famous ape-turned-human from the perspective of textual development by scrutinizing the sequence of partial drafts of the story that are extant in Kafka's papers. Her analysis of these fragments details the various narrative angles with which Kafka experimented, which show the metamorphosis of the text itself into the format of first-person animal narration. Densky's article thus addresses questions of production and reception, representation and speaking for the animal, as well as mediation and immediacy in animal narration, upon which her recently published book on the rhetoric and poetics of speaking-for (*F ¨ursprache*) in Kafka's oeuvre expands.

#### **3. Nonhuman Others in Animal Narratology, or Under-Examined Species**

Damianos Grammatikopoulos (freshly minted Ph.D. in German at Rutgers University) explores multiple implications of the notion of the Kafkaesque and its imitations in *Insects and the Kafkaesque: Insectuous Re-Writings in Visual and Audio-Visual Media*. He interrogates the meaningfulness of the label of the Kafkaesque by following references to Kafka's work—specifically those involving hybrid figures—in contemporary visual and audio-visual media such as cartoons by Judy Horacek, Pat Bagley, and Jir´ı Sl´ıva; comic books by Charles Burns, and films by David Cronenberg. Grammatikopoulos concludes that Kafka's works act both as the host that nurtures the ever-growing body of (insectoid) imitations and as a parasite that enters the artist upon the consumption of Kafka's texts.

In *Out of Time, Out of Space, Out of Species: Deictic Displacement of the Exiled Self in Hans Sahl's "Der Maulwurf" (The Mole)*, **Carla Swiderski** (Ph.D. Candidate in German at the University of Hamburg) analyzes the temporal, spatial, and physiological changes that accompany the metamorphosis of the formerly human speaker of Sahl's role poem into his new existence as a mole. She argues that these transformative shifts of the poem's I on the deictic axes represent the displacement of exile that is a persistent theme in Sahl's work. In the absence of explicit references to exile, Swiderski's reading works out a persistent strategy of alienating displacement on every plane of existence that is embodied in the figure of the animal.

**Karin Molander Danielsson** (Senior Lecturer in English at Malardalen University) parses ¨ out examples of critical anthropomorphism in *"And in That Moment I Leapt upon His Shoulder": Non-Human Intradiegetic Narrators in "The Wind on the Moon."* Examining detailed intradiegetic narratives by a puma, a falcon, and a bantam hen in Eric Linklater's children's novel, Danielsson contends that these characters' direct speech gives us access to species concerns, consciousness, and characteristics of animal others that would otherwise remain out of reach in this particular form. Drawing on Genette's narrative levels and functions, speech act theory, and cognitive narratology, Danielsson brings discourses in animal studies into conversation with narratological concerns in order to show the posthumanist tendencies of a text that insists on non-binary species oppositions and makes a case for inter-species connection.

**Steffen R ¨ohrs** (Postdoctoral Fellow in German at the University of Hannover) examines the multidimensional account of German colonialism presented by human and non-human voices in *An Animal-Centered Perspective on Colonial Oppression: Animal Representations and the Narrating Ox in Uwe Timm's "Morenga"* (1978). He shows how the many descriptions of suffering animals in the novel are linked to the plight of the Herero and the Nama during their brutally subdued uprisings in Southwest Africa in the early 20th century. In particular the figure of a talking ox highlights not only the novel's criticism of colonialism, but also expands the possibilities of narrating colonial history in a way that raises productive questions about agency, self-determination, and emancipation.

In *Animal Dystopia in Marie Darrieussecq's Novel "Truismes,"* **P ¨aivi Koponen** (Ph.D. Candidate in the Humanities at the University of Turku) presents the dystopian reality of a female protagonist whose physical appearance is slowly transformed into that of a sow. Her new body elicits reactions that showcase the economic principles governing the assessment of animal lives: as a hog now even more strongly a cog in a capitalist system, the sow-woman struggles to find a better way to live. Koponen argues that the novel urges the reader to identify with the non-human world, to acknowledge agency beyond the human, and to understand that agency is intra-acting and entangled, rather than neatly separable into human and animal, which embeds these discourses within the larger ecological crisis.

#### **4. Seeing and Hearing Animal Narratology**

**K ´ari Driscoll** (Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at Utrecht University) pursues Derrida's proposal of rendering audible animal utterances by thinking about them in musical terms in *An Unheard, Inhuman Music: Narrative Voice and the Question of the Animal in Kafka's "Josephine, the Singer or the Mouse Folk."* Drawing on Sheehan, Agamben, Deleuze, Derrida, and Nancy, he explores the vocalizations of Kafka's mouse-singer in the context of scientific discourses about the ultrasonic songs of mice, which brings out the stakes of inhuman music to the concept of narrative voice by arguing for the importance of *zoopoetic* literature that does not silence the animal voice, or interrupt the song. The notion of zoopoetics is expanded upon in the 2018 collection *What is Zoopoetics? Texts, Bodies, Entanglement*, co-edited by Driscoll and Eva Hoffmann (Palgrave Macmillan).

*"In the Empire of the Senses" and the Narrative Horizons of Comics* by **Jos´e Alaniz** (Professor of Slavic Languages & Literatures at the University of Washington) introduces readers to the potential of visual storytelling to create an animal point of view through line work, framing, panel progression, and sound effects. Focusing on comics techniques in a chapter of Stephen Murphy's and Michael Zulli's *The Puma Blues* that presents a puma's hunt at night, Alaniz contrasts the distinctive capability of the graphic genre for the representation of animal ontology with that of film, using the example of Bill Viola's ethnographic documentary *I Do Not What It is I am Like*, which brings out the vast range of possibilities that visual storytelling holds for non-human narratology.

**Sean Meighoo** (Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Emory University) outlines the *The Function of HumAnimAllegory* in the animated films *Animal Farm* and *Chicken Run*. Developing the concept of the "humanimallegory," i.e., the animal-human allegory, Meighoo examines both the reduction of animal characters to mere stand-ins for real human figures in *Animal Farm* and the ways in which *Chicken Run* resists such a simple metaphoricity. Both films refer allegorically to specific historical acts of political violence, and Meighoo contends that the concept of allegory ultimately remains caught up in the philosophical traditions of humanism. This article complements Meighoo's work on "HumAnI(m)Morality," 'Suffering Humanism, or the Suffering Animal," and "Human Language, Animal Code, and the Question of Beeing."

In *Seeing Beings: "Dog" Looks Back at "God": Unfixing Canis familiaris in Korn´el Mundrucz´o's Film "Feh´er isten"/"White God"* (2014), **Lesley C. Pleasant** (Associate Professor of German at the University of Evansville) argues that the film defamiliarizes the typical human gaze at dogs with its cinematic strategies in order to create a new model of empathetic and non-hierarchical seeing of non-human species. With its focus on abandoned dogs in Budapest, the film highlights the anthropocentric conditions of canine existence in urban spaces and shelters that rely strongly on breed-specific designations, as Pleasant makes clear in her examination of the frequently violent encounters between humans and dogs in *White God*. By making dogs visible and audible in ways that suggest a "looking back" and prompt a "becoming with" the animal other, the film "unfixes" the anthropocentric gaze, which ultimately leads to a restructuring of the cityscape and its human hierarchies.

**Oliver V ¨olker** (Postdoctoral Fellow in Comparative Literature at the University of Frankfurt) argues against a purely allegorical reading of non-human nature in *Whiteout: Animal Traces in Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man" and "Encounters at the End of the World."* Contrary to Herzog's own insistence on taking "nature" as a representative of human protagonists' inner nature or landscape, Volker reads ¨ both the encounters with grizzlies and the experience of Antarctica's snowscapes in Herzog's films as autonomous and lively presences that interact closely with humans and cameras, the latter of which are self-reflexively present, rather than hidden as in typical wildlife films. The ways of seeing and hearing the non-human in these films defamiliarize and disrupt the human observers/operators and thus raise questions about how humans make sense of nature by way of narration and representation.

In *Barking at Heaven's Door: Pluto mehra in the Hindi Film "Dil Dhadakne Do,"* **Alessandra Consolaro** (Lecturer in Hindi Language and Literature at the University of Turin) examines the first-ever Hindi movie narrated by a dog, a creature that is generally considered dirty and lowly in Indian culture. Yet the animal narrator of the Bollywood movie is a beloved pet who lives his life as the equally accepted member of a rich, dysfunctional family. Consolaro maintains that the film demonstrates a generational change in the perception of pet keeping in the Indian middle class, which is turning animals into family members and style statements and is displacing previous, more pragmatic reasons for animal keeping. In her analysis of the canine narrator, Consolaro traces the causes of this shift to several global and local factors, especially economic reason and consumer attitudes.

Together, these articles shine a light on the multifaceted dimensions of animal narratology. They interrogate what it means to narrate, to speak—speak for, on behalf of—and to voice, or represent life beyond the human, which is in itself as different as insects, bears, and dogs are from each other, and yet more, as individual as a single mouse, horse, or puma. The contributions also highlight assumptions about the human perception of, attitude toward, and responsibility for the animals that are read and written about, thus demonstrating that just as "*the* animal" does not exist, neither does "*the* human." In their zoopoetic focus, the analyses are aware that animal narratology ultimately always contains an approximation of an animal perspective in human terms and terminology, yet they make clear that what matters is *how* the animal is approximated and that there is an effort to approach and encounter the non-human in the first place. Many of the analyses come to the conclusion that literary animals give readers the opportunity to expand their own points of view both on themselves and others by adopting another's perspective to the degree that such an endeavor is possible. Ultimately, the contributions call for a recognition of the many spaces, moments, and modes in which human lives are entangled with those of animals—one of which is located within the creative bounds of storytelling.

> **Joela Jacobs** *Special Issue Editor*

**Conceptualizing Animal Narratology**

## *Article* **Animal Autobiography; Or, Narration beyond the Human**

#### **David Herman**

CORAL (Center for Research on Animal Lives), St Petersburg, FL, USA; herman.145@gmail.com

Academic Editor: Joela Jacobs Received: 10 August 2016; Accepted: 13 October 2016; Published: 18 October 2016

**Abstract:** In engaging with acts of self-narration that cross species lines, creators of animal autobiographies also broach questions about genre, truth status, and the structure as well as the politics of narrative representation. To address these questions, the present article draws not just on scholarship on (animal) autobiography but also on ideas from the fields of linguistic semantics, politeness theory, and discourse analysis, including the "framing and footing" approach that focuses on talk emerging in contexts of face-to-face interaction and that derives most directly from the work of Erving Goffman. On the basis of this research, and using case studies that range from animal riddles to Ceridwen Dovey's *Only the Animals* (2014), a collection of life stories posthumously narrated by a variety of nonhuman tellers, I profile autobiographical acts that reach beyond the human as ways of speaking for or in behalf of animal others. Some animal autobiographies correlate with acts of telling for which humans themselves remain the principals as well as authors; their animal animators remain relegated to the role of commenting on human institutions, values, practices, and artifacts. Other examples, however, can be read as co-authored acts of narrating in behalf of equally hybrid (or "humanimal") principals. These experiments with narration beyond the human afford solidarity-building projections of other creatures' ways of being-in-the-world—projections that enable a reassessment, in turn, of forms of human being.

**Keywords:** animal narrators; anthropocentrism; cultural ontologies; discourse analysis; fiction–nonfiction distinction; framing and footing; life writing; narratology; politeness; self-narratives

#### **1. Introduction**

In animal autobiography, a nonhuman teller provides an account of situations and events in which he or she has, over the course of the life history leading up to the current moment of narration, participated as an experiencing self. As in other kinds of autobiographical acts ([1], pp. 11–55; [2], pp. 63–102), these earlier experiences at once shape and are shaped by the assumptions, values, and priorities that, it can be inferred, now lie at the heart of the nonhuman narrator's self-conception, and that manifest themselves not only through the substance of the story that the animal tells but also through the teller's manner of narrating [3]. In such contexts, questions that have crystallized around the study of self-narratives<sup>1</sup> told by human selves apply mutatis mutandis to animal autobiographies, where a kind of doubled or layered relationality is at work: that between the human author of the narrative and the nonhuman agent whom the author projects as telling it, and that between the

<sup>1</sup> As in Herman [4], I draw here on Gergen and Gergen's definition of self-narratives as "the individual's account of self-relevant events across time" ([5], p. 162). Resulting from persons' attempts "to establish coherent connections among life events" ([5], p. 162), for Gergen and Gergen these accounts must be characterized in social and relational terms, since they are ultimately "symbolic systems used for such social purposes as justification, criticism, and social solidification" ([5], p. 163; see also Ritivoi [3], pp. 27–36).

animal narrator and the range of others, human as well as nonhuman, to whom the animal teller, in turn, orients in recounting, contextualizing, and explaining or justifying the actions and reactions that make up the story of the teller's life. But what is more, in engaging with acts of self-narration that cross species lines, creators of animal autobiographies also broach questions about genre, truth status, and the structure as well as the politics of narrative representation—in this case, the practice of narrativizing the experiences of subjects who communicate via resources that extend beyond human language systems.

To address questions of this sort, the present article draws not just on scholarship on (animal) autobiography but also on ideas from the fields of linguistic semantics, politeness theory, and discourse analysis, including the "framing and footing" approach that focuses on talk emerging in contexts of face-to-face interaction and that derives most directly from the work of Erving Goffman [6,7]. This research allows cross-species acts of speaking-for to be situated on a continuum that parallels the one stretching between "butting in" and "chipping in" in the domain of face-to-face interaction among human interlocutors [8,9]. When butting in, a speaker voices an utterance of which he or she is not only author but also the principal, whereas when chipping in a speaker voices an utterance in which the spoken-for party or parties function as co-principal(s). Along the same lines, using case studies that range from animal riddles to Ceridwen Dovey's *Only the Animals* (2014) [10], a collection of life stories posthumously narrated by a variety of nonhuman tellers, I profile autobiographical acts that reach beyond the human as ways of speaking for or in behalf of animal others, situating such acts within their broader sociointeractional and institutional—as well as narratological—contexts.

#### **2. Approaches to Animal Autobiography**

DeMello [11] comments on the range of purposes informing autobiographies by nonhuman tellers, in effect situating instances of this narrative mode at different increments along what Herman [12,13] describes as a continuum of strategies for projecting nonhuman experiences in storyworlds.2 At one end of the scale are methods for presenting animal experiences in relatively summative, globalizing terms—as refracted through human-centered practices and values. At the other end are accounts designed to anchor interpreters in a conception or model of what it is or might be like for nonhuman agents to interact with their environment on a moment-by-moment basis; these accounts project nonhuman experiences in a more detailed, granular way. DeMello describes the two poles of this continuum as follows:

These animals [i.e., animals narrating their life experiences] often speak for us—allowing writers to discuss concepts like loneliness, alienation, or slavery, through the voices of animals—helping us understand what it is to be human. But speaking animals today are much more than simply allegorical devices. Increasingly today, animals are allowed to speak for themselves, demonstrating a new awareness of animal subjectivity, and a desire on the part of many animal lovers to give that subjectivity a voice. ([11], p. 4)

Dwyer [16] demonstrates the fruitfulness of investigating how animal autobiographies situated near the more explicitly human-centric end of the spectrum can be used to allegorize unresolved tensions and contradictions in the broader culture. Focusing on the production and reception of such narratives in post-Civil War America, Dwyer suggests that even as they adopted the conventions of slave narratives, these animal autobiographies remained entangled in social and species hierarchies that are consonant with slavery. More specifically, argues Dwyer, in cross-mapping species difference onto racial difference, animal autobiographies in this context helped give rise to a "discourse of black criminality crucial to the reconsolidation of white hegemony after the formal end of racial slavery" ([16], pp. 4–5).

<sup>2</sup> As noted by Bernaerts et al. ([14], p. 75), Ziolkowski [15], in an analysis of texts with canine narrators, sets up a comparable scale between anthropocentric and cynocentric narratives.

For texts situated at the other end of the spectrum of nonhuman self-narratives, a key question is the following: to what extent does the voicing of animal subjectivity, despite the participation of autobiography (as a generic category) in the domain of nonfictional discourse [17–19], necessarily remain a fictional enterprise? Do such accounts, by virtue of their shared premise of a nonhuman agent using human language to tell that agent's life story, always and everywhere exemplify the mode Saunders calls autobiografiction, or "fictional works in auto/biographical form" ([20], p. 9)? Colombat, for her part, answers in the affirmative, suggesting that "writing the autobiography of an animal is indeed a wonderful idea, and a great temptation and challenge to a writer ... , but it just cannot be. It can never be anything but fiction" ([21] p. 48). By contrast, Savvides [22], in her account of canine autobiographies used to promote the welfare of street or "soi" dogs in Bangkok, Thailand, finds in those animal autobiographies a more thoroughgoing hybridity. Drawing on Franklin's sociological studies of human-canine relationships vis-à-vis domestic living arrangements ([23]; see also [24,25]), Savvides describes such accounts as a product of identifications that, result in ontological as well as generic hybridization. She argues that the canine autobiographies in question "allow their human readers to understand...soi dogs as not-unlike-humans, or, perhaps, to understand that humans are not-unlike-soi dogs" ([22], p. 241). From this perspective, the hybrid status of animal autobiographies can be aligned with what Schwalm describes as the broader hybridity of autobiographical discourse as such: "While autobiography on the one hand claims to be non-fictional (factual) in that it proposes to tell the story of a 'real' person, it is inevitably constructive, or imaginative, in nature and as a form of textual 'self-fashioning' ultimately resists a clear distinction from its fictional relatives (autofiction, autobiographical novel), leaving the generic borderlines blurred" ([26], para. 1; see also [1]; [2], pp. 204–10; [27]).

Indeed, the variety of critical positions on animal autobiography reflects the complexity of the issues raised by this storytelling mode. Ratelle, in her study of animality in literary works and movies targeted at children, suggests that in animal autobiographies "the animal's-eye view compels the human reader into a close emotional bond with the animal as it relates the story of its difficult life" ([28], p. 10; see also [11], p. 8). By contrast, Huff and Haefner [29], in their discussion of "animalographies" included on websites maintained by organizations and corporations across the political spectrum, from the Animal Liberation Front to the Purina pet food corporation, attribute only limited scope and resonance to accounts presented as if they were authored by nonhuman animals. Huff and Haefner characterize these narratives as instances of "popular posthumanism", as opposed to the critical posthumanism outlined by theorists such as Donna Haraway [30].<sup>3</sup> Meanwhile, Bernaerts et al. [14] have, for their part, established an important precedent for inquiry into narration by nonhuman agents, laying foundations for a narratology beyond the human more generally. They argue that narratives told by nonhuman narrators engage readers in a dialectic of defamiliarization and empathy—defamiliarizing (at least in some instances) human-centric frames of reference while also promoting empathy with other-than-human ways of being-in-the-world ([14], pp. 72–74).

However, in describing nonhuman narration as a super-category containing the sub-categories of tales told by animals and the tradition of it-narratives ([14], pp. 82–88), or narratives presented by inanimate objects [31,32], Bernaerts et al. downplay the differences between these two kinds of narrative situations. In this way, the co-authors in effect follow Latour [33] in making a flattening-out move whereby animals and other sorts of actants that can be categorized as nonhuman (artifacts, built structures, etc.) are lumped together. By conflating animal and object narrators, in a manner that threatens to obscure the contrasting meanings that these kinds of beings have in the broader cultural ontologies in which they figure, insofar as they populate distinctive subregions of the realm beyond the human, Bernaerts and his co-authors become vulnerable to the critique articulated by

<sup>3</sup> But see Section 4.1 for a discussion of how some animalographies demonstrate more complexity than Huff and Haefner [29] suggest.

Kohn: "the distinction Latour makes between humans and nonhumans...fails to recognize that some nonhumans are selves" ([34], p. 5; see also [35], pp. 91–92).4 At the same time, because all of their examples are fictional autobiographies, i.e., texts that squarely belong to the genre of fiction, the fundamental hybridity that accrues to autobiography in general, animal autobiography in particular, receives short shrift in Bernaerts et al.'s [14] discussion. Thus, the co-authors' account both under-generates and over-generates necessary analytic distinctions. On the one hand, it does not make sharp enough ontological discriminations between animals and other kinds of beings; on the other hand, by relegating (all) nonhuman narrators to the domain of fiction, it draws too sharp a border within the landscape of narrative genres, and obscures how acts of animal telling can, when resituated in the larger context of autobiographical acts, be viewed as collaborative, trans-species narrational performances cutting across the fiction–nonfiction divide.

To develop alternative strategies for engaging with these issues, I turn now to a discussion of how integrating ideas from the fields of discourse analysis, politeness theory, and linguistic semantics affords different perspectives on autobiographical acts that extend beyond the domain of the human.

#### **3. Nonhuman Narration Reframed: Finding One's Footing in Animal Autobiographies**

As Goffman has argued, participants in the forms of talk that emerge from face-to-face interaction regularly change how they align themselves with one another and with the utterances being produced. Goffman characterizes such changes—that is, changes to "the alignment that [discourse participants] take up to [themselves] and others present in the way [they] manage the production or reception of an utterance" ([7], p. 128)—as changes of footing, with "a change in our footing being another way of talking about our frame for events" ([7], p. 128). Such frames can be defined, in turn, as more or less fully shared understandings of what kind of interaction is unfolding, and what kinds of moves, conversational and other, are expected or normative given the kind of interaction participants take themselves to be involved in and contributing to [6,40,41]. Thus, very different sorts of discourse contributions are expected in a service encounter—e.g., an exchange with the cashier at the grocery store—than in an academic debate, the delivery of a eulogy at a funeral, or for that matter interactions with a companion animal.

In the pioneering analyses that have informed more recent research into framing and footing across different settings for and kinds of conversational interactions, Goffman sets out concepts and distinctions that have proved foundational for research in discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, and related fields (see, for example, [8,9,40–42]). Crucially, Goffman proposes "breaking up the primitive notion of hearer and speaker", which constitute folk imagery associated with communicative interchanges, "into more differentiated parts, namely participation framework and production format" ([7], p. 153). The terms speaker and hearer, on this view, are insufficiently nuanced to capture the many (and fluctuating) statuses that one can have as a discourse participant at once contributing to and making sense of emergent frames for talk. Relevant statuses include, when it comes to production format, that of author, or "someone who has selected the sentiments that are being expressed and the words in which they are encoded" ([7], p. 144); animator, or "the talking machine, a body engaged in acoustic activity, or, if you will, an individual active in the role of utterance production" ([7], p. 144); principal, or "someone whose position is established by the words that are spoken, someone whose beliefs have been told, someone who is committed to what the words say" ([7], p. 144); and figure, Goffman's term for contexts in which speakers represent themselves through personal pronouns such as "I", hedges and qualifiers such as modal auxiliaries ("would", "could"), remedial statements or corrections of previous utterances, or accounts of what they said on

<sup>4</sup> Here I draw on the work of Kohn [34,35] as well as that of analysts like Candea [36], Descola [37], and Viveiros de Castro [38] to define cultural ontologies as sets of orienting assumptions that specify, in the form of common knowledge, what sorts of beings populate the world and how those beings' qualities and abilities relate to the qualities and abilities ascribed to humans. See also Herman [4,39].

past occasions, such that the speakers in question become figures in a statement, that is, "a protagonist in a described scene, a 'character' in an anecdote, someone...who belongs to the world that is spoken about, not the world in which the speaking occurs" ([7], p. 147). The possibility of adopting the status of figure thus allows for embedding one's own or others' past, future, or hypothetical utterances into a current stretch of talk, including quotations, ironic revoicings, and maxims, as well as stage performances and recitations ([7], p. 150). Such embeddings, which can be recursively nested within one another, also lead to changes of footing, since in reporting what someone else said or reproducing sentiments one used to espouse but no longer condones, one is taking up a different alignment to the ongoing discourse than the alignment entailed by reporting "the [current] feelings of the 'addressing self'" ([7], p. 151).

When it comes to what Goffman calls participation frameworks, which can be used to rethink the notion of "hearer", relevant statuses include orienting to the unfolding discourse as an addressee, an unaddressed but ratified participant, or an unaddressed and unratified participant—e.g., an eavesdropper or a bystander. For Schiffrin, such participation frameworks, which in her definition overlap somewhat with Goffman's production formats, concern "the way speaker and hearer are related to their utterances and to one another" ([8], p. 233). The frameworks in question are anchored in what Tannen and Wallat [40] term interactive frames, or "what people think they are doing when they talk to each other" ([8], p. 233).

In analyses that elaborate on these general ideas, and that provide a basis for rethinking the structures and implications of animal autobiography, Schiffrin ([8]; [9], pp. 106–36) examines microinteractional details associated with "speaking for another". In this mode of alignment, one expresses knowledge of and sometimes solidarity with the person—more precisely, the discourse participant—whose voice one animates. Depending on the circumstances—and to invoke an indicative range of stances or alignments it will be important to discriminate among, in intra- as well as interspecies contexts—in being animated the voice in question may be assumed, remembered, inferred, hypothesized, or imagined. Further, as Schiffrin [9] suggests, in multiparty talk, speaking for another can be a way of "chipping in" (engaging in a display of what Brown and Levinson [43] term positive politeness and what Goffman [44] calls positive face wants, whereby one signals that one shares so much with another discourse participant that one can take up his or her position in talk, building solidarity) or else "butting in" (engaging in a violation of negative politeness requirements or negative face wants, whereby one fails to respect another's desire not to be intruded upon, threatening solidarity) (Schiffrin [9], pp. 234, 238; see also [43], pp. 91–228; [44]). Hence "speaking for another can be seen as either deferential, or demeaning, to the one spoken for" ([9], p. 234). What is more, such transfers of the responsibility for speaking can be institutionally allocated, as when a lawyer enters a plea for his or her client in court, and also performed on the fly by conversational peers who thereby signal (and potentially reconfigure) their understandings of gender-related, ethnic, and other aspects of identity—as researchers working in the tradition of Critical Discourse Analysis have explored [45,46].

For their part, building on some of the sociological and discourse-analytic scholarship that informs Schiffrin's approach, Arluke and Sanders ([47], pp. 61–81) use human-canine interactions in a veterinary hospital as well as a guide-dog training program to underscore the relevance of practices of speaking-for in constellations of social agents that extend beyond the human. Arluke and Sanders identify a variety of reasons that may motivate human caretakers to speak for their companion animals in such settings, whether through first-person, ventriloquizing constructions or through more distanced, third-person attributions of experience. Relevant motives include using the animal as a means to transmit, in a more or less oblique way, possibly face-threatening directives or complaints to a spouse or another family member; offering "surrogate explanations" for behavior that caretakers construe as needing to be excused, whether because of its potentially disruptive or transgressive effects or because of how, in the caretaker's estimation, the behavior at issue might bear on interlocutors' assessments of the kind of person he or she is; and empathically identifying with—and giving voice to—the suffering of a nonhuman being in order to obtain appropriate treatment for a sick or injured

animal. As this range of motives suggests, and as my case studies in the next section confirm, acts of speaking-for that cross the species boundary are as much subject to fluctuations between what Schiffrin [8,9] calls butting in and chipping in as are intra-species acts—that is, acts in which both the speaking and the spoken-for parties are human.

This line of inquiry, which connects ideas from discourse analysis and interactional sociolinguistics with work in human–animal studies, and which the present article further seeks to link up with scholarship on animal autobiography, underscores reasons for diverging from Bernaerts et al.'s [14] account—more specifically, from their conflation of object and animal narrators as well as their relegation of (all) animal tellers to the domain of fiction. The ascription of self-narratives to nonhuman tellers should, rather, be situated alongside a multiplicity of discourse practices that involve speaking in behalf of another being who is assumed, inferred, or hypothesized to have a perspective on and interest in situations and events—with such acts of speaking-for encompassing a range of practices that cut across the fiction–nonfiction contrast. As these comments also suggest, when it comes to speaking for another, questions of modality intersect with those of framing, footing, and genre. Accordingly, it is advantageous to shift from the fiction–nonfiction polarity, a binarized distinction, to another continuum—in this case, the continuum that specialists in linguistic semantics have developed to map out the degree to which a speaker is committed to the truth of the proposition expressed in an utterance, with such degrees of commitment falling under the heading of "epistemic modality" ([48], pp. 387–89; [49], p. 141; [50], pp. 508–9).

At issue are the expressive resources—including, in English, sentential adverbs such as "undoubtedly", modal auxiliary verbs such as "may" or "would", and statement types such as interrogatives and imperatives—that are used by speakers to signal where their attitude toward a proposition falls on a scale stretching from the epistemic modality of certainty to that of uncertainty (Herman [51], pp. 310–11). One end of the continuum corresponds to the "realis" mode, in which one is strongly committed to truth of the proposition about which one makes a claim; the other end of the continuum corresponds to the "irrealis" mode, in which one is weakly committed to the truth or factual status of the proposition—or even, as in fictional discourse, not committed at all.5 Acts of speaking for another can occupy various positions along this scale. Practices of speaking-for that cluster toward the realis end of the continuum include collaboratively written autobiographies ([19], pp. 185–215; [52]), the co-production of discourse in interactions between persons with and persons without aphasia ([41]), acting in the formal capacity as a court-appointed attorney making a plea in behalf of a defendant accused of a crime ([53], pp. 81–82), or taking someone's side in a conversation in which one defends an absent or present party against the criticisms ventured by an interlocutor. Practices of speaking-for that cluster toward the irrealis end include conjecturing about what a person from a different culture (or even an extraterrestrial being) might say about current world affairs, predicting one's own future reactions to contemporary events, or projecting oneself into the role of the homo- or autodiegetic narrator presenting a fictional account, whether within or across the species boundary. The point to emphasize here is that, like acts of speaking-for more generally, animal-autobiographical acts can fall at different increments along this scale—even as an extended animal autobiography can span different segments of the continuum over the course of its telling.

Animal autobiography thus piggybacks on the hybrid generic status of autobiography itself [1,26,27], taking advantage of a flexible narrative environment in which the whole range of modes—from realis to irrealis—can be exploited when it comes to presenting an account of the situations and events that make up a given storyworld. In turn, these movements along the continuum of epistemic modalities in the context of animal autobiography translate into changes in the framings and footings entailed

<sup>5</sup> In Crystal's formulation, realis is "a term used in the study of epistemic modality: in a realis ("real") assertion, a proposition is strongly asserted to be true, the speaker being ready to back up the assertion with evidence or argument. It is opposed to an irrealis ("unreal") assertion, where the proposition is weakly asserted to be true, but the speaker is not ready to support the assertion" ([49], p. 321).

by acts of speaking-for that cross species lines. Who, or what, is the self for whom claims are being made in autobiographical writing, and what is the status of those claims?<sup>6</sup> These questions are already challenging ones, and they become even more complex and multidimensional when such acts of speaking-for-a-self extend beyond the realm of the human.

As Cosslett [53] notes, Lejeune's [19] work on collaborative autobiographies anticipates some of the issues at stake in animal-autobiographical acts, with the writer of another's life story creating a narrative that would otherwise have remained untold, and thereby taking on the role of "a mediator between two worlds" (qtd. in Cosslett [53], p. 88). Describing the practice of collaborative autobiography as one in which the writer tries to imagine himself as the model, or the autobiographical subject whose story is being presented, Lejeune characterizes the autobiographer-model relationship as parallel to that between a novelist and his or her narrator-protagonist ([19], p. 190; see also [52]). Collaborative life writing thus breaches the boundary between fiction and history, and in doing so gives the lie to the apparent unity and coherence of autobiographies that do not result from explicit collaboration ([19], p. 188). From this perspective, the structure of the animal autobiography not only mirrors the practice of collaborative (inter-human) autobiography, with the difference that the writer projects himself or herself into the position of a nonhuman model; what is more, animal-autobiographical acts also root themselves in the necessity for ghostwriting, or self-displacement, even in cases where, to revert to Goffman's model, the roles of author, animator, principal, and figure would all seem prima facie to coincide.

#### **4. Case Studies in Cross-Species Speaking-For**

With this additional context in place, consider again how Goffman's [7] approach to framing and footing can be brought to bear on acts of speaking-for that cross the species boundary. These acts can be situated on a continuum that parallels the one stretching between "butting in" and "chipping in" in the domain of face-to-face interaction among human interlocutors [8,9]. To reiterate—and taking into account the complexities of authorship noted by Lejeune [19] and Iadonisi [52]—when butting in a speaker voices an utterance of which he or she is not only author but also the principal, whereas when chipping in a speaker voices an utterance in which the spoken-for party or parties function as principal(s). As the previous discussion suggests, however, the role of principal is no more atomic or indivisible than the role of author. To accommodate the non-primitive nature of principals, or the way an utterance can be voiced in behalf of multiple parties or a single party of more or less uncertain preferences and predispositions, a second continuum can be posited; this continuum, which cross-cuts the one that spans butting in and chipping in, corresponds to a scale of epistemic modalities whose increments fall between the realis and irrealis poles. By situating acts of speaking for nonhuman others on both continua, those acts can be profiled along two dimensions—not only as embodying more or less human-centric interests (determined in large part by the nature of the author-principal relationship in a given instance), but also as reflecting, and helping consolidate, a stance that marks those interests as ones about which it is appropriate to make assumptions, draw inferences, engage in hypotheses, or bracket as elements of fictional worlds, as the case may be.

#### *4.1. Nonfictional Animal Autobiographies*

This two-dimensional model helps explains why, in part because of the hybrid status of autobiographical discourse in general, not every act of speaking-for that crosses species lines should be categorized as fictional, or for that matter as centering primarily on human interests and concerns. Some of these acts, rather, can be situated closer to the realis pole of the continuum of epistemic modalities

<sup>6</sup> In Marcus's account, part of the anxiety about autobiography's instability and hybridity arises from a concern over whether autobiography is "a way of ordering and objectifying the self, and thus importing alterity into the self that engenders it, or [a form] mirroring [the self's own] vacillations and alterations" ([1], p. 16).

than fictional projections accomplished through storytelling acts, and also as more analogous to chipping in than to butting in when it comes to the framings and footings involved. Animal riddles, for example, are grounded in an animal's attested habitats and behavioral patterns, and to that extent can be falsified; hence such riddles stand apart from the category of fiction. Thus, on a website containing animal riddles written by Jerry Jindrich for young children7, the riddle whose answer is "frog" reads:

My skin is green and slippery. I have four legs and webbed feet. I eat bugs and little fish. I can swim under water and hop on land. I am a...

Similarly, the riddle whose answer is "whale" reads as follows:

I live in the ocean. I swim wherever I want. I sing to my family. I can breathe through a hole in the top of my head. I am a...

Arguably, the acts of speaking-for associated with riddles of this sort sometimes go beyond cross-species paternalism, or forms of human-centric butting in that can be assumed to violate nonhuman creatures' (inferred or inferrable) negative face wants [43,44]. Rather, the acts in question may result from a hypothesized human–animal interchange, in which the sentiments expressed in the riddle are, in effect, shared between a human author and a counterfactual nonhuman co-author—sentiments that the human designer of the riddle infers and seeks to reinforce via an act of co-telling driven by positive face wants. The subject of the riddle, which I am here characterizing as a nonhuman co-author, contributes to a model or profile that derives from what humans know about the animal in question coupled with hypotheses concerning what kind of self-narrative the animal would tell if it were equipped with the capacity for verbal expression. The role of principal is likewise split, or hybridized, in such contexts. Thus, the telling of the riddle can be interpreted both as an act of speaking-for that constitutes cross-species chipping in and—particularly when the riddle is targeted at children learning about the lifeways of animals—a puzzle designed in behalf of a human addressee.8

Animal riddles form part of a broader category of nonfictional instructional narratives that serve the purpose of modeling animals' behavioral routines, capabilities, and (potential) viewpoints on their environments. For instance, in the first volume of his multi-volume *Curious Critters* series, targeted at readers aged 3–8, David Fitzimmons [54] includes, along with an image of the animal with its claws extended toward the reader, the following profile for "Ohio Crawfish":

Do you know why I'm waving my giant claws? I'm warning you: Don't come any closer.

*Snap! Snap! Snap!*

I catch my food with these claws. I also attack and defend myself with them.

*Snap! Snap! Snap!*

<sup>7</sup> The website may be found at http://www.meddybemps.com/Riddles/index.html.

<sup>8</sup> The pervasiveness of animals telling riddles in educational and other material targeted at children speaks to issues raised by Degnen [55]. As Degnen notes, at a time when they themselves are still in the process of acquiring the status of persons, "young children are actively encouraged to invert Western naturalist ontology (whereby human beings and all other living beings are segregated into radically different domains) and invest their imagination in a cosmos where human and nonhuman animals are commensurate" ([55], p. 677).

Do you want to know something really cool? If any of my legs gets hurt, including my giant claws, I can grow new ones. Pretty neat, huh? Now, enough chitchat. Back off!

*Snap! Snap! Snap!* ([54], p. 4)

This narrative profile, like the ones emerging from the adult- and student-designed animal riddles, can be viewed as the product of trans-species co-authorship. Here too the crayfish's attested display behaviors, habits of predation and self-defense, and recuperative powers contribute to an account that, although it is mock-voiced by a crustacean in dialogue with child readers who are cast in the role of direct addressees, remains within the domain of falsifiability. But note how the footings associated with this act of cross-species speaking-for change over the course of the ventroliquized self-profile. Some of the crayfish's projected utterances can be taken as the result of chipping in on the part of the human co-author of the profile, whose positive face wants motivate him to infer and co-articulate, on the basis of the animal's observed dispositions and behavioral tendencies, what he takes to be the crayfish's preferences and priorities. Other utterances contained in the profile, however, including the interrogatives "Do you want to know something really cool?" and "Pretty neat, huh?" as well as the locution "Now, enough chitchat," can be glossed as originating from a human—rather than hybrid—frame of reference. Such utterances can be construed as imposing upon negative face wants that may, given the evidence available, be more or less plausibly attributed to the animal. These elements of the profile extend beyond any extrapolation from observed behaviors, or for that matter any technique for modeling an animal's experiential world; instead, they can be interpreted as strategies for enhancing readability through an engagement with forms of dialogic exchange anchored in humans' own communicative practices.

Self-narratives attributed to shelter animals in need of adoption also exemplify nonfictional acts of speaking-for that cross species lines. These autobiographical accounts, like the instructional narratives just described, can involve complex shifts of footing. Thus, whereas the animal autobiographies included in a post to the Animal Liberation Front's website titled "Interview from an Animal Shelter" present hypotheses about (rather than fictionalizing) the lived experiences of shelter dogs, in doing so they reveal fluctuating degrees of alignment with human frames of reference.9 In one of the accounts, perhaps attributed to the animal on the basis of a separate (unreported) interview with one or more of the shelter's human attendants, a female Jack Russell terrier named Patsy recounts how "My owner surrendered me. She said she wanted a cute little dog like the one on the TV show, *Frasier*. She didn't bother to look into the type of dog I am...I suppose she expected me to just lie about and only need a short walk each day, just like Eddie [the dog on the TV program], but my energy was so high that I needed to run and play." Granted, the mode of telling here somewhat occludes the experiential texture of the dog's life story; but far from being an instance of fiction, this animal autobiography cautions against using fictional narratives as templates for understanding animal lives, or human–animal relationships. The account attributed to Patsy therefore suggests how animal autobiographies, even when ventriloquized by tellers familiar with television serials and animal actors, can nonetheless reveal traces of trans-species co-authorship. Such hybrid authorial agents take their place within production formats that feature a more-than-human principal—in this case, a principal that oscillates between the mistreated dog and a human concerned about those who may be prone to adopting (or abandoning) a companion animal for ill-thought-out reasons.

#### *4.2. Fictional Animal Autobiographies*

A model integrating research on framing and footing also helps account for the variety of animal autobiographies clustering at the other pole of the continuum of epistemic modalities, with these nonhuman self-narratives framing propositions about the animals' experiences not just in a provisional

<sup>9</sup> See http://www.animalliberationfront.com/Practical/Pets/Stories/InterviewAnimalShelter.htm.

or hypothetical mode but furthermore as fictional, or nonfalsifiable. There are indeed significant differences among fictional animal autobiographies, confirming that a second analytic dimension (in addition to modal status) is needed to account for variation in such virtual acts of cross-species speaking-for. As with the nonfictional examples discussed in my previous subsection, when fictional animal narrators recount their life stories the author-principal relationship determines degrees of human-centrism; at issue is the extent to which the account can be read as one that, having been co-authored across species lines and motivated by the human designer's positive face wants, attempts to avoid any violation of inferred or assumed nonhuman negative face wants. And once again, shifts of footing entailed by the foregrounding of different aspects of hybridized, "humanimal" authors and principals can obtain not only across various fictional animal autobiographies but also over the course of a single text's unfolding.10

Thus, at a macro-analytic level, provisional distinctions can be drawn between classic as well as contemporary animal autobiographies designed to promote more humane treatment of companion animals, such as Anna Sewell's *Black Beauty* (1877/2007) [57], Margaret Marshall Saunders's *Beautiful Joe* (1893) [58], and Ann Martin's *A Dog's Life: The Autobiography of a Stray* (2005) [59]; the more or less collaboratively composed autobiographies of members of species that have been subjected to scientific experimentation or exposed to the abusive treatment associated with factory farming or industrialized agriculture, ranging from the autobiography told by Nicodemus the rat in Robert C. O'Brien's *Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH* (1972) [60], who was injected with an intelligence-enhancing serum in a fictionalized research laboratory maintained by the National Institute of Mental Health, to some of the life stories told by the animals who feature in William Kotzwinkle's *Doctor Rat* (1976/2014) [61]; and texts in which writers, sometimes working in different storytelling media [62,63], have enlisted the resources of fictional animal autobiography to unsettle in an even more concerted way broader assumptions about cross-species relationships that both shape and are shaped by practices of giving voice to nonhuman experiences—as in the life narratives told posthumously by the nonhuman narrator-protagonists included in Ceridwen Dovey's story collection, *Only the Animals* (2014) [10]. At a more micro-analytic level, different modalities of speaking-for manifest themselves within (and not just across) these and other texts falling in the relevant subcategories.

Take *Black Beauty* [57], for example. As with other fictional autobiographies featuring nonhuman tellers, it would be a category mistake to attempt to falsify Sewell's acts of cross-species speaking-for; but here again attending to the specifics of the author-principal relationship allows for a finer-grained analysis of the text. Specifically, Sewell's discourse can be positioned at various increments on the continuum of self-other alignments stretching between butting in and chipping in, depending on the scope and quality of the humanimal co-authorship in a given segment of the narrative and also the degree to which Sewell can be read as seeking to uphold the inferred negative face wants of the animal agent(s) involved—in this case, the species of whom Beauty is a representative. To be sure, Sewell's frequent interactions with and close observations of horses maximized opportunities for a cross-species compositional dynamic, in which possibilities for chipping in rather than butting in were increased.11 Yet, the text's reliance on institutions and practices that include slavery as it was constituted in the nineteenth century, filial relations based on the concept of the nuclear family, and others can be read as a superimposition of human frames of reference on equine experiences.

For their part, Saunders's *Beautiful Joe* [58] and Martin's much later *A Dog's Life* [59] are marked by an even more thoroughgoing use of human-centric projections, with the attendant risk of a desire for trans-species solidarity trumping equally exigent, and species-specific, needs for autonomy. Both texts can be read as containing co-authored propositions about dogs based on attested canine behaviors and dispositions, as when Saunders has Joe report that "dogs love variety and excitement, and like

<sup>10</sup> See DeKoven on the concept of humanimals, or "oscillating characters who are neither/both human and animal" ([56], p. 20).

<sup>11</sup> As Norris [64] notes, because of illness Sewell was unable to walk and depended on horse-drawn transportation for most of her life.

to see what is going on outside as well as human beings" ([58], p. 40) and Martin's nonhuman narrator-protagonist recounts how he and his fellow stray dog, Moon, survive by foraging for food in the small town in which they spend a winter ([59], p. 135). Yet, human frames of reference preponderate in both texts, and the frequency with which Saunders and Martin rely on such frames as a source domain for fictional world building in effect privileges human positive face wants over nonhuman negative face wants; depending on the cultural ontology in which a given narrative is grounded, these wants not to be intruded upon will be more or less richly ascribed to the animal agents involved. Thus, Beautiful Joe is able to quote, verbatim, an extended discussion about animal treatment that he overhears while traveling on a train ([58], pp. 132–41), while Martin's canine teller grasps the concept of spaying ([59], p. 167), uses the names of tree varieties ([59], p. 179), and refers to specific pieces and styles of human clothing ([59], p. 192).

Other animal autobiographies, in projecting inside views of the experiences of animals subject to scientific experimentation or the methods of factory farming, leverage human frames of reference in order to subvert anthropocentrism, thereby reconfiguring acts of butting in, via ironic or self-reflexive modes of telling, as a kind of chipping in.<sup>12</sup> In O'Brien's *Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH*, for example, Nicodemus the rat takes on the role, for part of the novel, of an intradiegetic narrator, presenting his autobiography as a story-within-the-story ([60], pp. 120–210). Nicodemus recounts how he and some fifty-nine other rats, along with eight mice, were captured and conscripted for an experiment designed to test "whether certain injections could help us to learn more and faster" ([60], p. 129). Nicodemus does not explain how he is able to understand conversations among the human scientists about experimental procedures even before he and the other members of the non-control groups of rodents are injected with the potentially intelligence-enhancing serum. Further, after Nicodemus and the other rats escape from the laboratory, they arrange their affairs in a way that appears to mirror human architectural, technological, and more broadly cultural practices, creating an underground meeting hall and library, building an elevator and using electric lights, stockpiling seeds for the purposes of crop production, transmitting to their offspring the ability to read that they acquired after being given the serum, and so on.

Yet Nicodemus's account also reflects the rats' awareness of their own interstitial, between-species status, and hence the limitations of human models for other-than-human social collectivities. Thus Nicodemus reports a fellow experimental subject's remark that "we don't know where to go because we don't know what we are. Do you want to go back to living in a sewer pipe? And eating other people's garbage? Because that's what rats do. However, the fact is, we aren't rats any more. We're something Dr. Schultz has created. Something new" ([60], p. 160). He also recounts how he and the other rats were glad to leave an abandoned estate they had taken over for several months: "we were never really comfortable there. Everything in it was designed for animals who looked, moved and thought differently from the way we did" ([60], pp. 191–92). Hence, in creating this autobiography of a laboratory subject O'Brien has, as Ratelle suggests, portrayed the lab as "a site of intersection between human and animal that...serves to undermine an exclusively human notion of subjectivity" ([28], p. 103).

Indeed, O'Brien's focus on rats' experiences, like Kotzwinkle's in *Doctor Rat* [61], enables his fictional animal autobiography to comment critically on a cultural ontology in which possibilities for subjectivity beyond the human are differentially allocated, often for pragmatic or instrumentalizing reasons, across different forms of animal life. As Ratelle puts it, "unlike companion animals, rodents had few advocates to speak against their inclusion in laboratories, and their small size and easily

<sup>12</sup> In her analysis of Paul Auster's 1999 novel *Timbuktu*, Ittner [65] identifies some of the issues that are at stake in ironized or self-reflexive acts of butting in across species lines. For Ittner, Auster uses Willy G. Christmas's relationship with his dog, Mr. Bones, to suggest how "by thinking of an animal, we construct it within our own consciousness and therefore what is reflected back to us is our own existence, irrespective of the point of view we choose to adopt...[Auster's] approach acknowledges this impasse and integrates it into its inquiry on animal alterity" ([65], p. 182).

facilitated breeding made them ideal laboratory denizens" ([28], p. 100). But whereas *Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH* was written for younger readers13 and resorts to a subtly self-subverting overextension of human frames of reference vis-à-vis the story of Nicodemus's life, with the embedded rodent autobiography invoking human-centric conceptions of societies or civilizations in order to imagine other-than-human social collectivities, Kotzwinkle's text, targeted at an adult audience, engages in blunt, sometimes brutal irony to stage its own anti-anthropocentric critique via animal autobiography.

Rather than presenting Doctor Rat's life story as an embedded narrative, about which readers (along with the rat's intradiegetic narratees) learn secondhand, Kotzwinkle uses retrospective autodiegetic narration—not only by his rodent protagonist but also by the other animals whose autobiographical vignettes alternate with Doctor Rat's account of his life history. Taken together these narratives tell the story not just of a variety of nonhuman lives but also of a worldwide animal uprising together with its devastatingly violent suppression by humans. Disturbingly, Doctor Rat, or at least the older, narrating I who produces the account on which judgments about what transpires in the laboratory must be based, appears to have internalized (and perhaps amplified) the instrumentalizing attitudes of the human experimenters. It is not just that Doctor Rat is, at least in his own mind, a recipient of the Claude Bernard Animal Experimentation Award ([61], p. 27), or that he aligns himself with humans by using the first-person plural in his account of the human scientists' experiments on rats and other animals—as when he reports that "naturally, we cut the dogs' vocal cords as soon as they enter the lab" to prevent them from howling or screaming in pain ([61], p. 7). What is more, the narrating I admits that he has come to "enjoy the smell of formaline—a 5% solution is satisfactory for removing all the soft parts of a rat's body. Yes, the smell is pleasing to my nose because I know the bones aren't mine" ([61], p. 1). In one of many echoes of Holocaust narratives found throughout Kotzwinkle's text, Doctor Rat refers to this 5% formaline solution as "the Final Solution", which "after all is said and done...is death, and death is freedom" ([61], p. 1).14 Similarly, the narrating I, who at one point addresses his conspecifics by asserting that "You're all just basic models, fellow rats!" ([61], p. 18), recounts the following dialogue he has with a rat whose brain is scheduled to be "sucked out by a pneumatic tube":

#### "Help, help!"

"Please, young fellow, there's no need to get so worked up about your little contribution to science. Have a bit of pressed biscuit before you die. Eat hearty and remember—death is freedom!" ([61], p. 4)

He also describes as hysterical and as "not showing the scientific attitude" a young female rat who has had a hole cut into her stomach and a plastic window inserted there so that scientists can use a strand of hair to tickle "the little ratlings as they grow inside her" ([61], p. 13).

It is thus entirely in character for Doctor Rat to tell his fellow rats to ignore the revolutionary message being broadcast, on a nonvocalized, intuitive wavelength, by the dogs and other animal subjects. As he puts it, "I would much prefer microscopic worms in my intestines to these blasted dogs in my eardrums with their slobbering tale of freedom" ([61], p. 23)—any given dog being, for Doctor Rat, "just a basic model. A convenient evolutionary offshoot expressly designed for the laboratory" ([61], p. 29). The degree to which Doctor Rat has internalized human values and priorities as normative (in contrast with Nicodemus and the other experimented-upon rats in O'Brien's text) is evident when he shouts out in response to a group of rebel rat mothers calling for the liberation of laboratory animals: "Close your ears, fellow rats! Don't listen to these irresponsible rabble rousers.

<sup>13</sup> O'Brien's text won the 1972 Newberry Medal, awarded annually to books that contribute to American literature for children. <sup>14</sup> Other echoes include Doctor Rat's references to tattoos on rats' bodies, as well as his accounts of scientific papers published on the basis of sadistic experiments involving castration, decapitation, exposure to radiation, the grafting of body parts removed from one rat onto the bodies of other rats, and other abhorrent practices, including placing kittens, fully awake, in a microwave oven, with their paws taped down to the tray ([61], p. 38).

Remember that you are contributing to research, to saving the lives of human beings" ([61], p. 32). Kotzwinkle uses his rodent narrator, then, to ironize practices of speaking-for that disregard possibilities for subjectivity beyond the species boundary, and the negative face wants that can plausibly be associated with such other-than-human ways of experiencing the world. The very sophistication of Doctor Rat's account gives the lie to the unrelenting—and perverse—anthropocentrism that he endorses at every turn. Indeed, Kotzwinkle's use of Holocaust references suggests an analogy between this narrator's pro-animal experimentation stance and Jewish self-hatred—or even the desperate attempts at collaborationism undertaken by Jews seeking to ingratiate themselves with their captors and executioners in the Nazi death camps during the second World War.

In this respect, Kotzwinkle's text aligns itself with other norm-challenging animal autobiographies that use the resources of fiction to explore possibilities for anti-anthropocentrism in acts of speaking-for that extend beyond the human. Such texts bear the traces of trans-species co-authorship, arising from the hypothetical or counterfactual projections driven by humans' positive face wants (compare chipping in); but they also model how to avoid infringing on other creatures' inferred or assumed negative face wants (compare butting in). In turn, autobiographies of this sort not only reflect but also help shape cultural ontologies marked by relatively prolific allocations of possibilities for selfhood among animal agents.

Consider, along these lines, the autobiographies included in Ceridwen Dovey's 2014 collection *Only the Animals* [10], which consists of self-narratives told by deceased animals who die as a result of human projects and—especially—conflicts. Among these autobiographies are the life stories recounted by the soul of SS leader Heinrich Himmler's one-time German shepherd, after the dog has been killed in Poland in 1941, an explosive pack meant to blow up a tank having been strapped on his back; by the soul of a mussel killed after the battleship to which he is attached is destroyed during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, also in 1941; by the soul of Plautus the tortoise, who, having lived with Tolstoy's daughter, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, and Tom Stoppard, dies after being rocketed into space in 1968 for an experiment designed to test the effects of space travel on living creatures; by the soul of an elephant who dies while trying to come to the aid of her twin sister, after she is shot by militants during a 1987 civil war in Mozambique; and by the soul of a female dolphin who, having been trained by the US Navy to detect underwater mines and participate in other military operations, writes a letter to Sylvia Plath about how she too committed suicide—after learning that she had unknowingly attached a lethal weapon to an enemy diver during the invasion of Iraq in 2003.<sup>15</sup> Overtly fictional in their use of animal narrators who are already dead at the time of telling, these autobiographies also oscillate between human-centric and biocentric frames of reference.

Thus, although capable of tracking references to vegetarianism, Hesse's *Siddhartha*, and the *Bhagavad Gita*, Himmler's German shepherd is also able to sense an intruder's neck artery pulsing as he frames his jaws around the intruder's throat ([10], loc. 972). Similarly, the roving mussel and his conspecifics are caught up in a wanderlust with distinct echoes of that experienced by Kerouac and the other members of the Beat Generation; yet, they are also able to detect subtle changes in the temperature and salinity of sea water ([10], loc. 1328). For his part, Plautus the tortoise can quote Elizabeth Cady Stanton's 1892 address to the US House Judiciary Committee concerning women's rights, as well as passages from Woolf's *Flush*, but also hibernate for months at a time and detect smells humans cannot perceive, including the icy smell of space outside his capsule's walls. As for the Navy-trained dolphin, even as she develops detailed interpretations of Ted Hughes's animal poems and converses (metafictionally) with the soul of Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello [67], she also embodies, as a "toothed whale" ([10], loc. 2430), distinctive cetacean capacities that she adduces as a

<sup>15</sup> For more on the US Navy's Marine Mammal Program, which has engaged in the documented use of bottlenose dolphins, Beluga whales, and sea lions for purposes of surveillance and which is reported to have used dolphins for "swimmer nullification" missions, see Casey ([66], loc. 733–36).

counter-argument against humans' declarations that they are "a special-case animal", and that part of what makes them special is that they "ask the very question, Am I human or animal?" ([10], loc. 2437):

So I ask them in turn, can you use echolocation to know exactly what curves the ocean floor makes in every conceivable direction? Can you stun the creature you would like to eat using sound alone? Can you scan the bodies of your extended family and immediately tell who is pregnant, who is sick, who is injured, who ate what for lunch? The tingling many humans report feeling during an encounter with us isn't endorphins, it's because we've just scanned you to know you in all dimensions. We see through you, literally. Special case indeed. Perhaps you should be asking yourself different questions. Why do you sometimes treat other people as humans and sometimes as animals? And why do you sometimes treat creatures as animals and sometimes as humans? ([10], loc. 2437–44)16

In keeping with issues raised by the dolphin's closing questions, Dovey's text as a whole suggests how animal autobiography can be used to create oscillating human–animal alignments via (different sorts of) acts of speaking-for. Some life stories told by nonhumans can be read as co-authored acts of narrating in behalf of equally hybrid (or humanimal) principals; these experiments with narration beyond the human afford solidarity-building projections of other creatures' ways of being-in-the-world—projections that enable a reassessment, in turn, of forms of human being. But other animal autobiographies, or at least segments of them, correlate with acts of telling for which humans themselves remain the principals as well as authors, with their animal animators relegated to the role of commenting on human institutions, values, practices, and artifacts. Insofar as it uses this second, more human-centric strand of animal-autobiographical discourse, the form of Dovey's text mirrors one of its key themes: namely, the way anthropocentric ontologies deny proper selfhood to nonhuman beings, configuring them as so much collateral damage when they are killed or harmed as a result of human doings. Yet the other way of engaging in acts of speaking-for across species lines, closer to chipping in than butting in, manifests itself when the elephant narrator describes her herd's response to discovering the dead body of the group's matriarch, with the group in their grief "moving backwards towards her body and gently touching her with our hind legs, then moving away to circle and hover around her, then forward to touch her again...keening and throwing sand over the body, then covering her with branches" ([10], loc. 2087). This same strand of discourse comes into view when the dolphin narrator reports how her species' echolocation abilities surpass those afforded by human-built radar systems ([10], loc. 2704). In such moments, Dovey's ventriloquizing acts both reflect and help constitute an alternative ontology; this other way of configuring creatural life allocates to a whole range of animals possibilities for selfhood that more restrictive ontologies limit to humans—or even to only a subset of the larger human population.

#### **5. Conclusion: Toward a Narratology beyond the Human**

Exemplifying different kinds of transhuman speaking-for, the case studies I have discussed here invite inquiry into the limits as well as the possibilities of animal autobiography, and into how this narrative mode bears on author-principal relationships both across and within the species boundary. What is more, the complexity and variety of my example texts underscore the advantages of pursuing an integrative, cross-disciplinary framework for investigating self-narratives attributed to nonhuman tellers. Using a research framework that combines ideas from language theory and discourse analysis with work in autobiography studies, the present article has sought to outline new ways of studying the structure and functions of such self-narratives, arguing that these accounts at once reveal and help shape broader assumptions concerning the qualities and abilities of animals—and hence of humans as well.

<sup>16</sup> For more on dolphins' sophisticated echolocation skills, see Casey ([66], loc. 729–34), and Moore [68].

In turn, this approach to animal autobiography forms part of the larger project of developing a narratology beyond the human (Herman [4,69]). The overall aim of that project is to consider how ideas proposed by scholars of narrative bear on questions about the nature and scope of human–animal relationships in the larger biosphere, and vice versa. As I hope the present analysis has already begun to suggest, study of fictional as well as nonfictional narratives that include but extend beyond the realm of the human can open up productive routes of exchange among the arts, sciences, and humanities, even as approaching these narratives from a cross-disciplinary perspective can foster new ways of imagining and responding to trans-species entanglements in wider biotic communities. Because so many encounters with animals are mediated through narratively organized discourse, there is a pressing need for a comprehensive model of what storytelling practices, in domains ranging from conservationist discourse and instructional literature to avant-garde fiction and life writing, reveal about (human attitudes toward) the nonhuman world and its inhabitants. A model that integrates structural and contextual analysis, one combining the technical methods of narratology and related fields with research on cultural understandings of animals and human–animal interactions, can achieve such comprehensiveness, allowing for a step change in this area of inquiry.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.

#### **References**


© 2016 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

## *Article* **Toward the Eco-Narrative: Rethinking the Role of Conflict in Storytelling**

#### **Corinne Donly**

Department of English, Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, 11210 NY, USA; Corinne.donly97@brooklyn.cuny.edu

Academic Editor: Joela Jacobs Received: 16 January 2017; Accepted: 3 April 2017; Published: 10 April 2017

**Abstract:** Offered as a response to the increasingly popular call within the eco-humanities for stories that will help humankind adapt to catastrophic planetary conditions, this article proposes "the eco-narrative"—an approach to storytelling that strives to compose with, not for, its nonhuman characters. An extension of eco-critical projects that analyze stories for their depictions of nonhumanity, the theoretical research herein brings ecological analysis of narrative to the level of structure. In particular, it problematizes the dominant plot model of conflict/climax/resolution, suggesting that stories motivated by conflict reinforce dualistic and anthropocentric habits for approaching the animal other. Evaluating two narratives concerning the human practice of killing animals—the Pew Commission's report on Industrial Farm Animal Production and Annette Watson and Orville H. Huntington's "They're *here—*I can *feel* them"—the article observes how the former's efforts at animal rights advocacy are undermined by its very storytelling framework. Celebrating the latter story's more playful approach to narrative instead, the article ultimately suggests that a theory of "infinite play," as developed by James P. Carse, can be used to re-envision the dominant plot model. A template for cooperation in the absence of known outcome, infinite play thus becomes the basis for the eco-narrative—a storytelling framework flexible enough to cocreate with nonhumanity, even during an environmental moment characterized by crisis.

**Keywords:** eco-humanities; eco-criticism; eco-philosophy; Industrial Farm Animal Production; narrative; plot; conflict; environmental crisis; catastrophe; play theory

#### **1. Introduction**

Scholarly appeals to the "universal" of storytelling easily split in two directions. Some focus on story as it arises developmentally across the human species (Boyd 2009; Paley 2004). These scholars have tended to emphasize the narrative quality of children's fantasy play, highlighting the importance of story to the cultivation of social connectivity and to early experiences of agency (Paley 2004). Story, it has been argued, provides children with the capacity to exert influence upon their worlds and to feel themselves participating in the determination of outcomes. Within this developmental framework, some have also attempted the grander project of tracing the biocultural and evolutionary origins of story. Brian Boyd, in particular, has suggested that the survival of the human species has depended upon strong group cohesion, and as such, stories have served the evolutionary function of teaching groups the norms that will ensure cooperation (Paley 2004). Importantly, Boyd attempts to locate what is evolutionarily efficacious about storytelling within *any* species, and thus, his search for the biocultural basis of narrative reaches well beyond the realm of the human. For Boyd, as for developmental psychologists, the human drive to tell stories emerges out of an impulse common to almost all animals—that of play. Indeed, in animals and children alike, it is open-ended play that encourages the low-stakes practicing of skills that may later prove essential to survival.

Other scholars have attempted to make a structural argument about the *way* in which stories are told, suggesting that all stories contain the same essential ingredients and can be

codified into a basic, recurrent model. Emerging in the late 1960's out of structuralist theory, and premised as the "characterisation of the model underlying people's intuitive knowledge about stories" (Herman 2005b, p. 572), the field of narratology has itself been accused of a universalistic failure to consider "history and context" (Warhol 2012, p. 9). As the field has expanded, however, avenues of narratological investigation have moved evermore toward the inclusion of "contextualist narratologies" (James 2015, p. 14). Accordingly, underneath the larger umbrella of narratology can now be found sub-fields like feminist/queer narrative theory—dedicated to understanding texts via "the material circumstances of the history that produces and receives them" (Warhol 2012, p. 9)—and unnatural/antimimetic narratology, which situates its analysis on texts that "challenge rather than conform to" the conventions of realist narrative (Richardson 2012, p. 22). As with other movements into the postmodern, these expanded conceptions of narratology are largely focused on texts hitherto ignored by more traditional narrative theory. Yet, even as academic inquiries into narrative structure have enacted a shift away from essentialism, more popular explanations of narrative remain, on the whole, dedicated to the project of presenting a single, easily replicable account of how story happens.

In *The Storytelling Animal*, for instance, Jonathan Gottschall contends that stories display a "universal grammar." As he explains, "Almost all story makers work within the tight confines of problem structure...writing stories around a pattern of complication, crisis, and resolution" (Gottschall 2012, p. 54). In formulating this pattern, Gottschall cites other analysts of narrative—namely Janet Burroway and Charles Baxter—who have positioned "conflict" as the foundational element of fiction (Gottschall 2012, p. 52). Indeed, these thinkers follow in a long tradition of writers who, in various (and admittedly less scholarly) handbooks on the craft of fiction, attempt to reduce the act of storytelling into a repeatable formula. Although there are slight variations in how this formula gets described, the basic pattern recalls the "plot-stages" identified in 1959 by Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren: "exposition, complication, climax, and denouement" (Herman 2005a, p. 83), and the general consensus, even today, is that "without conflict, plot hardly exists" (Harmon and Holman 2003, p. 387). A successful story therefore tracks a protagonist as he moves through an experience of conflict, and regardless of what the conflict entails, it must escalate until it reaches a moment of climax—"the point where something *has* to give—and does" (Kress 1993, p. 71). As these models would have it, "resolution" is only available on the other side of a crisis (Dibell 1988, p. 126).

In arguing for this "universal grammar," Gottschall is not merely making a case about what exists today as a practiced storytelling habit; he is suggesting that this storytelling structure can be detected "No matter how far we travel back into literary history, and no matter how deep we plunge into the jungles and badlands of world folklore" (Gottschall 2012, p. 55). In Gottschall's estimation, as long as humankind persists, so too will this narrative pattern (Gottschall 2012, p. 186). Especially when set against traditions of the literary avant-garde, any appeal to a storytelling model that is "universal" in both its geospatial and temporal dimensions seems overly simplistic at best. Nevertheless, Gottschall and his fellow fictionists are correct in highlighting, if nothing else, the prevalence of a storytelling method that has not heretofore undergone much scrutiny. While I concede, therefore, that this has become a popular—and potentially reified—formula for constructing stories, I prefer to resist Gottschall's appeals to the "universal." Instead, I conceive of this formula as the "dominant Western plot model," and I suggest, further, that the status of "dominant" need not excuse the model from critique. If anything, it signals a pressing need to investigate the model further—following in the footsteps of feminist narrative theorists and unearthing the links between popular narrative structure and other forms of domination.

It is also worth briefly observing that, despite the fact that these two accounts of storytelling "universals" are categorically distinct—that is, that one account pursues the evolutionary origins of story, while the other examines storytelling practices on a structural level—they need not be at odds with one another. Indeed, one would suspect that if a storytelling model were truly "universal" across the human species, a biocultural explanation would easily extend beyond the origins of story and into the format that stories have tended to assume. The above two accounts seem irreconcilably opposed, however, with regard to the role of *conflict* vis-à-vis storytelling. Whereas adherents to the dominant Western plot model contend that story cannot exist in the absence of conflict, Boyd repeatedly stresses that storytelling has evolved for the purpose of teaching cooperation (Boyd 2009). He even suggests that, although people are often hesitant to apply evolutionary frameworks to human behavior precisely because they imagine evolution to be driven by conflict—"stressing selfishness and competition at the expense of altruism and cooperation"—"sociobiology's central preoccupation has been cooperation" (Boyd 2009, p. 26). In Boyd's terms, then, evolution has been more significantly facilitated by mutualism than by competition, and story is, in fact, a human evolutionary development to promote the former. Equally significant, Boyd also emphasizes the importance of narrative *novelty* to human learning. Because humans cease to respond to patterns that become predictable, there is considerable pressure on all art—including the art of storytelling—to "violate our categoric expectations" (Boyd 2009, p. 115). This would seem to suggest that a storytelling model that has become formulaic cannot fully engage its audiences or, at the least, no longer functions as a mechanism for the cognitive evolution of the human species. To the extent that the dominant plot model has become pervasive, then, it has simultaneously sacrificed its ability to stimulate learning. Thus, even on a biocultural level, it is a formula that deserves to be rethought.

What is more, considering the increasing prevalence of philosophical and ecological arguments that identify the present moment as exceptionally catastrophic and, concurrently, call for new ways of being human, any appeals to an inviolable formula need face heightened scrutiny. At this point, talk of crisis—emerging from discourses as diverse as those of global warming, species extinction, economic inequity, etc.—has infiltrated even the most mainstream of channels, and it is no longer uncommon to hear casual end-of-world forecasting. In fact, the apocalyptic narrative has become so popular—both in fictional media and in scientific discussions—that some, like eco-humanities scholar Frederick Buell, have suggested that crisis can no longer be considered a singular, temporal event; rather, it must be seen as a condition that humankind dwells *within* (Buell 2003). Similarly, as of 2012, a group of environmentalists and economists have coined the term "catastrophism" (Lilley et al. 2012). In the broadest sense, they use "catastrophism" to refer to a generalized belief that "society is headed for collapse, whether economic, ecological, social, or spiritual" (Lilley 2012, p. 1). In a more particular sense, however, they consider "catastrophism" a phenomenon whereby people celebrate catastrophe as a shortcut out of increasingly unlivable planetary conditions. As activist Sasha Lilley explains, "Catastrophists tend to believe that an ever-intensified rhetoric of disasters will awaken the masses from their long slumber" (Lilley 2012, p. 1). According to Lilley, despite its prevalence, the catastrophist mindset makes two crucial errors: In the first place, it presumes that fear is a motivating force, and second, it focuses on highly dramatic, future disasters, thereby rendering less significant the day-to-day ways that Earth is already suffering the impacts of environmental degradation.

As both Buell and Lilley indicate, then, a widespread disconnect exists between the popular catastrophist expectation that crises will force some sort of salvific or reformatory action and the reality that humankind, by all accounts, is already living within crisis conditions. Here it is worth remembering, however, that one of humanity's foremost relationships to crisis is a narrative one. As the dominant plot model would have it, crisis is *the* necessary fulcrum of change; a narrative conflict cannot find its resolution until it has reached its "make-or-break" climax (Dibell 1988). As such, if part of the current ecological project is to reposition humanity with regard to environmental crises, then this must occur not only within the realm of environmentalism but also within that of popular storytelling. Indeed, if Boyd's evolutionary argument is to be believed, stories play an important role in the development of the human species (Boyd 2009), and the way in which we humans tell our stories can directly impact our ability to adapt to shifting environmental conditions. Therefore, the question must become: What changes to the dominant plot model are demanded by the present-day reality of environmental crisis?

Here, it is appropriate to introduce some of the thinkers who, from more philosophical corners of the eco-humanities, have addressed the pervasiveness of crisis as necessitating a shift in how humans approach both art-making and their nonhuman compatriots. At the forefront of such thinking is Timothy Morton, who has recently philosophized on "hyperobjects"—a term Morton uses to describe those phenomena that, although real, are too vast and too nonlocal to be fully perceptible to human beings (Morton 2013). As Morton explains them, exemplar hyperobjects like global warming and nuclear waste—entities with which humans have a reciprocal relationship, both acting upon and being acted upon *by*—challenge any human attempt to narrate from "above." Precisely because hyperobjects are real, but are simultaneously of magnitudes not entirely visible or even comprehensible to the humans who have created them, they render laughable all hope of a "metalanguage that could account for things while remaining uncontaminated by them" (Morton 2013, p. 2). Of course, one hears here the echoes of feminist discourses like that of Donna Haraway, who long ago argued against "the god-trick" and instead advocated the "situatedness" of all perspective (Haraway 1999). Yet, in either case, the implications for narrative are the same. If one is to properly account for the present environmental reality—which is, of course, the reality of the hyperobject—then one must resist the narrative impulse to possess a story in its entirety. That is, in attempting to tell any story about a nonhuman other, one must dispense of the contrivance of the omniscient narrator, who professes both to be unimpacted by the story he is telling and to know the ending of the story before it has even begun.

Particularly relevant to "catastrophism," Morton also contends that hyperobjects have already brought about the "end of the world" (Morton 2013). Morton nods to the environmentalist tendency toward apocalyptic talk, arguing that it has been ineffective for precisely the reason that "to all intents and purposes, the being that we are supposed to feel anxiety about and care for is gone" (Morton 2013, p. 6). As Morton reasons, "climate" existed heretofore as the background to human activity, yet in the era of climate change, it has become *the* focal point of human discourse. Now brought into the foreground, "climate" can no longer be said to constitute a "world" *for* humans. Rather, it must be addressed relationally, as an object in its own right. Indeed, if genuine ecological progress is to be made, the concept of "world" needs to be discarded altogether:

Three cheers for the so-called *end of the world*, then, since this moment is the beginning of history, the end of the human dream that reality is significant for them alone. We now have the prospect of forging new alliances between humans and non-humans alike, now that we have stepped out of the cocoon of *world* (Morton 2013, p. 108).

For Morton, the crucial advantage to embracing "the end of the world" is that it forces a reorientation of the human toward the nonhuman other. In the absence of an all-enveloping environment, no one species or object can be said to occupy the privileged position of "protagonist," and all that remain instead are relationships. Morton views this relational reorientation as an "upgrade" in human ontology and, significantly, calls upon "philosophers and other humanities scholars" to help facilitate such an "upgrading" in their fellow human beings (Morton 2013, p. 101). Accordingly, he advocates an "object-oriented art," arguing that the proper artistic response to the era of the hyperobject is an art that conceives of itself as a collaboration between humanity and nonhumanity. This does not mean that humans are in charge of creating work *about* nonhumanity—as if above their nonhuman compatriots—instead, it means that humans create *with* nonhumanity. Morton wants an art that prizes "coexist[ence] without an agenda" (Morton 2013, p. 189).

Occupying a similar position, philosopher Isabelle Stengers contends that it already "goes without saying" that, due to climate change, the Earth may become uninhabitable for the human species (Stengers 2015, p. 7). Like Morton, she highlights the strangeness of this environmental moment, wherein we humans now regularly hypothesize about a future beyond our own demise. Categorizing these times as "catastrophic," Stengers's stated project is to prevent humanity from defaulting into "barbarism." Toward this end, she makes an appeal to new narrative strategies. Not only does she speak of the importance of "paying attention" to narratives other than the dominant ones (Stengers 2015, p. 77), she also voices a distrust in the habit of confronting others—even those economic actors who are driving the destruction of the planet—in terms that are "intelligible only on the basis of conflict" (Stengers 2015, p. 35). For Stengers, preparedness for the future depends on

moving past conflictual narratives; it means "learning to compose" in a way that "couple[s] together multiple, divergent struggles" (Stengers 2015, p. 50).

In more popular publishing circles, humanities scholar Roy Scranton has also argued that the only way the human species can ensure its own survival is by accepting that this civilization, in its current carbon-driven incarnation, is "already dead" (Scranton 2015, p. 23). For Scranton, releasing those habits of capitalism that are presently driving humanity toward its own demise will be the best way to ensure that we humans can "adapt" to our imminent catastrophic future. Like Stengers and Morton, Scranton sees human adaptability as dependent upon philosophic interventions that can supply humans with "new myths and new stories" (Scranton 2015, p. 19). Indeed, it is a new type of humanity that Scranton desires, and he calls upon storytelling to lead the way toward it.

All three of these thinkers suggest that, in the face of doom, humans must learn to inhabit their humanness in new and more selfless ways. Most significantly, however, all link this "upgraded" humanness to the cultivation of new narratives or new narrative habits. Agreeing that humanity—particularly Western capitalistic humanity—has become habituated to behaviors that are disproportionately self-interested and unnecessarily conflictual, I echo the sentiment that humans need new stories. I also suggest, however, that we need new templates for constructing our stories. As indicated above, the dominant narrative model holds that story cannot exist in the absence of conflict, yet this perspective seems exceptionally ill-suited to contend with environmental crises—existing and forthcoming—that call for human adaptability. Indeed, considering that evolution occurs in response to shifting environments and that it often depends more on cooperation than on competition (Boyd 2009), it seems prudent to embrace Morton's advice and learn to create *with*, rather than *against*, our environments and our nonhuman compatriots (Morton 2013). This means seeking out those stories that promote a cross-species mutualism, even on the structural level—that is, no longer identifying a story as successful merely because it accompanies a single (human) protagonist as he engages in a conflict.

What is more, if the ongoing crises heralded by climate change and species extinction are to be taken seriously, then the narrative role of crisis must also be reconsidered. Storytelling's reliance upon a crisis that is "bad enough" to force conclusion must be seen as incommensurate with the reality that environmental crises are not instantaneous, life-altering events; rather, they have become the protracted and overlapping landscapes with which humanity presently dwells (Buell 2003). Indeed, if the world has already ended, then no crisis—not even those belonging to the increasingly popular apocalyptic genre—can be said to bring about an ending to the human/Earth story. Resisting the impulse toward "metalanguage" (Morton 2013), then, we humans must learn to tell our stories from inside of them. Facing tremendous uncertainty—in the absence of the "world" we've long taken for granted—we would do well to rethink the habit of armoring ourselves for narrative battle and, instead, redirect our stories and our energies toward that which has consistently aided our adaptation: constructive relationships.

Conceived as a response to the popular call for both new narratives and new philosophical orientations toward nonhumanity, then, this article thinks toward more relational and ecosystemic ways of constructing stories. As far as lineage is concerned, it can be linked, most immediately, to Erin James's "econarratology"—an analytical approach to story that unites the interests of both ecology and narratology, "studying the relationship between literature and the physical environment, but do[ing] so with sensitivity to the literary structures and devices that we use to communicate" (James 2015, p. 23). According to James, "econarratology" is a necessary extension of eco-criticism, which has tended to focus too heavily on content, thereby excluding from its analyses the formal dimensions through which stories communicate about their environments (James 2015, p. 4). Directing her own econarratological analyses at postcolonial texts, James suggests that the structure a text enacts is often already a site of resistance. Thus, by developing a narrative theory capable of reading and responding to literary structures that have emerged in direct reaction to Western hegemonies, eco-criticism

can simultaneously encourage new, more equitable models for how humans might relate to their environments (both on and off of the page).

I heartily endorse James's belief that narrative structures are often already modes of resistance. I am also deeply interested in the reciprocal relationship between texts and their environments—in how storytelling forms not only emerge *from* environments but also have the power to "reshape individual and collective environmental imaginations" (James 2015, p. 39). Insofar, however, as my interest ultimately lies more with the "reshaping" effort—that is, with the telling of stories rather than with their interpretations—my own project is perhaps better named as an ecompositional one. Like eco-criticism, ecocomposition is premised upon the belief that environments both impact and are impacted by discourse (Dobrin and Weisser 2002, p. 9), and indeed, ecocomposition theorists suggest that the environmental crisis places a heightened demand on humans to understand how their language systems participate in practices of domination (Dobrin and Weisser 2002, p. 20). Ecocomposition distinguishes itself from eco-criticism, however, in that "Ecocriticism is a literary criticism that looks toward textual interpretation," whereas "ecocomposition works from the same place, but is concerned with textual production" (Dobrin and Weisser 2002, p. 24). Yet even while this is the case, ecocompositionists also acknowledge that it is "nearly impossible" to make a clean separation between interpretation and production, for "studying textual representations of nature is critical to the understanding of how textual production occurs" (Dobrin and Weisser 2002, p. 41). Similarly, even though my goal in this article is to reposition the storyteller with regard to the story—considering how any person crafting a narrative can effectively resist the structuring temptations of the dominant plot model—I arrive at such considerations only after performing econnarratological analyses of nonfiction texts. Throughout these analyses, my guiding interest concerns *how* narrative structure has been conceived and reproduced within Western storytelling practices at large. In other words, I care most about the effect that a continually reinscribed narrative pattern of conflict/climax/resolution has had on people's everyday efforts to make sense of their environments.

Indeed, at the heart of this project is a belief articulated by Peter Brooks, scholar of comparative literature, who has suggested that there is "a correspondence between literary and psychic dynamics, since to an important degree we define and construct our sense of self through our fictions" (Brooks 1984, p. 36). As Brooks makes clear, our stories and our perceptions comprise a feedback loop; the way we experience story necessarily becomes the template by which we understand our own existence.

This perspective, it is worth observing, is concordant with cognitive narratologists' concept of the "storyworld"—a concept that is itself foundational to James's econarratology (James 2015). As James explains the term, a storyworld refers to "the world-creating power of narratives that catalyzes an imaginative relocation of readers to a new, often unfamiliar world and experience" (James 2015, p. 11). Storyworlds are of particular interest to James, then, because they are environmental in nature; they not only ask readers to inhabit the storyworld of a text, but they necessarily serve as a point of comparison between the textual world and the everyday one that the reader inhabits. Within the difference between these two worlds emerges the narrative's power to reshape readers' thinking. As David Herman observes, "narrative affords methods—indeed, serves as a primary resource—for world-modeling and world-creation" (Herman 2012, p. 15). There is an explicit link, then, between how stories communicate their environments to their readers and how readers learn to communicate their environments to themselves. Narrative practices are educational.

It is in this spirit that I here propose "the eco-narrative"—a more ecologically responsible framework through which storytellers can enter into their storytelling practices. My foremost purpose in suggesting the eco-narrative is to provide storytellers with an alternative to the dominant plot model—that is, a way of enacting formal narrative choices that will constitute a resistance, in and of themselves, to storyworlds premised upon conflict. It is my contention that, whether or not we tell stories explicitly about our Earthly environments, we can consider it a significant environmental intervention to rethink *how* we are telling any story. Just by resisting the initial premise that a story must always emerge from a conflict, we can simultaneously teach new, mutualistic models for approaching nonhumanity.

In invoking the eco-narrative, I am aware that the term has already been employed to name a category of narrative associated with "environmental storytelling" (Heise 2005). Indeed, within her entry on "eco-narratives" in the *Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory*, Ursula K. Heise identifies the wide number of ways that stories about environments have already manifested. She includes in her entry, for instance, genres commonly associated with environmental narrative (e.g., "nature writing"), as well as those narrative "experiments" (e.g., the use of an animal narrator) meant to "relativiz[e] modern, human-centered viewpoints" (Heise 2005, p. 130). In attaching the term "eco-narrative" to my own project, I certainly do not mean to represent all of these manifestations. More accurately, I am proposing a specific, formal avenue through which stories can earn their entry into the broader category that Heise has outlined. Above all, I intend my use of the term "eco-narrative" to signal a kinship with James's econarratological efforts, which share my interest in the communicative properties of a story's structure. That said, I am invested in the experimental narrative strategies through which Heise recognizes some eco-narratives, and I take inspiration (in particular) from work that has explored animal narrators and their particular capacities to "destabilize anthropocentric ideologies" (Bernaerts et al. 2014, p. 74). What is more, my own endeavor is explicitly motivated by the storytelling "challenge" with which Heise ends her entry—that of "developing modes of narration that convey a sense of ecosystems not only in their local and regional manifestations, but also in their global reach" (Heise 2005, p. 130). The eco-narrative I advocate here is precisely an attempt to "convey a sense of ecosystem" via narration.

In its broadest incarnation, this eco-narrative project would outline all of the (potentially infinite) avenues though which a storyteller might use form to convey ecosystem. To reiterate, however: My specific purpose within this article is to rethink the function of "conflict" as it has been presented within the dominant plot model. Because I share Morton's belief that the art most likely to guide humanity through and beyond "the end of the world" is one that prizes relationships—attempting to compose *with*, not *for*, the nonhuman other (Morton 2013)—I focus herein only on stories that concern nonhumanity. In particular, I consider examples of how animals appear within human narratives. Even though Morton's object-oriented art sees an elephant and a plastic bag as equally viable compositional partners, I prefer to limit myself to addressing the nonhuman animal, not only because the leap to another sentient being may be easier for the anthropocentrically entrenched, but also because animals figure prominently in the tales told by young children when they are first learning to construct their worlds through story. As such, even though this article responds to narrative in its widest manifestations—from children's fantasy stories to the more disguised narratives of science—it seeks to exert influence on only the smallest and most private of levels: the way in which we humans position ourselves with regard to the stories we tell.

To this end, the article invokes three shifts. The first aims to expose the structural limitations of the dominant plot model, particularly when it is applied to nonfiction accounts of the animal other. In this section, I analyze the Pew Commission's 2008 report on Industrial Farm Animal Production (Carlin et al. 2008), pointing to evidence of how a conflictual and anthropocentric framework imposes itself, even within the realm of scientific reportage. Against the dominant narrative reinforced by the Pew report, then, the second shift proposes new directives by which the storyteller can craft narratives that are less driven by conflict. Returning to that which evolutionary theorists and developmental psychologists have commonly identified as the basis for story, I root these directives in play theory—that is, I identify those values of play that might easily transpose themselves into storytelling practices. In this way, play becomes the guiding principle of the eco-narrative that I propose within the third and final shift. Here, I not only discuss the precepts of the eco-narrative in theoretical terms, I also analyze an example of an eco-narrative in practice. Using Annette Watson and Orville H. Huntington's "They're *here*—I can *feel* them: the epistemic spaces of Indigenous and Western Knowledges" as a model text (Huntington and Watson 2008), I explore a narrative that more

successfully includes the animal other—exhibiting values of play both within its narrative practices and within its depiction of human/animal interactions.

#### **2. The Animal as Antagonist: Conflictual Storytelling in Practice**

In 2006, the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production—consisting of fifteen experts in diverse fields connected with the U.S. agricultural industry—convened to investigate the practice of Industrial Farm Animal Production (IFAP) and its implications for human and animal welfare (Carlin et al. 2008). Two years later, the Commission published its findings in a report, *Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in America*. The report is ultimately critical of IFAP, noting that it "presents an unacceptable level of risk to public health and damage to the environment, as well as unnecessary harm to the animals we raise for food" (Carlin et al. 2008, p. 8), and it concludes by proposing recommendations to enhance IFAP's sustainability. Importantly, these recommendations are not only aimed at improving the health of the humans who regularly consume animal protein, but they also suggest some ethical standards whereby animals raised for consumption can enjoy more humane living conditions. However, even in their attempts to critique Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs)—and to act justly on behalf of the pigs, cows, and chickens who inhabit them—the authors of the Pew Report enlist (either intentionally or unintentionally) the conflictual patterning of the dominant plot model. In the preface to the report, the Executive Director of the Commission, Robert P. Martin, even states, "The story that follows is the Commission's overview" (Carlin et al. 2008, p. 9). Referring to the report itself as a "story," he alludes to its narrative underpinnings, perhaps suggesting that the report represents the Commission's attempt to "emplot" various pieces of data into a recognizable narrative format (White 2002). Moreover, although Martin does not specify *how* that data has been arranged—that is, what kind of tale is being told—it is clear, even from the title, that it will necessarily be a story about animals, as told by humans.

The most revealing aspect of the Pew Report's "story" is, in fact, the history it gives for IFAP. As told by the report, the origins of the CAFO belong to the timely confluence of the Green Revolution with the development of the mechanized slaughterhouse in the United States. Emerging out of a post-World War II period of affluence, the Green Revolution was a "worldwide transformation of agriculture that led to significant increases in agricultural production from 1940 through the 1960s" (Carlin et al. 2008, p. 3). This "revolution" brought the first uses of pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and genetic selection within agriculture, and it was evaluated as successful insofar as it resulted in crop yields that met and "even outpac[ed] the demands of the rapidly growing world population" (Carlin et al. 2008, p. 3). Such agricultural productivity made corn and grains abundant enough to become staples in the diets of both humans and animals, and it therefore became profitable to use surpluses toward large-scale animal agriculture. In the report's own language:

...the ready availability of inexpensive grain and the rapid growth of an efficient transportation system made the United States the birthplace for intensive animal agriculture. Paralleling the crop yield increases of the Green Revolution, new technologies in farm animal management emerged that made it feasible to raise livestock in higher concentrations than were possible before. As with corn and cereal grains, modern industrial food animal production systems resulted in significant gains in production efficiency (Carlin et al. 2008, p. 5).

As is evident above, from the very outset, the history of IFAP is one explained in terms of "efficiency." The report cites increased production capabilities as important to providing food for a growing human population, and indeed, the benefits of "efficiency" continue to be celebrated, even as the report moves into the present-day. For example, the report notes that the "widespread adoption of IFAP facilities [has] led to widely affordable meat, poultry, dairy, and eggs" (Carlin et al. 2008, p. 7). This has had the effect that "animal-derived food products are now inexpensive relative to disposable

income" (Carlin et al. 2008, p. 7). The report even adds that, at present, U.S. citizens consume more animal products per person than the citizens of any other country (Carlin et al. 2008, p. 7).

Summarizing the total trajectory of animal agriculture—from early animal husbandry to the present-day practices of IFAP—the report eventually explains:

Industrial farm animal production (IFAP) stands in stark contrast to previous animal farming methods because of its emphasis on production efficiency and cost minimization. For most of the past 10,000 years, agricultural practice and animal husbandry were more or less sustainable, as measured by the balance between agricultural inputs and outputs and ecosystem health, given the human population and rate of consumption. IFAP systems, on the other hand, have shifted to a focus on growing animals as units of protein production (Carlin et al. 2008, p. 23).

Importantly, the report goes on to suggest that this shift of focus—from "balance[d] agricultural inputs and outputs" to "animals as units of protein production"—is precisely what has driven IFAP to unsustainability. As CAFOs have turned their attention toward increased production—that is, toward raising more and more animals in less time and less space—they have had to resort to practices like feeding antibiotics to animals and disposing of animal waste in amounts exceeding what the land is able to absorb. These practices, as the report notes, are unquestionably detrimental to the environment and to the health of both humans and animals, alike.

To be sure, then, the Commission sees IFAP as presenting a grave problem, yet by the time it arrives at its critique, the narrative damage has already been done. Because the history of IFAP has been presented as one of efficiency, its trajectory toward these unsustainable and unhealthful practices emerges as inevitable. Repeatedly emphasizing the benefits of cheap meat—that is, stressing the economic advantages for the U.S. consumer (while remaining silent about the fiscal incentives of the producers)—the report positions even the most distasteful of IFAP practices as the consequence of efficiency measures. As such, the practices can be conceived of in relatively innocent terms—as necessary to continuing to supply affordable animal products to a population that also continues to grow. In this way, the report thinks from an overtly human position, evaluating IFAP with regard to how it either benefits or harms U.S. consumers.

Considering that the report has an entire section dedicated to "Animal Welfare"—wherein it endorses the "five freedoms" adopted by the Farm Animal Welfare Council (Carlin et al. 2008, p. 35)—the authors of the Pew Report would probably contend that they have done a more than adequate job of representing animals. While their stated consideration of animal welfare is important, however, it is simultaneously undermined by the narrative practices of the report. Precisely because the efficiency narrative has situated the economic advantages to human consumers at the direct expense of animals' ethical living conditions, the history of IFAP is a story with only two main characters: the humans who rely on affordable animal protein and the animals who become that protein. Even the companies that have "vertically integrated" toward increased efficiency—arguably, the main actors in the real-world events of the story—are allowed to assume a certain narrative anonymity. As the report would have it, these companies did not create and implement practices founded on questionable ethics; rather "new technologies ... *emerged*" that made meat affordable for consumers. In this way, the report places the focus of the history not on corporations that deserve scrutiny, nor on animals who deserve advocacy, but on humans who had (and continue to have) a basic need for affordable meat. The report asks, in other words, that readers empathize with U.S. consumers, placing their goals above all others'.

Toward this end, Boyd observes that narrative has been evolutionarily useful in cultivating empathy, precisely because it has taught listeners to "recognize others' goals and desires" (Boyd 2009, p. 138). Complicating this perspective, Suzanne Keen, in her book *Empathy and the Novel*, casts doubt upon the assumption that stories always generate empathy, suggesting that even when they do, there is no guarantee that such empathy will translate into "altruistic" behavior (Keen 2007). Keen also suggests, however, that the ability of story to engender empathy may not always be a virtue, as empathy can be

felt toward undeserving parties. By asking readers to view the development of IFAP through the lens of the consumer—identifying with what might rightly be described as a false (privileged, Western) "need" to eat high quantities of meat—the Pew report attempts to offer the U.S. consumer the empathic privileges of a protagonist. Observing Keen's warning, however, readers of the Pew Report should be suspicious of whether or not their empathy is being justly directed.

Of course, as U.S. consumers step into their role of the protagonist in the Pew report, the animal inhabitants of the CAFO necessarily become the antagonist. This does not happen, however, through an explicit denouncement of the animals—for whom the report finally hopes to advocate—but through far subtler literary practices. Because the history has been presented in a predictably narrative way—with the wellbeing of farm animals placed directly at odds with the needs of a growing human population—a conflict is established at the very origin of IFAP's history. It cannot be seen as harmless that the report celebrates the advantages of consumer access to "widely affordable meat," as even this celebration pushes the humans and animals into prefigured, oppositional roles of protagonist-consumer and antagonist-consumed. What is more, because of the inverse nature of the conflict—with increased efficiency directly resulting in a decreased quality of animal life—it is a conflict positioned, like all conflicts within the dominant plot model, to escalate until it constitutes a crisis. The very fact that the Pew report finally labels contemporary IFAP practices as unsustainable, then, should come as no surprise; its history was written to build to this point. The ultimate danger, however, is that because the history pits human welfare against animal welfare—and because it encourages identification with a human protagonist—the story cannot ever escape its anthropocentric bias. Despite its best intentions, it will always be an account that views animals through a human lens—pitying them, perhaps, but nevertheless denying them of any narrative autonomy.

With this in mind, it is useful to introduce eco-feminist Val Plumwood's understanding of dualism, which she describes as "the construction of a devalued and sharply demarcated sphere of otherness" (Plumwood 1993, p. 41). Differentiating dualisms from distinctions or dichotomies, Plumwood points to the reliance of dualism on hierarchical systemizations, whereby dominant perspectives naturalize the radical exclusion of any others (Plumwood 1993, p. 47). The field of ecocomposition, it is worth noting, has explicitly built off of Plumwood's work, addressing the "discursive maneuvers that create dualistic splits" (Dobrin and Weisser 2002, p. 10). As the ecocompositionists make clear, "demarcated sphere[s] of otherness" are frequently inscribed and reproduced via rhetorical practices. In its explicit prioritization of human interests over animal interests, then, the history of IFAP would seem a textbook example of a discursive dualism at work. Within this history, animals are not considered as sentient beings capable of agency; rather, they are viewed only in terms of what they can provide for their human counterparts. Plumwood labels this tendency of the dominant to regard the other in terms of its usefulness as "instrumentalism." She explains, "The dualising master self does not empathically recognise others as moral kin, and does not recognise them as a centre of desires or needs on their account" (Plumwood 1993, p. 53). Within the story of IFAP, animals are not the main characters—and, indeed, never can be—precisely because they are not granted any storytelling agency.

Incidentally, this emphasis on the dominant failure to regard the other as "moral kin" recalls an argument by utilitarian scholar Gaverick Matheny, who suggests that any truly ethical perspective must give equal weight to the interests of everyone involved in a story, including (in this case) industrial farm animals (Matheny 2006, p. 13). According to Plumwood, however, instrumentalism reflects an inability of the dominant to even conceive of the other as having separate interests (Plumwood 1993). Instead, the other is a tool by which the dominant realizes personal desires. In this sense, IFAP, as a practice, is not susceptible to the utilitarian arguments popular with animal rights' advocates, precisely because it does not conceptualize of animals as anything other than objects for human use. For this reason, the attempt of the Pew report to inject an ethical standard into IFAP by way of the "five freedoms" is incommensurate with the dualising narrative practices whereby the report has already constructed animals as instruments of humanity.

Evidence of this failure to view animals as "centres of desire" is perhaps most apparent in the Pew report's treatment of farm animals as symbols. Defined in literary usage as "a specially evocative kind of image; that is, a word or phrase referring to a concrete object, scene, or action which also has some further significance associated with it" (Baldick 2004, pp. 251–52), the symbol is the literary counterpart to the "object." To make something symbolic is to involve it in a narrative apart from its own—to suggest that its relevance is contextual to its interpreter. In his *Theory of Religion*, Georges Bataille writes, "to kill the animal and alter it as one pleases is not merely to change that which doubtless was not a thing from the start; it is to define the animal as a thing beforehand" (Bataille 2011, p. 168). Indeed, as noted above, IFAP seems reliant on a conception of the animal as a thing (specifically a tool) for human use. As an extension of Bataille's idea, however, narrative theorists have also observed that "a lot of non-human narratives point to the fact that people may conceive the other (person, animal) as an object in order to cope with reality" (Bernaerts et al. 2014, p. 70). Taken from this perspective, the narrative thing-making of animals, within any story, might reflect a psychological tactic whereby meat-eaters distance themselves from the "reality" of their actions. The Pew report seemingly capitalizes off of this psychological distancing, asking its audience to regard animals not as living and breathing creatures, but as the *means* by which man is able to provide for himself—that is, as food.

More to the point: The way that the CAFO turns the animal into a symbol is, of course, a rhetorical practice; it happens by way of language. In the above excerpts, the Pew report notably refers to animals as "units of protein," and indeed, the entire practice, insofar as it is labeled "Industrial Farm Animal *Production*," erroneously suggests that humans are responsible for the manufacture of animal life. This deliberate renaming not only encourages a denial of animal sentience but also positively revalues the killing of an animal as a creative act that generates "product." Insofar as it "define(s) the animal as a thing"—as a "unit"—before that animal even exists, IFAP does not entertain the possibility of the animals it exploits ever existing independently of one another or in non-symbolic incarnation. CAFO animals never cease to be viewed as the profit-generating objects that they will finally become.

All of this results in a story wherein the antagonists—that is, the animals whose welfare, were it to be improved, would necessarily be at the expense of human consumers—are robbed of their literal as well as their narrative agency; they are not treated as living beings, and as such, they do not merit the reader's identification. Converted into economic terminology from the outset, the animals lose even their status as animals. It is significant, therefore, that the Pew report is explicit in its goals of granting CAFO animals those "freedoms" that will ensure their welfare, for such goals are contradicted by the very rhetorical practices that the report enacts. By invoking the precepts of the dominant plot model—appealing to a history that is defined by an exclusively human struggle for sufficient and affordable food—the report asks readers to see their needs as being in conflict with those of the animals they eat. Further, by portraying the human protagonist against a backdrop of scarcity—that is, an environment that cannot meet the demands of a growing population *without* the interventions of IFAP—the report reinforces an idea that is often relied upon, according to Stengers, by those who wish to maintain control of a narrative: The idea that the status quo, unsavory as it may be, cannot risk intervention (Stengers 2015, p. 77). In this way, the dominant plot model reveals itself as an effective tool for an already dominant narrator—that is, for a narrator who has an interest in conditions remaining as they are. For the storyteller who seeks to use story as a tool for change, however, there are other narrative frameworks to be discovered.

Before moving into an exploration of such frameworks, however, I'd like to pause and briefly note: In offering the above critique, my goal is not to indict the Pew Commission as intentionally protecting an unacceptable status quo. On the contrary, the Pew report has done important work in exposing the harmful practices of IFAP. My critique *is* meant to suggest, however, that the narrative strategies invoked by the Pew report directly contradict its efforts at reform. The report therefore invites the question: What sort of narrative interventions would successfully reroute the history of IFAP away from its sole identification with human actors and toward a more equitable accounting for the animal

other? Or more broadly speaking: How can authors who seek the fair treatment of animals enact this treatment, even within the stories they tell?

#### **3. Rethinking Narrative by Returning to Play**

In seeking new ways to approach storytelling, it is worthwhile to look toward that which precedes the development of story in humans: play. Not only has Boyd identified "cognitive play with pattern" as the impulse from which story emerges within the human species (Boyd 2009, p. 130), but education researcher Vivian Gussin Paley spent her career advocating for the importance of fantasy play in the psychosocial development of young children (Paley 2004). A lifelong teacher of preschool and kindergarten, Paley constructed her theories about child development by transcribing and analyzing conversations that her own students had as they played with one another. Within her book *A Child's Work: The Importance of Fantasy Play*, Paley identifies play as important to the cultivation of social skills like inclusivity and "niceness," and she also suggests that play empowers children to test out ideas in open-minded ways.

In constructing his case for the "universal story grammar," Gottschall also engages with Paley's work, arguing that it demonstrates how, even in the youngest of children, play is observably always about confronting "trouble" (i.e., conflict) (Gottschall 2012). This is a large part of Gottschall's argument that conflict is universally foundational to story, and as an example of this, Gottschall records and analyzes a story told by a five-year old: "'This is a story about a jungle. Once upon a time there was a jungle. There were lots of animals, but they weren't very nice. A little girl came into the story. She was scared. Then a crocodile came in. The end.'" (Gottschall 2012, p. 33). In his analysis of this story, Gottschall remarks that "trouble" is observable insofar as "a girl is menaced by a crocodile" (Gottschall 2012, p. 34). If one attends closely to the child's story, however, it is apparent that the little girl feels scared *before* the crocodile enters. In fact, there is no indication from the child storyteller as to how the crocodile behaves or whether it represents a sinister or benevolent presence. The decision to read the crocodile as "menacing," then, is the interpretive imposition of Gottschall's mind—a mind intent on reading the story through a framework of conflict. What is more, to the extent that children's stories *do* demonstrably engage with "trouble" or with real-world threats, the trouble rarely functions in a traditionally narrative way (Paley 2004); it does not escalate into a moment of crisis. Rather, trouble drifts in and out of the children's narratives—sometimes prompting a story to move in a new direction but rarely, if ever, creating the conditions for conclusion.

Corroborating this observation, sociolinguists Jenny Cook-Gumperz and Amy Kyratzis note that, although young children's stories often "report routine events," these narratives "lack a high point, either omitting an instigating problem event or omitting how the story is resolved" (Cook-Gumperz and Kyratzis 2005, p. 60). By addressing children's failures to include "instigating problem[s]" and "high point[s]" in their narratives, Cook-Gumperz and Kyratzis specifically indicate that children's stories lack conflictual premises and climactic apexes. What is more, they argue that even though these plot elements may eventually influence the narratives of older children, "the idealised story structure [i.e., the dominant plot model] is itself subject to cultural variation" (Cook-Gumperz and Kyratzis 2005, p. 60). Differentiating the "single experience" stories told by European–American children from the more collaborative storytelling practices of children in Japan, Cook-Gumperz and Kyratzis demonstrate that narrative formats are contextually bound. In direct contradiction to Gottschall, then, they highlight the idea that no sole story "grammar" innately emerges from human beings.

Moving away from Gottschall's emphasis on "trouble," Paley prefers to celebrate children's fantasy play for being both collaborative and open-ended (Paley 2004). Beyond aspiring to control a story in its entirety, children seem more concerned with ensuring that everyone has a chance to participate, and when this means that their stories must change course or that roles must be swapped, children are usually all too happy to accommodate. Rather than being locked into a conflictual storytelling model, then, these young storytellers are flexible both in their methods of creating—with

multiple storytellers simultaneously "writing" a single story—as well as in their content. As an example of this flexibility, Paley tells of one student, Erik, who does not want to play the "bad guy" role initially assigned to him by his peers, so instead, the children invent for him the character of "a dad hunter who is bitten by a wolf and becomes wolf-like in strength" (Paley 2004, p. 23). This brief anecdote is significant, not only because the children prove that their story can be altered in the name of greater inclusion, but also because the story enacts a shift away from "bad guys" and "good guys"—that is, away from dualised conflict. A similar shift is echoed by Anthony, who—even as the sole author of his story—resists resorting to conflict as a narrative device: "'This is Dracula and there is a dinosaur and they don't bite each other because they're friends'" (Paley 2004, p. 68). As Anthony demonstrates, a fictional story *can* exist in the absence of disharmony. Especially considering, then, that children's fantasy stories appear before children have been introduced to formulized plot models, they serve as early evidence that a story need not be based on conflict in order to maintain its designation as narrative.

If conflict, or "trouble," is not what draws children toward storytelling, what *does* seem to compel them is the possibility of limitless play. Part of the flexibility that children demonstrate is directly in service of being able to continue playing—that is, children will shift any aspects of their narratives precisely so that the narratives need not end. Paley explains that, "for children in their own stories, closure is not the goal" (Paley 2004, p. 80); rather, they want to be engaged in a process of ongoing discovery. To guide stories toward an ending would be to foreclose that discovery. Indeed, as Paley argues, children enjoy fantasy play because it allows them "to escape the limitations of established rituals" (Paley 2004, p. 92); they can rework those restrictive real-world patterns that have been presented to them as given. Their storyworlds, in other words, become the very avenues through which they feel themselves exhibiting agency.

Finally, although this aspect is less discussed by Paley, it is also arguable that fantasy play encourages children to empathize with nonhuman others. As has already been noted, Keen casts doubt upon the premise that narratives, in and of themselves, teach empathy (Keen 2007). James responds to Keen's suspicions, however, by appealing to the concept of the storyworld. Because anyone engaging with a storyworld must "model and imaginatively transport themselves" into an alternative landscape, narrative "makes possible the greater understanding of environmental representations...that empathic connections and behaviors rely upon" (James 2015, p. 213). Echoing this position—and expanding it into a more specific discussion of narratives that foreground animal consciousness—Herman contends that "narrative affords a bridge between the human and the nonhuman; stories provide this link not merely by allegorizing human concerns via nonhuman animals...but also by figuring the lived phenomenal worlds" of their animal characters (Herman 2011, p. 159). For both Keen and Herman alike, then, the real power of story does not necessarily exist in its capacity to generate empathy. Rather, what is more important is that stories require their audiences to engage with "phenomenal worlds" that differ from their own. As such, they encourage audiences to think from new—and sometimes nonhuman—perspectives.

With this in mind, it is especially significant that children frequently enact their stories as they are narrating them, for such an enactment requires an embodied engagement with a storyworld. Thus, children not only talk *about* rabbits and trees, they experience *becoming* those rabbits and trees. In this way, they use story to see and feel from the perspective of nonhumanity. Keta, for instance, describes a river who is crying because "'It was so sad from having too much water so it couldn't get anyone to play there and it got lonely'" (Paley 2004, p. 82). Here, Keta demonstrates her capacity to think as a river: When the river floods, it is no longer safe for people to play within it, which causes the river to feel lonely. Fantasy play has thus enabled Keta to investigate the implications of a real-world phenomenon, but she is not merely considering how she, as a human, might experience a flood; rather, she considers what it means to a river itself to flood.

Even in the brief transcripts supplied by Paley's book, then, many of the storytelling approaches advocated by Morton and other eco-humanities theorists have been enacted. When children tell stories, they do not exist outside of or above their narratives. Because they do not know how a story will end—and, indeed, because they typically do not desire an ending—there is nothing that they are building toward. Indeed, Peter Brooks says of endings that they supply "the order and significance of plot" (Brooks 1984, p. 94). It is the ending, in other words, that allows a storyteller to retroactively shape various events into the dominant plot model. In order to craft a successful narrative "arc"—one that mounts in tension as it climbs toward a climax—the narrator must have already identified the moment when things were at their very worst. To tell a story without knowing the ending, however, is to necessarily redirect one's attention toward the relational exchange of the story's characters. When children engage in the collaborative storytelling of playacting, they must rely purely on the causal experience of *what happens* in a moment-to-moment way. The story cannot know where it is going.

Equally important, children's storytelling practices are based on cooperation rather than competition. They are able to evolve—to continue without ending—precisely because they shift in accordance with the needs of all involved. Truly, the ethos of children's fantasy play—in all of its imaginary embodiments of flora and fauna—is one of *with*, not *for*. Children do not seek to pre-determine what will happen to a "nonswimming aardvark" lost on the other side of a poison river; they seek to become the aardvark and find out for themselves (Paley 2004, p. 74). This is why Paley recommends using story as a tool for classroom management. Children's storytelling practices are so adaptable that, rather than simply telling children to stop playing when, for instance, their play becomes too noisy, a teacher might just as easily introduce a constraint into the fantasy scenario an imaginary reason why the characters themselves need to be quieter. The children will respond to the constraint by directing their narrative in a new way.

For reasons demonstrated by preschoolers, then, theories of play are the perfect basis from which to rethink the dominant plot model. To be sure, narrative and play already have a rich history of interacting via literary experiments with form: "We think of the spirit of play," suggests Marie-Laure Ryan, "as typical of postmodern narratives" (Ryan 2005, p. 355). And indeed, the entire field of "unnatural" narratology is devoted to texts that "*play* with, ignore, or transgress" mimetic conventions (Richardson 2012, p. 22). Not only is play intimately linked to story, however, but it has also long been endorsed by various ecological movements. One of the tenets of the Deep Ecology movement, for example, advocates "return[ing] play to its place as the nursery of individual fulfillment and cultural achievement" (Devall 2008, p. 158). Environmental educators have also recognized the developmental importance of humans' playful relationships with nonhumanity—their "loving and joyful immersion[s] in the local web of life" (Vickers 2003). Perhaps most importantly, play has been identified as representing a non-hierarchical, interactional sphere that humans and nonhumans already share: Not only do animals and humans instinctually know how to play, they also often know how to play with one another (Huizinga 1949). At its root, then, play comes before any divisions of nature and culture. As such, it inherently works toward one of the stated goals of the environmental humanities: to "unsettle" exclusively human narratives (Rose et al. 2012, p. 3).

One of the first important figures to write about play was Johan Huizinga, whose *Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture* makes two crucial arguments about play: (a) that play can only happen in full freedom (Huizinga 1949, p. 8); and (b) that play is done only for play's sake, which makes it both non-materialistic and meaningful (Huizinga 1949, p. 6). Thus, because animals and humans are capable of playing with one another, they already have systems in place for exchanging meaning. What is more, since play cannot possibly exist if it is forced to any degree, it is synonymous with choice. Accordingly, a playful interaction is inherently meaningful insofar as it involves at least two parties—human or nonhuman—*choosing* to be with one another.

Since the appearance of Huizinga's foundational text, many theorists have built upon his ideas, revising and expanding them in new directions. Roger Caillois, for instance, corrects Huizinga by suggesting that some play, like gambling, *is* expressly materialistic (Caillois 2001, p. 5). Insofar as this project is concerned, however, Caillois's theories are most relevant in that he sees games as divisible

into those that are "ruled" and those that are "make-believe" (Caillois 2001, p. 9). Identifying the latter category as being based upon mimicry—the same category into which Paley's children's fantasy play fits—Caillois makes note of insects, birds, and even crabs, who all exhibit an impulse toward imitation. Interestingly, he defines mimicry as "incessant invention" (Caillois 2001, p. 23), pointing out that, in the case of humans, it is mimicry that leads to the role-playing innovations of story. What is more, Caillois suggests that narrative is, in fact, premised upon the idea of fictional worlds, and as such, it cannot emerge from rule-bound games that result in winners and losers. Although this perspective has been disproved since the development of "quest-type" video games (Ryan 2005), Caillois's early connection between narrativity and fictional worlds seems an interesting predecessor to the concept of the storyworld.

More recently, Miguel Sicart has advocated treating play as a "portable tool for being" (Sicart 2014, p. 2)—a way of interpreting and engaging the complex of relationships that constitute one's world. Sicart identifies his theory as a "playful call to arms...against efficiency, seriousness, and technical determinism" (Sicart 2014, p. 5). He sees play as a force of resistance to values, like efficiency, that often go unquestioned but—as evidenced by the Pew report (Carlin et al. 2008)—can become justifications for barbarism (to invoke Stengers's term) (Stengers 2015). For Sicart, play's capacity for resistance is expressly linked to its "appropriative" quality—its ability to overtake "events, structures, and institutions to mock them and trivialize them" (Sicart 2014, p. 3). This appropriation has value insofar as it "reambiguates" the world—defying set codes and allowing players to return to a state of wonder (Sicart 2014, p. 3). Much like Paley identifies fantasy play as helping children to exercise control over rules presented to them as inviolable (Paley 2004), then, Sicart sees play as encouraging an agency that simultaneously invites a new way of seeing; what was taken as serious and unchanging, once interpreted in a playful context, becomes infinitely more open to influence.

Echoing the capacity of play to reinvigorate wonder—and in a decided turn away from dualism—poet Diane Ackerman contends that "In all forms of deep play, one becomes fascinated by an 'other,' in whose presence one feels exaltation" (Ackerman 1999, p. 87). Broadening the description of the "other" in an object-oriented way, Ackerman adds that the "other" might very well be "a war, a mountain, or a bicycle" (Ackerman 1999, p. 87). Regardless of who or what the "other" is, however, playful interactions stem from a place of respectful curiosity. A player who "exalts" in the presence of another cannot also instrumentalize or devalue that other. Hypothetically, then, play can become a "tool for being," as Sicart has advocated, whenever one approaches one's relationships from a place of reverence.

All of these theories find a certain synthesis—as well as a relevance to narrative—within James P. Carse's *Finite and Infinite Games* (Carse 1986). Similar to Caillois's distinction between ruled and make-believe games, Carse suggests that there are only two types of games in existence: finite games, which are played to be won, and infinite games, which are played for the purpose of keeping play going. Because a finite game is building towards an ending in which one party wins, the game is bound by spatial and temporal rules that cannot change. Because infinite games, by contrast, strive to keep play going, they must overcome any spatial or temporal limits that threaten an end to play. In this way, "Finite players play within boundaries; infinite players play with boundaries" (Carse 1986, p. 12). The finite game, then, is like the dominant narrative structure, which derives its meaning through conclusion—through an announcement, as it were, of a victor. An infinite game, on the other hand, is much more representative of evolution, which confronts boundaries through adaptation, striving always for continued life (Boyd 2009).

Elaborating upon the infinite game, Carse suggests that "the only purpose of the game...is to keep everyone in play" (Carse 1986, p. 9). Whereas a finite player seeks to remove other players from a game, an infinite player sets up the conditions most likely to facilitate another's flourishing, such that play has the best chance of continuing. This is, of course, a vision that thinks toward cooperation rather than conflict—privileging ecosystemic interests over personal ones, even when stakes are at their highest:

Infinite players die. Since the boundaries of death are always part of the play, the infinite player does not die at the end of play, but in the course of play...It does not mean that the game comes to an end with death; on the contrary; infinite players offer their death as a way of continuing play. For that reason they do not play for their own life; they live for their own play. But since that play is always with others, it is evident that infinite players both live and die for the continuing life of others (Carse 1986, p. 31).

Playful even in his descriptions of dying to keep infinite play going, Carse points to the very serious spirit with which infinite play is undertaken. Dedicated to keeping the game going at all costs, the infinite player recognizes that even one's personal death can be offered in service of others' access to continued play.

Through Carse's framework of the infinite game, Morton's proposals for art after "the end of the world" appear instantly more concrete. Morton repeatedly stresses that in the absence of a world, all that persists is "intimacy"—"a number of unique beings...to whom I owe an obligation through the simple fact that existence is coexistence" (Morton 2013, p. 125). Emphasizing that the experience of being alive is defined only through relationships, Morton argues that we are each "obligated" to treat the other well—to use our "turns" as infinite players to ensure that other beings stay in play. Morton even explicitly speaks about "care," suggesting that the particular challenge for humans at this moment in time is to learn to care for "fatal" objects like nuclear waste, which will surely outlast our descendants and will perhaps also outlast humankind as a totality (Morton 2013, p. 124). To exercise care even for the fatal—until and beyond a personal death—is precisely what Carse is referencing when he speaks of infinite players dying for the continued life of others. Indeed, the incredible suggestion that Carse is making is that one must conceive even of one's own life in the absence of a telos, with the only directive guiding one's behaviors being the desire that others—human and nonhuman, alike—are set up to thrive (Carse 1986). Morton wants an "ethics of the other" (Morton 2013, p. 121), and Carse supplies it.

If the infinite game has anything especially important to teach, then, it is an openness toward the future and a fearlessness toward limitations. Carse makes it clear that "we do not play *against reality*; we play *according to reality"* (Carse 1986, p. 38). The given conditions of the planet, in other words, are the very boundaries that may threaten to end play and that must, consequently, be played *with*. In this sense, even though environmental crisis legitimately imperils the human's ability to stay in a playful relationship with the nonhuman world, there is a way of playfully engaging even the notion of crisis. To play with crisis, we humans must learn to compose with it—as it exists both in our external environments and in our stories. If we can abandon the finite idea that crisis always brings conclusion, then we can embrace crisis's invitation to become infinite and adaptive players. Part of becoming infinite players, of course, will mean disengaging from conflictual frameworks and appealing, instead, to a vision that prizes the wellbeing of the whole over the seductions of personal success. Indeed, within the infinite game, there is no narrative space for competition; there are only boundaries, which—failing to supply a lasting ending to the story—demand adaptation instead.

To be sure, this is a dramatic vision of play, but Carse even indicates that whereas finite play is akin to theatre—with its script composed according to set rules—infinite play is inherently "dramatic" (Carse 1986, pp. 20–21). Precisely because it operates in the absence of outcome, its trajectory is significant not in its totality, but in the moment-to-moment direction it takes. Finite players win games by surprising their opponents, but infinite players learn to expect the unexpected—that is, they prepare themselves to meet surprise with personal, often dramatic, transformation (Carse 1986, p. 23). It is here, in this discussion of surprise that is met by transformation, that Carse follows in the footsteps of Paley—observing those qualities of (infinite) play that enable an open-ended narrative. Indeed, for the child whose foremost desire is to continue playing, surprise—or "trouble"—is unable to deliver a blow strong or lasting enough to end a story; surprise simply interjects an unexpected parameter, which then sends the story in a new direction.

In this spirit, apart from promoting play as a helpful framework through which to live one's life, I am also specifically advocating that play become the motivating logic of the eco-narrative. Indeed, Sicart's celebration of play's capacity to appropriate "known structures" seems an overt invitation to play to overtake and appropriate the structure of the dominant plot model (Sicart 2014). To teach people to perceive story differently—with a renewed sense of wonder inspired by an exaltation in the other (Ackerman 1999)—will be to disrupt the logic of concepts like economic efficiency, which unabashedly position the economic interests of some at the expense of others. Because stories supply interpretive frameworks (Brooks 1984), they are the means through which new perceptions and new ways of relating can be taught. For the same reason, they remain—even in "catastrophic times" (Stengers 2015)—a palpable mechanism for guiding the adaptations of our species. The human evolution toward an ethos of the other, then, can (and should) be led by a storytelling practice appropriated by infinite play—the only real tenet of which is to move toward an open-ended future by acting, moment-to-moment, with cooperative rather than conflictual motives.

#### **4. The Eco-Narrative in Practice**

In his preface to *Catastrophism*, after lamenting the defeatism that often accompanies discussions of environmental crisis, economist Doug Henwood muses: "Wouldn't it be better to spin narratives of how humans are marvelously resourceful creatures who could do a lot better with the intellectual, social, and material resources we have?" (Henwood 2012, p. 15). Agreeing with Henwood that it *would* be better—and inspired by the same basic belief that narrative can empower humanity toward increased resourcefulness—I here arrive at the eco-narrative.

Premised upon a belief articulated by feminist narrative theorist Robyn Warhol that "Deviations from formal norms make deviations from dominant ideology visible" (Warhol 2012, p. 12), the eco-narrative uses the concept of infinite play to rethink the dominant plot model, thereby exposing the fundamental environmental irresponsibility of a storytelling practice motivated by conflict. Indeed, by infusing narrative with the philosophy of infinite play—namely, the desire to keep a story going for as many of its characters for as long as possible—the eco-narrative explicitly foregrounds ecosystemic goals over individual ones. Insofar as it plays with form in order to communicate ideology, it can rightly be conceived as participating in the antimimetic tradition (Herman 2012), and indeed, many "unnatural" works of fiction might retrospectively (and with some irony) be classified as eco-narratives. Since the interest of this article, however, is in narrative production—that is, in thinking toward how the storyteller can narrativize her own environments and experiences without retrofitting them into the dominant plot model—I think that it will be useful here to address the eco-narrative through the lens of the "self-narrative" (Herman 2014).

Even though his article performs an analysis of a fictional short story, Herman's "Narratology Beyond the Human" is rooted in the concept of the "self-narrative"—a term psychologists Kenneth J. Gergen and Mary M. Gergen use to describe the human practice of taking events from one's life and organizing them into coherent narratives (Herman 2014). Reading Lauren Groff's "Above and Below" as an example of self-narrative, Herman argues that the protagonist of Groff's story must "reconstruct" her own self-narrative as she increasingly recognizes "her place within a world that extends beyond the human" (Herman 2014, p. 133). Herman is ultimately interested in Groff's story as an example of how self-narratives can become more inclusive of nonhumanity—"locat[ing] the human agent in a transspecies constellation of selves" (Herman 2014, p. 133). I see this interest as very much in line with the interests of the eco-narrative. Because we humans are in a constant production of self-narrative(s)—translating relationships and events from our lives into stories that we can retell to ourselves and to others—it is important to consider how these self-narratives either resist or reaffirm the dominant plot model. As Herman makes clear, self-narratives can become eco-narratives simply by giving greater consideration to how they situate the self vis-à-vis the story's other (nonhuman) characters.

Keeping in mind Herman's interest in stories that locate the self within a larger "transspecies constellation of selves," I think it is worthwhile, at this point, to look closely at a story that rightfully earns the title of eco-narrative. Another story about human/animal relations, this one comes from a scholarly essay co-written by Annette Watson and Orville H. Huntington called "They're *here—*I can *feel* them: the epistemic spaces of Indigenous and Western Knowledges" (Huntington and Watson 2008). In this piece, Watson, who is a doctoral student and an academic geographer, and Huntington, who is an Athabascan hunter and gatherer, share the narrative task of describing a moose hunt. Here is an excerpt:

We had been traveling for about an hour, and as the boat made a left around the bend, suddenly there appeared a big bull looming on the bank, its antlers spread wide across its body. It saw us—but didn't move...For a moment no one spoke, and then Orville said, 'Wow—he was really trying hard to give himself to us.' Non-natives often employ the verb 'to take' to describe hunting...But the Koyukon believe that hunters do not 'take' anything; instead animals choose to give themselves to the hunter. The 'gift' is made as a result of the 'luck' of the hunter, and a hunter has luck when he has been respectful. Respect is the act of following strict rules that guide one's behavior and actions toward or away from the animal and all other living and non-living things. In the Koyukon language, such taboos are referred to as 'hutlanee'...Most significantly, it is *hutlanee* to talk about animals, especially make fun of them, such as calling them 'stupid.' There are very few things people should *do*, and many things that are *hutlanee*. About the only thing a person *does* is to accept them, accept the animal's life and spirit and body when it chooses to give itself. I told Annette that you also accept a moose's past; 'they're like us, they have a story behind them' (Huntington and Watson 2008, pp. 260–61).

Ostensibly another narrative concerning the human practice of killing animals, this story appears as wholly different than that of IFAP. In the foremost, the human actors in the story are not in conflict with the nonhuman ones. Even though the humans are on a hunting trip, they have no intention of "taking" an animal's life against the animal's will; rather, they wait until an animal "gives" himself to them. Thus, all characters are in cooperation from the beginning. What is more, whereas the CAFO animal is a symbolic "production unit," incapable of autonomy but acted upon by humans, the moose in this story is fully agential. As part of his agency, he is in possession of his own life as well as his own story; he does not represent an instrumentalized figure through whom a human protagonist realizes his own narrow needs. Just as an infinite player "offers" his own death in the service of others' continued play, the moose decides to die as a "gift" toward the continued life of the hunters.

Perhaps even more radical in this story is its use of two narrators. The shift is subtle, but the passage moves from first-person narration by Watson into first-person narration by Huntington, with the move becoming evident only when one narrator refers to the other by name. The largest implication of this shared narration system is the degree to which it resists a singularity of perspective. It is impossible to locate a protagonist in this story, precisely because no one voice is being amplified above the others. Indeed, not only are the voices of Watson and Huntington both represented as narrators, but the moose's voice is represented through the narrators' careful attention to his actions. Noting both his stillness and the direction of his gaze, Huntington reads the moose's movements as the communications through which he signals his offering. Ultimately, then, Watson and Huntington not only speak about the respect that the hunter must have for the nonhuman, they also use their shared literary space to model this respect, both toward the moose and toward each other. By never using the narrator's voice to speak *for* one another, they remain in constant dialogue—continually receiving and responding to the perspectives offered by all three of the characters.

Importantly, Watson and Huntington's story also provides concrete guidelines for how humans *should* enact their respect toward nonhumans. Echoing Morton's calls for an object-oriented art that is always already a collaboration *with* nonhumanity, Watson and Huntington explain that it is disrespectful even "to talk about animals." This can be taken to apply not only to in-person conversations "about animals," but to written words as well: In representing an animal on the page, the narrator must not manipulate the animal to serve his own narrative ends. Instead, he should approach the animal respectfully, by acknowledging its autonomous ability to influence the story.

Of course, here, some might argue that it is fundamentally impossible to tell a story "with" another being if one is the sole storyteller. That is, any attempt at storytelling—unless it is a cocreation akin to Watson and Huntington's or to children's collaborative fantasy play—will result in some narrative talking *about* the other. Indeed, my earlier claim that the moose in this story exhibits agency insofar as he "gives" himself to the hunters might itself come off as highly suspect. After all, how can an animal be said to exert influence within a written medium—that is, within a language system that is not its own? Acknowledging the wide debate that surrounds this question, Heise explains that "Some eco-critics have asked whether a medium such as literature, which relies entirely on human language, can possibly reflect anything other than a deeply anthropocentric view of nature." (Heise 2005, p. 130). In response, James has suggested that there is nothing wrong with embracing the anthropocentric (James 2015); why shouldn't we be transparent about the "role of the human imagination in the perception of the environment" (James 2015, p. 30)? Others have extended this line of argument to suggest that the benefits of (the attempt at) representing nonhuman consciousness on the page far outweigh the drawbacks. Herman, for example, contends that "By modeling the richness and complexity of 'what it is like' for nonhuman others, stories can underscore what is at stake in the trivialization—or outright destruction—of their experiences" (Herman 2011, p. 159). In his estimation, what is of greatest importance is that people are engaging in the imaginative exercise of thinking from a nonhuman perspective. Whether or not the animal's consciousness is faithfully recreated is of less consequence.

Although I am generally sympathetic to Herman's argument, I also maintain that, in the above story, Huntington and Watson manage to accurately depict the moose, and the moose *does* exert agency within the text. To my mind, this is because Huntington's philosophy is, at root, a phenomenological one. He is able to translate the moose's movements into human language because his translation comes from a place of embodied, respectful witnessing. For Morton, as for early phenomenologists like Husserl, no object can ever be known its entirety, thus: "Objects withdraw, such that other objects never adequately capture but only (inadequately) 'translate' them" (Morton 2011, p. 166). By appealing to the ultimate inaccessibility of all entities—be they animals, objects, or hyperobjects—Morton simultaneously acknowledges that any attempt to understand the other requires a "translation" of it; it means perceiving the object without being able to fully know or possess it. Yet if this premise is taken to be true, then all acts of self-narration—not just the human effort to speak about an animal—should theoretically be subject to the same line of questioning aimed at Huntington and Watson's text: Is the attempt to represent an object on the page, by its very nature, an anthropomorphizing act?

In her book *Vibrant Matter*, Jane Bennett occupies a similar position to Morton but intersperses her theoretical discussions with moments of phenomenological exaltation in the object other. Discovering a glove, a dead rat, a bottle cap (and more) in a grate above a storm drain in Baltimore, Bennett watches as these objects begin to "shimmer and spark" in her perception (Bennett 2010, p. 5). Part of what makes these objects shimmer, Bennett explains, is "a certain anticipatory readiness on [her] in-side"—"a perceptual style open to the appearance of thing-power" (Bennett 2010, p. 5). Bennett approaches the objects she encounters with an attitude that is "open" and ready to receive them, and as such, she is predisposed for appreciation. In this way, when she uses the term "thing," she does not do so in an attempt to devalue that which she sees. Rather, she recognizes herself as comprising a network *with* the objects she encounters. She too is a thing to them, and no one thing gets to have a privileged position above the others. As she thinks through the logic of it: "to begin to experience the relationship between persons and other materialities more horizontally, is to take a step toward a more ecological sensibility" (Bennett 2010, p. 10). For Bennett, then, true ecological thinking begins with horizontal relationships—with radically repositioning one's self as the equal to animals, plants, rocks, and all else that is material.

It is significant to me (and to the project of the eco-narrative) that Bennett speaks of objects without defaulting into objectification. She does not do as the Pew report does, for instance—using symbolism to exercise narrative domination over another. Rather, Bennett's ontological framework reveals itself as most akin to that proposed within Ackerman's theory of "deep play" (Ackerman 1999). Both Ackerman and Bennett practice a mode of being in the world that marvels at intercorporeality and that defaults into a state of awe toward the other.

Following in their philosophical footsteps, I am suggesting that, as it shows up in self-narrative, the storytelling equivalent of "deep play" is a documentation of the nonhuman other that does not seek to possess or manipulate the other—never professing to have access to the other's interiority, but beginning, instead, from a place of respectful witnessing. Insofar, then, as Watson and Huntington's narrative relationship to the moose is guided by reverent attention to its behaviors—and insofar as the moose determines its own entrance and exit from the story (Huntington and Watson 2008)—I argue that it enacts as much agency as it possibly can within a human documentary mode.

Finally, it is significant to the eco-narrative project that Huntington and Watson tell a story that is not ultimately framed as a tale about "the moose that got away"—with the climatic moment appearing, for instance, as the moose narrowly escapes. To tell such a story would, indeed, be robbing the moose of its agency by making it subservient to a pre-determined plot model. Instead, however, the story finds its structure through the conversational narration of all of the story's characters. Respectful dialogue drives the plot forward.

This dialogic structure is, of course, intentional on the part of the authors, who outline their own project within the terms of posthumanism: "The 'posthuman' does not imply a historical era, but an interrogation of humanists' static boundaries between humans and nonhumans, culture and nature" (Huntington and Watson 2008, p. 258). It is perhaps the posthuman framework, then, that makes the story so identifiably an eco-narrative. Indeed, even Huizinga's earliest conceptions of play define it as an activity that equally belongs to nature and culture (Huizinga 1949). Inspired by playful attempts to play *with* boundaries, both the eco-narrative and the posthuman narrative advocate stylistic explorations that upset the dominant narrative's long unquestioned practice of privileging the interests of a single protagonist.

Inspired by Huntington and Watson's storytelling practices—and in the spirit of empowering humans toward playful cooperation in the face of ongoing crisis—the eco-narrative's only real directive is finally quite simple: to apply concepts from play theory to the act of storytelling and then to *play with* those concepts. Rather than outlining set rules, infinite play merely presents narrative (whether rooted in self-narrative or in fiction) with an invitation to move in unforeseen directions—shifting narrators, blurring the distinctions between humans and nonhumans, and transitioning freely between tenses, languages, locations, and time periods (to name just a few ideas). What is more, in seeking to remove the narrator from any omniscience that would allow her distance from the story she is telling, the eco-narrative also desires to relate its stories from within. The eco-narrator embarks on a storytelling project without knowing the end of the story and, indeed, without even desiring an ending. In the absence of a foreknown trajectory, eco-narrators instead advance their narratives through the relationships of their characters. Treating humans and nonhumans with equal reverence, the eco-narrative is therefore guided by an exaltation in the other. In fact, knowing that competition between its characters would dualise the story into one of winners and losers—that is, into finitude—the eco-narrative dispenses altogether with conflict as a dramatizing device. It remains dramatic, however, both because its characters are willing to undergo large transformations in service of another and because the eco-narrator is personally invested in the well-being of each of her characters. Ultimately following the very example set by evolution, then, the eco-narrative approaches every narrative boundary—be it one of time, place, or resource—as an invitation for creative adaptation.

Children tell eco-narratives when they invent magic pillows that allow aardvarks to float across poison rivers (Paley 2004, p. 74). Timothy Morton tells an eco-narrative when he demands that weather be treated not as a backdrop, but as a legitimate character in the human/Earth story (Morton 2013). Facing increasing catastrophe and the very real possibility of our species-wide demise, we humans can tell eco-narratives by choosing to recognize that, even when we die, other beings will remain to continue the story. We will be telling an eco-narrative, in other words, by including those future beings in our stories *now*. Indeed, if we are to transform our self-narratives into eco-narratives, all we really need to do is remember: Stories are avenues for communion. Yes, we tell stories *to* each other, but we also tell them to be with each other.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.

#### **References**

Ackerman, Diane. 1999. *Deep Play*, 1st ed. New York: Random House, p. 87.


Buell, Frederick. 2003. *From Apocalypse to Way of Life: Environmental Crisis in the American Century*. New York: Routledge. Caillois, Roger. 2001. *Man, Play, and Games*. Translated by Meyer Barash. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Carlin, John, Michael Blackwell, David Andrews, Fedele Bauccio, Tom Dempster, Dan Glickman, John Hatch, Frederick Kirschenmann, James Merchant, Marion Nestle, and et al. 2008. Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in America, Pew Commission's report on Industrial Farm Animal Production. Available online: http://www.livablefutureblog.com/pdf/Putting\_Meat\_on\_Table\_FULL.pdf (accessed on 7 April 2017).

Carse, P. James. 1986. *Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility*. New York: Random House. Cook-Gumperz, Jenny, and Amy J. Kyraztzis. 2005. Children's Storytelling. In *Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative*


Gottschall, Jonathan. 2012. *The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human*. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.


Henwood, Doug. 2012. Dystopia Is for Losers. In *Catastrophism: The Apocalyptic Politics of Collapse and Rebirth*. Edited by Sasha Lilley. Oakland: PM Press, pp. 9–15.


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Herman, David. 2012. Exploring the Nexus of Narrative and Mind. In *Narrative Theory: Core Concepts and Critical Debates*. Edited by David Herman, James Phelan, Peter J. Rabinowitz, Brian Richardson and Robyn Warhol. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, pp. 14–19.

Herman, David. 2014. Narratology Beyond the Human. *Diegesis* 3: 131–43.


© 2017 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

## *Article* **More than Stories, More than Myths: Animal/Human/Nature(s) in Traditional Ecological Worldviews**

#### **Amba J. Sepie**

Department of Geography, College of Science, University of Canterbury, Christchurch 8041, New Zealand; ajm357@uclive.ac.nz

Received: 25 July 2017; Accepted: 11 October 2017; Published: 20 October 2017

**Abstract:** Reason and rationality, upon which modern, westernized, societies have been founded, have powerfully characterized the nature of human relations with other species and with the natural world. However, countless indigenous and traditional worldviews tell of a very different reality in which humans, conceived of as instinctual and intuitive, are a part of a complex web of ecological relationships. Other species, elements of the natural world, and people are active participants in relations overflowing with communications, interactions sometimes recorded in ethnographies, or as 'myths' and 'stories'. The present article draws upon a range of traditions to explore the biases which shape how indigenous and traditional life-ways are represented in westernized contexts; the phenomenon of receiving direct insight or intuitive knowing from more-than-human worlds; and the numerous valuable understandings regarding the nature of the human being, other species, and how to live well, that are offered by a deeper comprehension of different worldviews. I also argue that the various capacities for instinctual and intuitive knowledge which accompanies these life-ways are endemic to the human species yet overlooked, the correction of which might work to usefully recalibrate our ethical relations with each other, and with other life on earth.

**Keywords:** earth; worldviews; indigenous wisdom traditions; relationality; ecology; language; human-animal studies; more-than-human geography; multispecies ethnography; ecopsychology; anthropology; environmental philosophy; decolonization; intuition; instinct; myth; non-verbal communication; IK; TEK

#### **1. Introduction**

The YolNu peoples, in Bawaka Country, Australia, are oriented to patterns, place, relationships with other beings, and the language of those beings (or *dhäruk*), which holds its own messages and contains what they term its own 'Law' (Bawaka Country et al. 2013, 2015, 2016). The YolNu way of being in the world is about paying attention to, speaking with, and understanding animals as a part of regular life; and, as with all traditional and indigenous peoples who hold such an ethic, this is more regular for some members of a community than it is for others. The experience of language as something that is shared with all beings, not solely amongst humans, is a near universal assertion across communities, historical and contemporary, who recognize ecological sentience and live with/in more-than-human worlds. Consider the following account from Laklak Burarrwanga:

The sea there, it has its own *wänga*, its own system and patterns of behaviour. The *guya* (fish), the *maranydjalk* (stingray), and the *miyapunu* (turtle), have each got their own language. That's why male and female turtles, when they meet, they know each other, they can talk [ ... ] All the different animals, they have their own groups. Seagulls, crows, they live by themselves, they have their own rules, style of talking and living with one another, their own language. The birds and animals know where to sleep, where to put their babies, where to build their nests. The same for trees, bushes. The land knows what their language is (Bawaka Country et al. 2013, para. 11.35).

In this paper I engage with the topic of animal narratology through examining such accounts of human-animal relations as factual or 'real' exchanges between humans and animals. This is about taking seriously, as *true*, the accounts of interspecies communication that have been documented for at least the last hundred years, by ethnographers, and by indigenous and traditionally living peoples themselves, both inside and outside of the academies. The continued repression of indigenous voices with respect to these issues is an extension of the global colonial project.

The examples are drawn primarily from ethnographic accounts of human-animal relations within indigenous and traditional contexts, with a specific focus on how the received wisdom from animals (and other more-than-human entities) is understood or explained. These accounts break with a number of conventions that are well established to the point of appearing normative within a westernized worldview: conventions to which the first half of this paper is specifically attentive. In the latter sections, using examples such as the one above, I interrogate particular biases which can act to obscure the comprehension of radically non-Western worldviews and I question the idea that accounts of life such as are found in Bawaka Country (among others), and the practices therein, are 'impossible' or superstitious 'relics' of mythic or religious behaviors among so-called 'primitive' peoples.1

At the centre of this project is the necessity of querying the scholarly norms, simplistic divides and cosmological assumptions that have provided impetus for the establishment, and continuance, of westernization over several thousand years.<sup>2</sup> The purpose of this inquiry is to contribute constructively to the re-ignition, or recovery, of our *awareness* of the fundamental human relationships that we have with the broader ecologies within which we are embedded.3 I argue that indigenous and traditional life-ways around the world present numerous valuable understandings regarding the nature of the human being, other species, the planet we share, and how to live together; all of which appear vastly superior to westernized interpretations of responsibility for socio-ecological wellbeing across species, most especially in a time of planetary-level, cascading socio-ecological crises. This is not suggested as some romantic or utopian ideal, but as a direct response to the indigenous and ecological thinkers (and their allies) who have called for the decolonization of *all* people as a response to earth crises. Their call is based on the wholesale rejection of ways of thinking and being that lead to destruction and domination, and the socialization practices which continue to perpetuate these elements within westernized societies.

<sup>1</sup> A number of historical accounts of traditional, indigenous, and non-European collectives have hinged on the idea of that these peoples are 'living fossils', or examples of how western 'civilized' people were in prehistory. Tropes such as the 'noble savage', the romanticized or exotic 'other', the idea of a primitive society entirely 'cut off' from the modern world, were the products of imperialistic 20th century anthropology. These notions were rightly rejected in the 1970s and 1980s, however, this rejection also halted any substantive cross-cultural indigenous comparison (used by indigenous scholars, but rejected by social scientists as 'pan-indigenous'), and the related interest in identifying any somewhat unified set of precepts across worldviews which was based in a concept of common humanity. Scholarly focus subsequently became very specialized, concentrating upon indigenous livelihoods within western-dominant contexts, and post-colonial social and political movements. Whilst these foci are critically important for undoing colonial damages and establishing recognition of indigenous sovereignty and rights, any equivalencies between traditional life-ways and pre-westernized human wisdom are still only tentatively made by western scholars (see Abram 2010, p. 267). In the rush for scholars to revere 'differences', indigenous voices and opinions on these very issues have been muted.

<sup>2</sup> For an extension of this argument see Harvard economist and philosopher Rajani Kanth (2017), in particular, the observation that there is a near-absence of any real anthropological inquiry (that takes evidence into full account), official, or social discourse around these issues.

<sup>3</sup> Many scholars cited in this paper (including myself as author) use 'us', 'our', and 'we' to express a sense of collective human kinship, parallel perhaps with the *planetarity* of post-colonial scholar Gayatri Spivak (2003, pp. 71–102). This terminology also signals that the critical shift from an 'I-hermeneutic' to a 'We-hermeneutic'—over and above the separatist identity and diversity claims that are expressed in 'I' language—is a necessary and core expression of indigenous sovereignty and a key foundation for expressing the cohesiveness of community, as forwarded by Jace Weaver (1998, pp. 1–25). Where there is a specially situated use of these terms 'us', 'our', or 'we', the appropriate context has been included.

The templates for how to live well together on the planet, based on reverence, responsibility, reciprocity, respect, and relationship, are very evident in traditional and indigenous life ways, and deference to these values and practices has been sought by indigenous elders, across the globe, for over forty years.4 Canim Lake Band Tsq'escen scholar Julian Brave NoiseCat (2017) asks that we "heed the diverse indigenous voices displaced and drowned out by imperialism [ ... ] indigenous people today stand on the frontlines of global movements fighting for a more just relationship between humanity and the land".

In addition, I argue with indigenous and traditional peoples, for the recognition of an enduring continuity of human experience across time, geographies, cultures, and traditions. As put forward by Irish-Cherokee scholar Four Arrows (who also carries the name Don Trent Jacobs), despite the vast geographical differences between peoples through time and history, worldviews across diverse cultures share common features (just as landscapes may be recognized as "landscapes" through common features such as trees, rivers, mountains, or grassy fields).

Indigenous Australian (Arabana) scholar Veronica Arbon (2008, p. 19) also writes on pan-indigenous thinking, stating that as opposed to suggesting a new hegemony, in which the diversity of indigenous cultures are collapsed into a new universal, there is the need to acknowledge the similarities between different indigenous groups of the world. She goes beyond the level of political solidarity across indigenous communities (or, interests in common), to demonstrate cosmo-ontological continuity between many indigenous communities in her work (as did the late Deloria Jr. 1973, 1978, 2004, 2006; Deloria Jr. et al. 1999). This shift to indigeneity as a set of core concepts that are set against 'westernized' metaphysics has the effect of altering its function to include indigenous-human solidarity. This is significant.

If cultural diversity is honored, recognizing a common worldview can bring solidarity and support it. The fact that common features of many Indigenous nations contrast with those among diverse 'non-Indian' cultures is potentially useful for everyone's decolonizing efforts (Arrows 2016, p. 3).

#### **2. Truth and Primitivism**

The idea of cultural evolution has rendered the folk story, or myth, as a quaintly accepted pre-modern error made by early or 'primitive' humans. As such, the art of listening to (or hearing) the speech of the animals has been kept alive (if barely) in folklore. In the mythologies of the world, comprehension of the language of the birds was revered as a divine boon: the Norse god, Odin, presided over the world with the help of two wise ravens; in tales from Wales, Greece, India, and

<sup>4</sup> This is critical for creating the conditions whereby non-indigenous people can move beyond the 'charity model' of allyship and engage a personal, conscious, educated, and emplaced sense of responsibility for socio-ecological partnership, thus, creating an *effective*, decolonized perspective for collective global change. This does not mean that the non-indigenous are to 'become indigenous' in political terms (which is a simplistic reading of the call for change), nor that the idea of 'we are all indigenous' be substituted for strong on-going support for, and responsibility towards, securing post-colonial indigenous rights. This shift requires the interrogation of unconscious, westernized dependencies so that *all colonized people* might become more consciously human, as defined *through* comprehension and participation in ways of being that are directed by fundamentally different values. Some of the more recent proponents of this view include John Mohawk, Gregory Cajete, Four Arrows, Robin Kimmerer, Jeannette Armstrong, Winona LaDuke, Jon Young, George Price, Bayo Akomolafe, Lisa Minno Bloom, Berkley Carnine, Rajani Kanth, Syed Hussan, Zainab Amadahy, George Sefa Dei, Dylan Miner, Chris and Jaki Daniels, Darcia Narvaez, Walter Mignolo, Paul Shepard, Derrick Jensen, Joanna Macy, Bill Plotkin, Paul Hawken, Daniel Christian Wahl, David Abram, and the collective *Bioneers* as represented as their yearly conferences, among many others. Part of the redefinition of the term indigenous, in this view, is to dislocate it from ethnic and racial afflictions by returning to its root definition of 'people springing from/in the land as mother', and to establish it as a foundational paradigm for living according to particular values. Peace scholar Rick Wallace (2013) has called this conception of trust-based allyship "a mutual reworking of colonial relations of power" (p. 172). Based on fieldwork and case-studies, Wallace identifies constructive non-indigenous ally practices as follows: material and strategic support for indigenous communities, respect for indigenous leadership and processes of decision making, and establishing trust as dependent upon shared sincerity, commitment, values and beliefs, truth-speaking, and respect for the mutual obligations of honoring the land and each other as key for rebuilding right relations (ibid, pp. 176–77).

greater Russia, an unlikely hero is granted the gift of hearing the prophesy of birds by magic; in Sweden, by the taste of dragons blood. King Solomon's wisdom, like that of Odin, was attributed to the birds, as were the stories of Aesop. For modern urban humans, these are generally thought of as folk tales and stories for children. Conversely, as cultural ecologist David Abram (2010) writes:

[The] sacred language regularly attributed by tribal peoples to their most powerful shamans is often referred to as 'the language of the birds.' A keen attunement to the vocal discourse of the feathered folk has been a necessary survival skill for almost every indigenous community—especially for the active hunters within the group, and for the intermediaries (the magicians or medicine persons) who tend the porous boundary between the human and more-than-human worlds (p. 196).

The value complex that underpins this division into truth and fiction has a long and convoluted history, and is based upon a combination of religious, philosophical, and scientific thought that has been incubated over at least two thousand years. Such questions, and the legitimacy of narrative as 'fact' or as 'useful knowledge', can be rendered very differently within indigenous, as compared with secular westernized contexts. As noted by the late Vine Deloria Jr. et al. (1999):

In most tribal traditions, no data are discarded as unimportant or irrelevant. Indians consider their own individual experiences, the accumulated wisdom of the community that has been gathered by previous generations, their dreams, visions, and prophecies, and any information received from birds, animals and plants as data that must be arranged, evaluated, and understood as a unified body of knowledge. This mixture of data from sources that the Western scientific world regards as highly unreliable and suspect produces a consistent perspective on the natural world (pp. 66–67).

Conversely, westernized frameworks categorize much of this content as religion or culture, myth, folktale or epic, and fable, or as genres that are studied within the areas of literature, folklore, religious studies, and anthropology. The study of narratology within the field of folklore, for instance, was initially focused upon forms, functions, and stylistic analysis (see Levi-Strauss 1963, 1966, 1968; Propp 1968; Propp and Liberman 1984). Early narratologists (such as Vladimir Propp) attempted to isolate aspects of narrative and develop typologies which were, in turn, used to extrapolate meanings or, in the case of Levi-Strauss, symbolic structures. In more contemporary times, narrative has come to be reimagined more broadly, as an active cultural force that "enables us to make meaning out of a chaotic world" (Bal 2002, p. 10).

Traditional and indigenous ways of making 'story' can, however, be thought to challenge certain received wisdoms regarding the structure or form of narrative, especially regarding authorship, character, coherence, sequence and spatiality. In the specific area of *animal* narratology, indigenous narratives involve shifting concepts of personhood and identity as applicable to the 'characters' (who are often non-human), and a markedly different distinction between the fictional and non-fictional. This is not to suggest indigenous stories or literatures do not employ or recognize fiction, but that it is not set aside in quite the same manner as within 'westernized' categories of writing and thought. In traditional Native American contexts, for example, a distinction between ceremonial and popular genres makes more sense, or the sacred as juxtaposed with the pedagogical or humorous, soothing or entertaining (see Allen 1986).

Myth, in particular, has attracted a range of different uses across the disciplines. In folklore and religious studies, myth is used only to refer to a certain kind of narrative, or to quote Wendy Doniger (2011): "a story that [is] good to believe in but unverifiable in the real world [ ... or] a story that a group of people believe for a long time despite massive evidence that it is not actually true" (p. ix). This meaning derives directly from the shift, in ancient Greece, from *mythos* (truth) to *logos* (lies and dissimulation), and eventually morphed into *fabula* in the Latin, or 'a persistent lie' (Kane 1998, p. 34). Bruce Lincoln (1996), a religious historian, speculates that the original shift in

meaning (as concretized by the Romans) arose in ancient Greece with the rise of Platonic reason and the resultant unstable power relations between various 'regimes of truth'. This moment, preserved in etymological history, reveals a kind of colonization of thought and word in action; specifically, the overturning of traditional beliefs within an urban and 'progressive' political and economic context, in which a belief complex was eradicated and ultimately overthrown by a newer philosophy. The origin point for what now counts as 'true' and 'false' knowledge has to be set somewhere around the time of this transfer. One consequence of this was the creation of a distinct fictitious genre (myth and fable) into which non-Christian, pre-Christian, and other beliefs could be relocated.

Semiotician Roland Barthes (1984) defined myth as a type of speech, or a system of communication in which "everything can be a myth provided it is conveyed by a discourse" (p. 109). These ways of thinking about myth—suggesting a radical divorce from historicity and how myths might be viewed within diverse cultural contexts—have significantly impacted upon the use of the term within the social sciences. Myth and discourse are often conflated whenever there is an emphasis on the 'truth' value of a claim, or a lack thereof. Myth can be broadly used to refer to anything that has persisted as 'true' and yet, can be shown to be only 'popularly true', for example, the 'myth of biological race' or the 'myth of the Communist threat'. In short, it is a term that often stands in for 'error' or 'fallacy', and it is *this* designation, when transposed onto the understanding of narratives of indigenous origin, that indigenous scholars have taken issue with.

Native American Laguna scholar, Paula Gunn Allen (1986, pp. 102–3), writes that myth has been polluted by popular misuse to the point of being synonymous with 'lie'. Allen aligns the scholarly employment of 'myth' with other derogatory terms that imply backwardness, foolishness, and the general derision of native life-ways, arguing that the manner in which it has been used always points towards 'questionable accuracy'. As such, myth stands opposed to truth whenever it is considered as a part of a fiction-fact binary, and this is a problem which many social scientists (anthropologists, in particular) tend to recoil from resolving in concrete terms. Learning from animals, for example, or affording personhood and wisdom to non-humans beings in general, can present enormous cosmological instability for those trained in westernized traditions. Modern humans are encouraged to speak *about* animals as part of a category called 'nature', or in the words of Abram (2010): "Language is a human property, suitable for communication with other persons. We talk to people; we do not talk to the ground underfoot" (p. 174). Reading Abram, it's clear he is referring (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) to the conservative social norm which upholds the division between sentience and non-sentience, however the norm has a powerful hold on ethnographic scholarship. This is precisely how ethnographies of indigenous and traditional peoples become 'stories' and 'accounts' that are not assessed as 'true' or 'false', but truth claims that are 'true for them' or 'true enough'. As I have argued elsewhere, many ethnographers have gone to great lengths to suggest that it does not matter whether these stories are 'true' or not, but only that they are accurate representations of 'what people believe' (Sepie 2014, 2016a, 2016b). Anthropologist Paul Nadasdy (2007) describes the contradiction as follows:

What to the Athapaskan or Cree hunter is a perfectly explainable—if not quite everyday—event becomes for the biologist (or anthropologist) an anomaly. Faced with stories of this sort, those of us wedded to a Euro-American view of human-animal relations have one of two choices: we can choose to disbelieve the account, or we can shrug it off as a bizarre coincidence. Either way, we avoid any attempt at explanation (p. 36).

This avoidance presents serious problems for recognition of indigenous and traditional life-ways. Truth must matter if the dominant worldview is to be properly queried in areas where it is hegemonic: in areas where ascriptions of cultural relativism simply cannot compete with the abiding authority of the dominant worldview. Paul Rabinow [1983] (2011) writes that inscribed relations between truth and power are concealed by devices which 'bracket truth', thus taking no culture at its word: "The anthropologist thus succeeds in studying what is serious and truthful to Others without it being serious and truthful to him" (p. 31). Claims as to the subjectivity of truth have served academics well, as these can be extended from religion and culture into the designated supernatural realm, to reduce

and marginalize, as 'false', any realities which directly oppose the dominant norms. Truth *matters* in westernized contexts, especially academic realms, and to suggest it does not matter, or that truth is 'relative' within an indigenous context appears structurally racist. Sami scholar Rauna Kuokkanen (2007) argues that these (and other) 'silences' which do not take metaphysical differences in worldview into account simply reproduce imperialism.

Numerous other issues relating to literary conventions also obtain here, for instance, re-telling, or allowing stories to be remade across individuals, time, and traditions. Re-telling is common practice within a range of indigenous storytelling traditions, and does not yield to the notion that stories have a 'fixed' or static form. This is a practice considered as antagonistic to the goal of early ethnographers and folklorists who have sought to 'collect' these stories or codify them in textual form. As folklorist Alan Dundes notes, the type of framing usually employed to comment on this is pejorative:

Just as ethnographers carefully sifted through unavoidable details obviously only recently added through acculturative contact in an attempt to discover the pure unadulterated original native culture, so practitioners of the Finnish historic-geographic method sought to work backwards through the unfortunate changes (or, in Thompson's terms, the mistakes and errors) in order to find the pure unadulterated original ur-form. The difficulties of searching for the ur-form, too often presumed to be hopelessly hidden by the destructive, deteriorative effects of oral transmission were considerable, but not always insurmountable (in Dundes and Bronner 2007, p. 169).

Translation into English has also had its difficulties, given that many languages do not possess the subject-object rules necessary for a direct transfer of meaning and, further, there many are concepts implied within traditional worldviews that do not have any equivalents in a 'western' conceptual lexicon. Determining what is 'nature' and what is 'culture', for example, cannot be ascertained when people do not subscribe to these categories. The ideas involved are hard to think, and hard to write, especially other languages. In ethnography and folklore, you can almost feel the struggle of generations of scholars trying to relay, in comprehensive terms, concepts that simply no longer appear in the repertoire that has been constructed in two or more thousand years of instituting the modern way of life. Worldview content that cannot be easily classified presents another level of difficulty.

Consider the adoption, within western medical establishments, of acupuncture from China. The use of acupuncture in westernized contexts occurs alongside the absolute denial of the existence of *qi* (air-breath, life-being, energy-force), upon which the entire practice is based. To suggest that *qi* exists is to 'break' with the cosmological consensus of the dominant culture, fostered (as it has been) through the complexities of Judeo-Christian religious changes and Greco-Roman cultural matrices, up to the Enlightenment, and into the present day. The mandate, even if it may only be tacit, is that rational thinking must preside in westernized societies, and any claim on the contrary is a private, cultural, or religious belief and, thus, *a priori* illegitimate in any scientifically valid sense. This mandate orients our institutions and power structures, our concepts of health and education, and influences significantly the degree of seriousness afforded to collectives who publically uphold an 'illegitimate' worldview, especially one that has been historically viewed as pagan or primitive. Whilst any discernible scientific elements of cultural practices might be extracted under the headings of IK and TK (Indigenous Knowledge and/or Traditional Knowledge) and integrated into environmental studies and related disciplinary fields, cultural practices that co-opt what might be called supernatural elements are routinely disregarded or relegated to religious studies as matters of belief.

The bias against anything that might be deemed as supernatural has been strengthened through the rise of scientific modes of explanation. The idea of speaking with animals, or seeing spiritual aspects within nature, breaks a number of 'rules'; however, the supernatural aspect is far more difficult to accept, study, articulate, and theorize, than issues that may arise from worldview content that is rendered as 'cultural difference'. The natural sciences have no room for concepts of spirit in the world, and Christianity does not have a cosmological precedent for allowing spirits (or souls) in 'nature', limiting the ownership of 'souls' to human beings.<sup>5</sup> Consider the way that early Christianity was moved through the world: step one, exorcise local gods and spirits by insisting that demons and angels are the only possible supernatural beings. Step two, replace local systems of belief with the fear of, and obedience toward, an Old Testament God, and the attached cosmology (three-tiered universe), which finishes the process of exorcism. Step two may, or may not, be attached to violent punishment for causing trouble regarding step one. This process not only creates profound disconnection from place and tradition, but also considerable fear attached to breaking with the newly established norms, at least publicly. Animate or sentient aspects of nature, including weather, features of the landscape, and the concept of other creatures as speaking, acting, or as spiritually endowed beings, remained possible only in the provinces of myth and fiction. As argued by Sean Kane (1998), in his extraordinary book, *Wisdom of the Mythtellers*:

Myth is felt by history to be untrue because it articulates a reality that exists outside [... ] more provable worlds [ ... it] implies a shift from the authority of plants and animals, each the spirit-children of supernatural progenitors, to the authority of man (p. 34).

Sorting processes such as these violate the holism of traditional and indigenous worldviews by requiring that they conform to westernized categories in order to be useful and comprehensible. Traditional and indigenous ways of being in the world, wedded as they are to radically different cosmological ideas, can be therefore be thought of as incurring the effects of significant biases at the most fundamental levels of scholarly comprehension.

#### **3. Colonization and the Rise of 'Western Culture'**

In his preface to *The New Ecological Order* (1995), the French philosopher, Luc Ferry, narrates an extraordinary tale of legal proceedings, in the year 1545, against a colony of weevils. The villagers of Saint-Julien, in France, sought 'appropriate measures' to demand the expulsion of the beasts from their vineyards, but it was argued that, as 'creatures of God', the animals possessed the same rights to consume plant life as the residents. The villagers (who lost their case) were required to sincerely repent, through prayer, tithes, and processions around the vineyards, followed by further devotions and penitence. All of this was designed to put right their error in the eyes of God. The weevils vacated and the matter ended, only to be brought again to the courts some forty-two years later; however, it appears that the villagers lost, once again. Not only did the judge order the vicar to re-apply the ordonnance (penalty) of 1546, but a compromise was suggested in which the weevils were to be leased 'a location of sufficient pasture, outside of the disputed vineyards of Saint-Julien' (Ferry 1995, pp. ix–xi).

Ferry does not give a final conclusion to this matter, but he discusses similar cases involving larvae (who won), leeches (who were ultimately cursed to evacuate by the bishop of Lausanne), dolphins (excommunicated from Marseille, for clogging the port), rats (who also triumphed), and beetles (case dismissed, due to their young age and the diminutiveness of their bodies) (ibid, pp. ix–xiv). What is fascinating about these cases is how Ferry captures a transitional moment in history that is rarely presented so clearly. His preface is a reminder that, for a certain period in European history, there was the possibility to think of other species in a manner which afforded them agency and equated their rights with those of human beings. Now, as Ferry laments, only humans are 'worthy of a trial' and

<sup>5</sup> Note that in referring to 'Christianity' I am not intending to present it as a monolith. There are a number of Christianities which have diverged significantly from the central structures and dogma throughout the centuries, and in various cultural contexts. What I refer to here is a core set of precepts that are *generally* considered as central to Christianity and have been reproduced, with relative faithfulness, in historical and modern conservative interpretations and churches. It is this specific form of Christianity that has been informative in orienting the dominant scientific leanings of secular modern westernized societies in ways that affect the biases discussed herein (see Berger 1967; Berger and Luckmann 1967; Gillespie 2008; Lindberg 1983, 1992; Panikkar and Eastham 1993).

nature is a 'dead letter'. "Literally: it no longer speaks to us for we have long ceased—at least since Descartes—to attribute a soul to it or to believe it inhabited by occult forces" (ibid, p. xvi).6

This transitional moment, like the shift from *mythos* to *logos*, is but one among many. What is interesting is that these transitions, when considered together, can be shown to have created the very particular sorts of cultural complexes we term 'westernized' (and the socio-ecological pathologies which accompany them). The Haudenosaunee, speaking to the United Nations in 1977 (Mohawk 1978), called this 'West' a culture with a 'sickness' that had emerged from certain civilizing processes over time, cutting the western people off from their ancient roots. They called for an urgent critical historical analysis of these processes and offered remedy as if an 'elder looking into the affairs of a young child' (ibid, p. 83). The Haudenosaunee identified continuity between the experiences of those afflicted by colonialism, and those who were colonized earlier, through essentially the same processes, but with a more serious and destructive result. "It is the people of the West, ultimately, who are the most oppressed and exploited. They are burdened by the weight of centuries of racism, sexism, and ignorance which has rendered their people insensitive to the true nature of their lives" (ibid, p. 91).7 The evidence for these critical transitions, also listed by the Haudenosaunee as signaling a move away from nature, can be found in ancient histories.

In *Mythtellers*, Kane (1998, pp. 21–23) determines that a significant break from nature occurred with the near-Eastern Neolithic shift to agriculture, progressively establishing the conditions for a class system and rules of property ownership. Feminist scholar Riane Eisler (1987) calls this the shift from a 'partnership' to a dominator model, and she dates it at 5000 BCE.

Abram (1996), in his lyrical text *The Spell of the Sensuous*, points to another, hidden, transition he identifies in the shift from the *aleph*-bet to a Greek alphabet. He specifically notes that what he calls the final 'removal of the air' from oral traditions (that is, the adding of scripted vowels), silences the power of the voice in a manner which disengages us from the natural world (pp. 93–135). In this, he echoes the insistence made in many traditional contexts that words are powerful, the spoken word in particular (see Burke 2011; King 2005; LaDuke 2005).

Religious influence is a particularly important mechanism for transition. Early organized political powers, such as those found in ancient city-states of specifically Persian political influence, mandated religious conversions in numerous empires, with resistance punishable by death. These regimes also progressively instituted, often by force, the dislocation of people from place. Such moves eradicated the layered ecological understandings peoples had acquired through long occupation of a site, and the ritual and practical maintenance of close, cohesive groups that were embedded in their relations with their local habitats.8 Local forces, energies, or gods, as residing with tribes or kin-groups, and the territories they were linked to, were deliberately unsettled in order to take command of a group of people: in fact, capturing, stealing, or destroying a portable 'idol' (or a representation of a sacred being) often constituted a victory over a people. Strong prohibitions against making portable idols or visual representations of gods (carried through within Judaic and Islamic traditions, for example) are inherently linked to these practices. In ancient 'civilized' worlds, as with the more recent practices of colonialism and missionary work, the elimination of a people was most effective if it was instituted *in*

<sup>6</sup> The legal personhood of places and animals has very recently been revived following notable cases in India, the US, and New Zealand (see Coehlo 2013; Grimm 2013; Hutchison 2014; Kennedy 2012).

<sup>7</sup> This position regarding the efficacy of indigenous ways of being as remedy and restoration for the pathologies of westernized cultural dominance has been suppressed, and obscured, by mechanisms that are both scholarly and social (Mander 1991). There are discussions and corrections regarding these issue in a number of recent publications by indigenous scholars, as well as clearly outlined differences between cultural appropriation and the call for westernized peoples to be led by those who possess the traditional wisdom which repairs 'culture' and a sense of connection with nature, i.e., to follow an indigenous 'lead' (Arrows 2016; Cajete 2015; Cordova 2007; Kimmerer 2013).

<sup>8</sup> It is difficult to say to what degree this occurred prior to Christianity, and whether there were similar practices in ancient pan-Indian, Egyptian, or other advanced cultural complexes, precisely because it is normative to call these very ancient histories, myth. I can, however, note parallels with Egyptian regimes and shifting kingships, and find evidence (following the German Egyptologist Jan Assmann (1998, 2005)) for early monotheism and religious conquest.

*the name of religion* against what were called *other religions* (that is, against foreign, pagan, tribal, and local or place-specific beliefs). Whilst altering the spiritual or religious orientation of any community to align with the interests of the state is a powerful tool in maintaining social control, religious obligations that are set against political interests can be a motivator for extreme violence, as modern history attests to.

When a smaller tribal or kin group voluntarily aligned with a city state, the new cultural identity gradually absorbed and eroded the old, and this process was somewhat common. In China, for example, as Philip Nicholson (1999) writes: "The invaders and occasional conquerors of China, the Mongols of the thirteenth century and the Manchus of the seventeenth, were absorbed by the Chinese culture and became as ardently Chinese as the Chinese they overran" (p. 17). Similarly, it is difficult to find the traces and histories of the many peoples that became Egyptian, or Greek, or Roman, due to the absorption of their personal and localized histories into meta-narratives of identity during what were lengthy processes of assimilation. Economist and philosopher Rajani Kanth (2017, p. 242) notes that whilst cultural complexes can take millennia to evolve, they can be erased in just *two* generations.

Across the ancient empires, however, it was generally not by choice, but by military and political conquest, indebtedness, poverty, and starvation that people fell under the control of others (Nicholson 1999). Where locally-based beliefs and customs persisted, they often did so under duress, most especially after the advent of Christianity (following its adoption as a state-religion in Rome). This duress has continued into the present through the mechanisms of colonialism.

Whilst we cannot go back and alter these historical events, it is necessary to recognize the degree to which such transitions have progressively detached modern, westernized humans from our intimate sense of place.<sup>9</sup> As Kanth (2017) argues, functional and emplaced societies have become replaced with flat, monotonic, uniform, homogenous, atomized, fragmented and alienated with residents who are privatized, individualized and isolated with "a gamut of ever multiplying gadgets as companions" (p. 242). Equally, notions of shared identity, as linked to an in-group sense of place and community (originally, *ethnos*), have become overly signified in urban environments where religion, ethnic or racial, political, economic and class affiliations keep diverse and separate groups in a competitive tension for rights and resources.

In the words of Tewa scholar Gregory Cajete (2015), our present crises come from a "narrow view of who we are, what the earth is, and what it is to educate our children so that they may live and think as human beings" (p. 20). The recovery of a community based on relationships with one another, including the Lakota concept of *Mitakuye Oyasin* (that we are all related), is central to his work. Similarly, Kanth (2017, p. 267) makes the powerful observation that whilst the westernized (he calls this Anglo-Norman) peoples are micro-oriented and reductionist in extremis, they are at a loss when it comes to putting the pieces back together: a good metaphor for what has been done to both planet, and peoples.

These transitions are directly culpable in obscuring an insight that is considered common across numerous indigenous and traditional life-ways: that the various capacities for instinctual and intuitive knowledge which accompanies these life-ways are not, in fact, primitive 'magic' or superstition, but are *endemic* to the human species. This is not to argue that certain groups of people are more, or less, instinctual and intuitive than others, nor is it a revival of the 'noble savage' argument, which elevates a mythic 'primitive nobility' of indigenous peoples in ways that are essentially racist. Conversely, this position, which is shared by a number of indigenous and non-indigenous thinkers (and is exemplified

<sup>9</sup> There are many other examples that could be given here, extending right up to the present day. For example, in greater Europe many millions perished in the papal efforts to retain political and spiritual supremacy during the Middle Ages. This was followed by the workings of the Inquisition, progressive industrialization, urbanization, and the rise of modern scientific medicine (which eradicated all practices that were deemed to be superstitious, such as those practices labeled 'witchcraft'). As was observed over a hundred years ago: "The noon of the papacy was the midnight of the world" (Wylie 1874, p. 18).

in the collective work of the Bioneers),10 is that we have forgotten what it is to be human, and how to live well on our shared planet. This *includes* many who have been affected by colonialism; that is, many contemporary communities of indigenous peoples.<sup>11</sup>

Eurocentric ideologies also emphasize 'universal truths' which conceal not only the pre-colonial histories and life ways of indigenous and traditionally living peoples, but the histories of Eurocentrism itself. Metis scholar Howard Adams (1995) writes, with sentiments that could be extended to encompass all peoples affected by the global colonial project of domination:

The establishment requires documented 'proof' that corroborates its prejudices and upholds the dominant Euro-American ruling-class perspective. Academics discredit Aboriginals' historical perspectives as 'myth' or 'advocacy,' and thus denigrate the works of Indian and Metis historians. White historians are obviously unaware of their rampant biases and subjectivity [ ... ] Eurocentric interpretations create a false consciousness among the colonists and the colonized. Eurocentrism does not allow for alternatives and thereby deceives Aboriginal peoples into believing that their history can be acquired only through the colonizer's institutions. Rather than critically attacking their oppressor's dogma, indigenous elites have accepted historical distortions to an alarming extent. Many Aboriginal academics are intellectual captives and have become part of the colonizer's regime [ ... writing] Indian and Metis history from a strictly Eurocentric and racist interpretation (pp. 31–33).

Adams makes one further, critical, point, which is especially relevant given that he is one of the very few indigenous academic voices writing about this subject in the 1990s, or perhaps (more accurately), being *published* in this time. He writes that an authentic Aboriginal consciousness "is an intrinsic or inner essence that lies somewhere between instinct and intuition, and it evolves from the humanness and spirituality of our collective, Aboriginal community. Without an indigenous consciousness, Indians, Metis, and Inuit people only claim to Aboriginality is race and heritage. That is not enough to achieve true liberation" (ibid, p. 45).

I argue with these scholars, and Cree philosopher and educator, Dwayne Donald (2010) in his statement that colonization is "an extended process of denying relationships. Everybody has been colonized. It doesn't matter what color your skin is, or where you're from ... Decolonization can only occur when we face each other across these historical divides." That is to say that we have all been collectively colonized, over a very long time, out of this integrated and intuitive relationship with other humans, other species, and the world around us.

This concept of decolonization is categorically separate from physical de-colonial processes (such as colonial withdrawal from colonized nations) and the various concepts of post-colonial intervention which also come under this heading. Whilst, as decolonization scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2012) has argued, colonialism is a *remembered* phenomenon, experienced since the Age of Exploration (and one that has made minorities of the indigenous people who were once sovereign in their lands), I posit that the colonization of the mind and body goes back further, into ancient ancestral places long abandoned by those who have since stretched across the world.

<sup>10</sup> The *Bioneers* is a global organisation that is committed to increasing socio-ecological literacy through combining scientific and indigenous knowledge. Speakers at their yearly conference are recorded and the proceedings are publically available on YouTube.

<sup>11</sup> Jeff Corntassel writes about this issue, quoting the words of Mohawk representatives Kanen'tokon Hemlock, Tyler Hemlock and Kahnawiio Dione: "we're doing our best in a lot of areas, but as a community we really have to ask ourselves that question of what are we doing? When we look at our community and seeing so much land being clear-cut; so many of the swamp and marshlands being land-filled; so many dump-sites. There's all these things within our own little community and we're supposed to be the Indigenous examples of living healthy and sustainably with the environment" (Corntassel 2012, p. 87). Corntassel goes on to add: "Being Indigenous today means struggling to reclaim and regenerate one's relational, place-based existence by challenging the ongoing, destructive forces of colonization. Whether through ceremony or through other ways that Indigenous peoples (re)connect to the natural world, processes of resurgence are often contentious and reflect the spiritual, cultural, economic, social and political scope of the struggle" (ibid, p. 88).

Traditional and indigenous peoples possess a *living* memory of their colonization, a generally violent transition with tragic consequences, made even more potent by the thoroughness with which traditional ways of living were destroyed. These violences have been historically justified by values that derive from Christian cosmological ideas, such as exceptionalism, progress (teleology), proselytizing, piety, salvation by works, and fear of God. This way of absorbing and eventually eliminating local ways of life progressively achieves absolute dislocation from cultural traditions and place over an extended period of time. Kanth (2017) calls it an 'export template', characterized primarily by its capacity for destruction. Colonialism and globalization are the most recent incarnations of focused colonization processes, with the goal of 'westernizing' through instilling replacement institutions (both social and economic), whilst displacing people from place in systematic ways.

Modern examples of colonialism in action are illustrative of how this works: note the focus on breaking the bonds of tradition, with place, and between elders and the younger generation. Families and communities are often physically displaced from their homes (to reserves, reservations, ghettos, or urban sectors), severing their kinship with place. A sector of the community can be employed in (or bound to) work away from home, compelling labor from husbands, fathers, and sons for mining, logging, and other industrial labor forces. Finally, child removal policies (such as in the Americas, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, Greenland, and elsewhere), directly impact the ability of communities to pass on traditions through child rearing and education, with profound intergenerational effects. This is by no means an exhaustive list, and does not include assimilation by choice, or assimilation as a result of forced economic adaptation or acquiescence to political regimes.

None of this replacement process happens under the heading of 'a culture', and yet what we refer to as 'western' is very much a culture: albeit, a broken culture in dire need of refashioning and repair. Westernization is the process of adopting a particular culture with a very specific history in which certain 'modern' ideas are conceived of as valuable. *How* this happens is through extended colonization. Kanth (2017) defines it in a way that simply could not be put more clearly, as:

a misguided mélange of diverse elements involving: a specious, quantitative view of 'progress,' a related materialist calculus of happiness, a misplaced, suicidal stress on asocial individuation as a societal ideal, a stark reduction of human roles solely to their part in the accumulation process (producer, consumer, etc.), a reductionist scientism that is also privileged as a theology that must be obeyed, a philosophical flaunt of elevating the human as 'above' nature, with the latter seen as no more than a manipulable, disposable tool, and a ruthless proclivity to use force, ironically, to 'free' us all of any vestiges of any 'culture' than disdains its vulgar visions (p. 268).

This constructed culture lacks the cohesiveness which arises from a long-established culture that is emplaced. As Kanth reiterates repeatedly in his work, this construction has no 'moral core" as it is not based on the affective bonds between people that, traditionally, hold a "functional culture" together (and is not limited to either its capitalist or communist variations) (ibid, pp. 248–49). Although the older histories of colonization are more difficult to weave together, it becomes obvious that at some point in their ancestral lineages, every human has been displaced by these very mechanisms. These same processes that we associate with colonial violence—the assimilation techniques, introduction of oppressive infrastructures, indices of 'progress' linked to power, ascension of hegemonic forces, encouragement of urban work practices, and conformity in the name of betterment—have all been used before. The colonials (themselves, colonized in this way) were following in an already long-established tradition.<sup>12</sup>

<sup>12</sup> To be very clear on this point, there are very obvious examples of the continuance of colonialism across the 'post-colonial' world that have been perpetuated by successive governments, institutions, and communities in ways which show absolutely no respect for indigenous peoples, nor aid their recovery from colonial violences. I am in no way adopting an apologist

Colonization now continues through the global distribution of secularized westernized institutions and power structures which undermine and ultimately, replace, the cosmological foundations of non-western cultural complexes with a post-Christian, techno-capitalist, scientifically-privileged, and isolationist culture which has the proven capacity to re-orient both axiology and praxis over a number of generations. I argue that the core socio-ecological issues we face, as a species, are a by-product of this very long and complex process of colonizing people the world over with an anti-ecological, myopic, and dislocating philosophy, resulting in an artificial and unsustainable worldview that, nonetheless, appears coherent and familiar. As philosopher Régis Debray (2000, p. 15) has written, "optimal transmission is transmission forgotten"; and indeed, we have forgotten. The radical step I am suggesting is to recognize that the type of interspecies and ecological awareness that is evident within traditional and indigenous life-ways was normal before the rise of the west, and a functional and reverent way of living respectfully in place. If all of our ancestors were linked to places and traditions similar in kind, perhaps it is to those who can remember being colonized who we should turn to for answers? The late John Mohawk outlined this same notion in 1997:

We've been living through this very, very terrible period of conquest [...] there's a possibility now of gathering consciousness among many hundreds of millions of people about how this is not only necessary but is a very good thing, a positive thing [...] I think that when we talk about re-indigenization, we need a much larger, bigger umbrella to understand it. It is not necessarily about the Indigenous Peoples of a specific place; it's about re-indigenizing the peoples of the planet [...] We have to reach ordinary, everyday people. Ordinary, everyday people have to have their sense of moral injustice ignited. It has to be raised a bit. They have to come to understand that they are called upon to care about what happens to the peoples and living things of this world. That's a huge job, but that's the called-upon spiritual call of the re-indigenization of the world (in Cajete et al. 2008, pp. 254–60).

#### **4. Steps to Decolonization**

In an online essay, the philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah (2016), tracks the lineage and legacy of 'the west' all the way back to Herodotus (circa 5BCE), and concludes that western civilization, and western culture, are ideas that justify racism and, more recently, Islamophobia. Beset with difficulties, he outlines this concept of western culture as the expression of an 'essence' linked to an identity that survives through time and space:

[From] the late middle ages until now, people have thought of the best in the culture of Greece and Rome as a civilisational inheritance, passed on like a precious golden nugget, dug out of the earth by the Greeks, transferred, when the Roman empire conquered them, to Rome. Partitioned between the Flemish and Florentine courts and the Venetian Republic in the Renaissance, its fragments passed through cities such as Avignon, Paris, Amsterdam, Weimar, Edinburgh and London, and were finally reunited—pieced together like the broken shards of a Grecian urn—in the academies of Europe and the United States [ ... ] How have we managed to tell ourselves that we are rightful inheritors of Plato, Aquinas, and Kant, when the stuff of our existence is more Beyoncé and Burger King?

Appiah is calling out the great illusion that this western idea has some cohesiveness to it, when what actually went into the construction of 'the west' is anything but glamorous. Appropriations of science, technology and philosophy (at least, the coherent parts) are largely stolen goods added to the 'corpus' of the late great Western culture over centuries of pillage from China, India, Near Eastern cultural complexes, and even the Iroquois Confederacy, from which America 'borrowed' and then

position here, rather, I am emphasizing that the unacceptable behaviors of those who continue the colonial project in contemporary times have a history that needs to be considered in terms that go beyond settler-colonial discourses.

mutated the principles of dynamic governance. For the US, as flagship for all that is western, this doesn't even leave Beyoncé, Burger King, Coca Cola, McDonald's and Disneyland, as none of these, not even the silver screens of Hollywood, are an entirely local (that is, Native) initiative.

If the idea of the west is fundamentally broken, as Appiah argues (and I agree with), then we need new and novel ways of thinking about our place in the world, and to bring into alignment the complex contradictions required for maintaining our shared and diverse communities. Postcolonial scholar Gayatri Spivak (2003, p. 77) offers similar thoughts, and suggests that we consider ourselves as planetary beings who might embrace our differences, rather than exhaust them through the combination of colonization, globalization and consumerism. The planet, as she reminds us, is ecological—we cannot be separate from it, and even more obviously, from each other, except by way of our reified concepts of alterity.

According to the biologist, Edward O. Wilson (2012, para. 13), the struggle of 'us versus me' will direct people towards self-interest if they feel they are under threat. Empathy, altruism, and cooperation are key survival traits for our species (evidenced by acts of self-sacrifice, which are honored with great ceremony), however, these are difficult to maintain in societies characterized by alienation and perpetual struggles for rights and resources. Buddhist biologist John Stanley, with Buddhist author David Loy expand on Wilson's idea: "By glorifying self-concern as never before, consumerism generates a mental environment of endless competition. It undermines empathy, altruism and cooperation" (Stanley and Loy 2013, p. 42).

Fear of difference, or being ousted by the perceived majority, is also a very real component of the modern societal condition with a reasonable basis for its perception as a threat. Whilst fear is natural for the survival of all animals and has its good uses (Tuan 1980), it is a vulnerability that can be exploited by others. Any animal, including humans, will defer to an authority figure far more readily when it is under threat than when it is calm, which means obedience (and social control) can prove relatively easy to secure under the sort of conditions commonly experienced by people living in modern, urban, westernized societies. Furthermore, the wider concern for the survival of our species seems to falter if it involves breaking with the group, as for any individual or small group to go against a dominant majority has been historically quite dangerous, often resulting in violence and death.

Sociologist Frank Furedi (2006, p. 176) has argued that modern fear has the appearance of being quite independent: we use the precautionary principle (be careful or else), and unspecific and diffuse terms like 'stress', 'risk', 'trauma', and 'vulnerability' which work to verify the existence of fear in its own right, rather than a fear of some named threat. The absence of clear sources of authority and the rise of the individual over and above cohesive communities heightens anxiety, which is by definition, a fear of unknown danger.

This 'societal condition', if that is an appropriate term for it, is a part of what deep ecologist Joanna Macy (and other systems thinkers, such as Fritjof Capra) call a *crisis of perception*, or a crisis which is, at root, created by human consciousness. Macy (2013) writes that this crisis is compounded by a dysfunctional view of ourselves as individualized and disconnected from others, and the greater environment.

It is the delusion that the self is so separate and fragile that we must delineate and defend its boundaries; that it is so small and so needy that we must endlessly acquire and consume; and that as individuals, corporations, nation-states, or a species, we can be immune to what we do to other beings (pp. 149–50).

In contemplating a way out of this state, Macy aligns herself with ways of relational thinking common in traditional and indigenous life-ways by proposing (Naess 1988) the concept of the *ecological self*. The premise is simple: instead of self-identifying only with the 'skin-encapsulated ego', an expanded sense of self *includes* the tree, the wolf, and the spider. Neither virtues, nor moral exhortation, are required: "Sermons seldom hinder us from following our self interest as we conceive it" (ibid, p. 155). And as Naess (1988) himself wrote: "We need environmental ethics, but when people feel they unselfishly give up, even sacrifice, their interest in order to show love for nature, this is probably in the long run a treacherous basis for ecology. Through broader identification, they may come to see their own interest served by environmental protection, through genuine self-love, love of a widened and deepened self" (p. 24).

From this perspective, as I would not cut off my leg (being part of my body), the idea of poisoning a river or destroying the Amazon becomes ridiculous. As Macy says, the trees are our external lungs. Drawing upon the work of fellow systems thinker, Gregory Bateson, Macy writes that the total self-corrective unit that processes information ('us,' or the self) is an open, self-organizing *system*, the boundaries of which do not at all coincide with the boundaries of the body. Breathing, thinking, and acting all occur *interactively* as currents of matter, energy, and information move through our bodies (Macy 2013, pp. 150–51).

This crisis of perception is founded in an outmoded worldview in which it was also promoted that humans are elevated as the masters of the world and, thus, are in possession of a license to exploit it (Boulot and Sungaila 2012; Kofman and Senge 1993). The 'encirclement' of the autonomous human by the environs (literally, meaning to surround) further encodes this separation in language. Environment is fragmented into urban and wild, garden and forest, built, suburban, lifestyle, and so on, with degrees of encroachment by other species permitted, or not, according to further classificatory rubrics. The late eco-philosopher Val Plumwood (2009)called this the delusion that we are *ecologically invulnerable* and outside nature, leading to "the failure to understand our ecological identities and dependencies on nature" (p. 117). This is both a peculiar, and an eminently modern dilemma. Perhaps we no longer know *what* we are?

Abram (1996), who appears to have devoted every word he has written to trying to *remind* us of these connections, puts it this way:

For the largest part of our species' existence, humans have negotiated relationships with every aspect of the sensuous surroundings, exchanging possibilities with every flapping form, with each textured surface and shivering entity that we happened to focus upon. All could speak, articulating in gesture and whistle and sigh a shifting web of meanings [ ... ] And from all these relationships our collective sensibilities were nourished (p. ix).

There is plenty of conjecture as to the proper manner in which to categorize human instinct (which appears to be Abrams' focus) and intuition, most of which is forced into a cognitive, scientific, or religious mode of comprehension, and all of which grazes being deemed supernatural, or impossible. In different ways, both Macy and Abram point to, the idea that 'the human' may *not* be as we have typically conceived of it in westernized terms: instincts are considered to be residual capacities that stem from our animal origins, and intuition is considered an oddity; you cannot interpret 'nature in the active voice', as Plumwood (2009) refers to it, with continued reference to the old, established, westernized cosmology. We need new origin stories. It is, as Zen teacher Susan Murphy (2013) writes,

possible to live straight on to our reality instead of hiding out from it in ten thousand different ways. To do so, first we have to see through the way our sense of the world has been framed by stories that form the bedrock of our civilization, stories that pose nature as a dubious force to be mastered and utilized, or put more bluntly, raped and pillaged for profit (p. 121).

Decolonizing our westernized selves, or seeing through these stories (as Murphy phrases it), becomes central to "engaging with the new reality breaking upon our heads" (ibid). If we, as a species, are to collectively overcome our shared sense of impending socio-ecological crises, then we have recover an understanding of what 'the human' really is, or at least begin to open up to the possibilities of what might be underneath the delusions we have about what clever tool-makers we are. Yes, humans *are* remarkable—but the inventory of what is considered remarkable in westernized contexts differs profoundly from what countless traditional and indigenous communities consider as

such. Four Arrows' observation here is salient. "Most people assume that we must use the 'civilized' wisdom of the past several thousand years as a baseline to establish future goals for solving problems ... [however,] research shows that when we operated under our Indigenous worldview we fared much better. Deeply acknowledging these facts might enable us to aim much higher" (Arrows 2016, pp. 9–11).

Many of the strengths found within traditional place-based communities are derived from very different cosmological arrangements to those found in predominantly westernized societies. This is not to suggest that there is always some kind of romantic or mythic harmony between humans and their environments, but that even in non conservation-oriented communities, there is an awareness of how to sustain basic reliance practices, as necessary. This is similar to Macy's concept of the ecological self. It *matters* how certain resources are regarded, because it directly impacts upon the continuance and health of the community. In Kanth's terms, this is *not* a utopia to be achieved, but an already-achieved, long-standing, way of 'being in place', strengthened by the affective bonds of community, which has been observed well before the onset of destructive modernist ideas (pp. 82–83).

Consider an example from Warlpiri Country, in Australia. As anthropologist, Miles Holmes, and Warlpiri elder and scholar, Wanta Jampijinpa (W.P.), write, no Warlpiri person would distinguish ecology from any other dimensions of their lives: *"Look at it this way. This ngurra-kurlu* [worldview] *is palka* [body, substance, presence]*: he's got his own heart, he's got his own kidneys, he's got his own liver. If you take one of them away, his whole body will drop* ... *"* (Holmes and Jampijinpa 2013, n.p.).

From a Warlpiri perspective, the *ngurra-kurlu* worldview *is* a body of relations, or dependencies. It is the connections, rather than the individual elements, that are of primary relevance. Ecological and systems scholars (Gregory Bateson and Arne Naess are both exceptional examples) have been trying to teach these ideas for a very long time, however, scholarly and social comprehension of what it *really means* to be immersed in the constant motion of relations with nature has been slow to catch on. Sustainability discourses seem mired in confusion as to what it is we are trying to sustain, whereas the addition of ecological systems thinking in the spirit of traditional and indigenous conceptions of a 'continuance' between humans and 'nature' have the capacity to re-orient these. In his ground-breaking work *Designing Regenerative Cultures*, Daniel Christian Wahl (2016) writes that "what we are actually trying to sustain is the underlying pattern of health, resilience and adaptability that maintain the planet in a condition where life as a whole can flourish. Design for sustainability is, ultimately, design for human and planetary health (p. 43).

This is a very good, utilitarian reason for paying closer attention to how traditional peoples have lived and what they consider useful to know. Whatever shape it appears in, however, cosmologies (or origin stories) remain *inherently linked* to the pragmatic aspects of sustaining a human community, which means that interrogating cosmological matters becomes central to comprehending how a worldview actually works. The idea of reverence (the indigenous or eco-spiritual consideration for nature, or self-as-nature) and utilitarian principles are *not* mutually exclusive, but mutually *dependent* upon one another to be successful.

Another very good reason for considering traditional practices is already proven by history, as noted by the ethnoecologist Gene Anderson (2014):

[If] people of traditional and local cultures and societies have solved these problems, or even done a little better than modern humanity has done, we can learn from those other cultures. Indeed many other societies have managed the world a great deal less destructively [ ... supporting] large populations over long time periods without destroying their environments (p. 15).

The suggestion I am making here is that, if our shared global socio-ecological circumstances are *also* inherently linked to the relationship between cosmology and practice, and one model has become dominant, then traditional and indigenous communities may have better models. The issue is that the coherence of these models has been obscured by the very crisis of perception, or worldview, that is under critique here, which sets different markers of value or usefulness for types and levels of knowledge, along with different criteria for what is, and is not, possible.

What appears to be emerging from these debates (and others) is that the westernized way of organizing spiritual, scientific, and cultural knowledge offers us no suitable frameworks for dealing with rapid ecological or even urban change. As Wilson (2012, para. 7.4) says, we have a Stars Wars civilization with Stone Age emotions, and our conquest of the earth has happened so fast that the biosphere has not had time to adjust. Luckily, heresy on this side of the river may not be so on the other side.

#### **5. Being 'Told' on Your Mind**

Countless indigenous nations have employed traditional ecological management strategies that have comprised of an awareness of, and responsibility for, human dependence upon the natural world. These are reckoned in holistic and multi-layered models which vary from place to place, and yet are largely comparable in their ethic of respect, reciprocity, relationship, reverence, and the maintenance of protocols, both ritual, and practical. Such protocols secure the continuance of traditional community life in ecologically sustainable ways. Oren Lyons Jr. (of the Onondaga Nation, Haudenosaunee) has said: "There's no habeas corpus in natural law. You either do, or you don't. If you don't, you pay [ ... ] The first peace comes with your mother, Mother Earth" (Lyons Jr. 2013, pp. 9–11).

Law is also fundamental to an indigenous Australian worldview, and is a word that denotes a code of living and associated values based on traditions established by living and spiritual ancestors, both human and more-than-human, which encompasses the entirety of the Australian history, Country (or, landscape), and the life that inhabits it. Law, Country, and Dreaming, when considered together, convey a worldview that has, at its heart, an ethic of *how to be* in the world. Aboriginal philosopher, Mary Graham (1999, p. 105) identifies two basic precepts central to how this worldview is organized: firstly, The Land (often called Country) is the Law, and, secondly, *you are not alone in the world*. By way of elucidation regarding the first:

The land is a sacred entity, not property or real estate; it is the great mother of all humanity. The Dreaming is a combination of meaning (about life and all reality), and an action guide to living. The two most important kinds of relationship in life are, firstly, those between land and people and, secondly, those amongst people themselves, the second being always contingent upon the first [ . . . ] all meaning comes from land (ibid, p. 106).

Graham's second precept hinges on two related aspects of indigenous Australian ways of being, kinship and Law.13 The kinship system employed extends into the land, and is organized into clans, each of which has their own Dreaming, which is a cosmological explanation of existence within place.<sup>14</sup> Each person has a number of relationships to other beings: ancestral, mythic, and land-based, although these are not distinctly separate categories. Unlike westernized concepts of animate/inanimate, there is no simplistic distinction between the living and non-living, as such, but a contrast drawn between presence (i.e., a full water hole) and absence (an empty water hole), which is different to the concept of 'death' or inanimacy. As a parallel, consider the example given by anthropologist, Colin Scott (2006), who has lived and worked primarily with James Bay Cree. He observed that, in a Cree worldview, there

<sup>13</sup> Graham's description of Aboriginal understandings of human motivations echo E.O. Wilson's almost exactly. She writes: "The Aboriginal understanding posits that the tendency to possess is more deeply embedded in the human psyche than is the tendency to share [ ... ] possessiveness precedes altruism and it therefore takes a higher order of abilities to maintain 'sharing' behavior than it takes to demonstrate possessive behavior [ . . . ] When the Aboriginal child learns to share, he or she is given food and then invited to give it back; social obligations are pointed out and possessiveness gently discouraged" (Graham 1999, p. 112).

<sup>14</sup> The English word Dreaming, or Dreamtime, is rejected by some Aboriginal communities as it presumes reference to a past and another place, rather than a Creation Time that is ongoing and happening now, with people, place and the ancestors converging in a co-creative non-linear present.

is no inanimate opposite to their most inclusive category for the living: *iyiyuu*. Seeking a comparative, he writes:

I more recently asked an eastern Torres Strait Islander, a man with a local reputation for philosophical insight, to give me the most inclusive term in the Miriam language for 'life' or 'living things.' He responded without hesitation, *idid lu*. But when I asked him for a term for non-living things, he was stumped. He remarked, 'we have a word for things which have died [ ... ] but in our way of thinking, everything, animals, winds, stars are *idid lu*.' So living things pass through some process of disintegration, but this passage is not a transition to inanimacy (p. 61).

Similarly, indigenous Australian ways of being do not conform (and have never conformed) to the idea of animism, existing as it does in relation with a presumed inanimate opposite. The world is saturated with life, and death is not conceived of as 'separation'. Graham (1999, p. 111) grounds her description of the sacred web of connections in what she calls a 'psychic level' of behavior common among natural entities, as grounded in common relation to the land. Language has various 'levels' in this conception, as I will explore: from instinctual 'knowing', to the communication that comes through 'paying attention', to opening to intuitive relationships and being 'told' things of use, or value, by the various interlocutors who are a part of a more-than-human world. Language (which is a broader category than simple verbal exchange, although it *includes* this) is operative amongst and between all entities in this way of being. Humans are not alone because they are connected and made by way of relations with a range of beings with whom they maintain relationships. Notice that it is the relation that makes the person, not the other way around. Graham writes:

To behave as if you are a discrete entity or a conscious isolate is to limit yourself to being an observer in an observed world [ ... the sacred] resides in the relationship between the human spirit and the natural life force. When there is a breach between the two, or rather, when the link between the two is weakened, then a human being becomes a totally individuated self [ ... ] loneliness and alienation envelops the individual [ ... ] the discrete individual then has to arm itself not just literally against other discrete individuals, but against its environment [ . . . ] (ibid, pp. 105–10).

Reflecting on how this worldview works, Graham points to collective responsibility for land and others, a communal sense of identity, and a deep appreciation of what it means to be human:

Aboriginal Law is natural law, in that if it was legislated at all, this was done not by humans, but by the spiritual ancestors of the Dreaming, so that Aboriginal Law is incapable of being added to, amended or repealed by any human agency [ ... ] this Law was/is always an attempt to understand what it is that makes us human [ ... ] Aboriginal Law could be said to be both an action guide to living and a guide to understanding reality itself, especially in relation to land as the basis for all meaning (ibid, pp. 115–16).

Warlpiri aboriginal elders, in the Tanami Desert region of central Australia, have a worldview described in terms aligned with what Graham is referring to. The current term they employ for this is *ngurra-kurlu*, which is interpreted as 'from country' or 'country within [people]' and it embodies the fundamental Warlpiri ethic of reciprocity between people and land (Holmes and Jampijinpa 2013). Holmes and Jampijinpa have stressed that each entity in a relation supports the healthy functioning of the other. *Ngurra-kurlu* was formulated inside and outside of community, and is based upon five elements: law (guiding principles), skin (responsibilities to people/country), ceremony (education and unity), language (communication between the elements), and country (home and identity). In Warlpiri worldview, the relation between Dreaming and Law is described in this way:

For Warlpiri, *kuruwarri* [law] is the highest reference for direction about how to live in the world. It is a strict but adaptable code that can be conceived of at multiple levels of

abstraction. In its most expansive sense, *kuruwarri* is the period widely known as 'the dreaming' [...] During the dreaming, ancestral beings traveled over the landscape and, through actions such as singing, hunting, copulating, and performing ceremonies, created all the features of the physical and social world. The dreaming ancestors are simultaneously both human beings and either nonhuman species or phenomena such as weather events. The dreaming period continues in the present day in that ancestral beings are manifest throughout Warlpiri country as landforms, elements, and organisms and can interact with Warlpiri through their cultural practices. The law is based in the narratives describing the dreaming ancestors' journeys [ . . . ]

"*See that tree. It is* shedding *its bark. No, we didn't tell it to do that. That is just its purpose, the kuruwarri [law] for that thing [...] If a plant is edible that is its kuruwarri. But it might also be there to teach yapa [aboriginal people] something. Like the seasons; they tell you what to do* . . . " (ibid).

Note that he says 'they tell you'—this description recurs again and again in indigenous accounts of how knowing happens when it is not limited by mental considerations or assumptions regarding the nature of the universe (Deloria Jr. 1978). The same connection between following Law, and being 'told' also figures in Lyons' account of a Six Nations worldview.

The spiritual side of the natural world is absolute. Our instructions—and I'm talking about for all human beings—our instructions are to get along. Understand what these laws are. Get along with laws, and support them and work with them. We were told a long time ago that if you do that, life is endless. It just continues on and on in great cycles of regeneration (Lyons Jr. 2013, p. 9).

In a worldview that is shared in concept (if not strictly in detail) across indigenous worldviews, humans are not the only ones who are acting on/in the world, nor the only one's 'telling' (Rose 2013). Abram is almost offhand about the obviousness of this idea. He says our own 'chatter' is a response to the world, so it follows that myriad things are also listening, or attending, to what we are doing. In fact, in our quest to represent, he writes, we have forgotten our etiquette, talking about entities behind their backs, as if they were not participants in our lives (Abram 2010, pp. 172–75). Plumwood (2009) offers similar observations in her work, as do others such as anthropologist Deborah Bird Rose (1992, 2004, 2011, 2013), who goes to great lengths to try and detail how active intelligences operate in the more-than-human world, as described from indigenous Australian perspectives.

Being 'told' is only possible outside of an anthropocentric worldview (unless the inner voice is attributed to divinities, such as Jesus and others considered able to 'speak' to the heart or mind). Being told may occur as you are, for example, sitting at a particular place, in which case the communicator is both the place and the 'person' with whom you are in relation. As Rose (2013) writes: "To live in a world of sentience is to be surrounded by others who are sentient" (p. 100). Being told appears in living, origin, and 'good conduct' or (ethical stories) as detailing *how to be* in the world, generally by an emissary (human or otherwise) who details the tenets of natural law and correct behavior (which can be general, or specific to the place being occupied at the time). This is part of the accepted context of many traditional and indigenous knowledge transmission systems and considered pedagogical, or a part of educational knowledge-yielding training systems. The trace of this can also be found in the traditional fable, or proverb, which conveys some kind of wisdom that is designed to be instructional.

In addition, the integrity of a person relaying the wisdom of such an event back to the community is not queried in the same manner it might be within atomized, rather than close-knit, communities. To follow two notable Native scholars, Vine Deloria Jr. (1978) and Viola Cordova (2007), the reality of these types of experience is accepted and confronted, rather than rejected as invalid. There is no reason to assume the 'incorrectness' of another person's experience, simply because it does not coincide with one's own. Suspicion (be it of motive, or content) is weighed differently when there are long-established kin relations. Consensus is quantifiable, interpretation can be shared with others,

and the content is weighed in utilitarian terms, in that what is good to know is *useful* in some way. Philosopher Adam Arola (2011), of the Ojibwe Anishinaabe, writes:

[There is a] shared tendency in the pragmatic tradition and the indigenous philosophical traditions of North America to have a conception of truth that is both universally applicable but also eminently revisable; for any account of truth *qua* function can be communicated as the *best* thing to believe, the best way to accomplish a task, that we know so far. But openness to the possibility that experience may show us superior ways to accomplish a task indicates that this conception of truth is always understood to be flexible and at the mercy of what is shown in experience (p. 558).

The idea here is to pay attention so as to be always open to the 'tell'; to make time for whatever or whoever is delivering the message. The trouble is how to explain what is called 'language', and yet, is something more. Abram (2010), in trying to articulate his own more encompassing view, writes that:

When we speak of 'language', we speak of an ability to communicate, a power to convey information across a thickness of space and time, a means whereby beings at some distance from one another nonetheless manage to apprise each other of their current feelings or thoughts. As humans, we rely upon a complex web of mostly discrete, spoken sounds to accomplish our communication, and so it's natural that we associate language with such verbal intercourse. Unfortunately, this association has led many to assume that language is an exclusive attribute of our species ... It is an exceedingly self-serving assumption (pp. 166–67).

Whilst Abram is trained on instinct as his primary means of describing human animal kinship and communication, the other aspect of communication is more intuitive. Whilst instinct is immediate (and somehow primal) in terms of *how* things are articulated, intuitive knowing through being told is different, although, according to indigenous peoples, both modes of being are equally shared across species . . . and mountain (people), river (people), weather (people), and so forth.

How this kind of 'telling' happens can vary. The message could be in 'Indian' or a local dialect, as anthropologists Paul Nadasdy and Richard Nelson detail. In a Koyukon (Alaskan) worldview, the animals understand human speech. "Each animal knows way more than you do. We always heard that from the old people when they told us never to bother anything unless we really needed it" (Nelson 1983, p. 227). Or, regarding the Kluane First Nations worldview: "I was told explicitly more than once that although animals in Kluane country probably cannot speak English, they most definitely can speak Indian" (Nadasdy 2007, p. 34).

Knowledge can also be directly received, described as 'spoken in your head'. In Australia, one of Deborah Rose's Aboriginal teachers, Old Jimmy Manngaiyarri, explains how he knows which way to go. He says the earth 'tells' him. When Rose asks, "How does it tell you?" Old Jimmy answers:

on your mind. Earth got to tell you all thing. Might be say: 'Ah, you leave me. What for you go away? You go over there you get hurt.' You got to go only what this earth tell you to. Where you going to go, you going to go right way. That's the way you got to follow this earth. Tell you everything right way [ ... ] That's nobody been tell you and me to do that? This earth tell you! In your memory. Well that's the way. You and me can't miss. Do it properly, looking after ourselves. Do the right thing. This earth understand EVERYthing. Think on your memory now! You got that word from this earth (in Rose 2013, p. 105).

Rose is left frustrated by this description, asking: "How do we learn the attention that would enable us to admit earth 'words' into our lives?" (ibid). The suggestion I want to make to her by way of response has been outlined already: recovering our instinct, our intuitions, and remembering *what we are* through displacing the veil of artificiality that has resulted from these lengthy processes of westernization. A particular kind of intimacy with habitat and knowledge of how the human animal

'works', is modeled beautifully within these traditional and indigenous ways of being if we choose to pay attention to the instructions given in countless ethnographic accounts.

In his wonderful account of life in Arctic worlds, Barry Lopez (2001) writes that "something eerie ties us to the world of animals. Sometimes the animals pull you backward into it. You share hunger and fear with them like salt in blood [ ... ] Few things provoke like the presence of wild animals. They pull at us like tidal currents with questions of volition; of ethical involvement, of ancestry" (para. 9.6). If we allow ourselves to be considered animals then these instinctual feelings should be of interest.15

#### **6. Learning to be Human (again)**

What are permitted as legitimate topics of inquiry in an academic context can be heavily restricted, with the exception of those modes of scholarship which engage a degree of political correctness with regards to 'cultural otherness'. Gillian Bennett (1987), a folklorist who studies afterlife beliefs, writes that: "No-one will tackle the subject because it is disreputable, and it remains disreputable because no one will tackle it" (p. 13). I have elsewhere called this racist, as the 'magical gloss of cultural difference' allows for just about any phenomenon in non-westernized contexts, whilst simultaneously banning the serious investigation of intuitive faculties 'closer to home', aligning these with religion, or even madness (Sepie 2016a).

Intuition, like the religious 'miracle', is generally considered an oddity or anomaly. We do have some words for it, such as second sight (or, 'the sight'), the sixth sense, clairvoyance, clairaudience, and others, however, these are considered as 'spiritual beliefs' and studied by scholars of religion. They are not necessarily considered to be *real*, but 'true for those who believe'. Interestingly, (as I have quietly tested for over twenty years), when there is little to no chance of such experiences being documented or publicly exposed, many westernized individuals will readily recall at least a few anecdotal accounts of foresight, sixth sense, direct insight, or verified intuition.

There are also countless ethnographic examples the world over that document in great detail case studies such as the one Rose explores, and plenty of Old Jimmy Manngaiyarri's who will explain clearly and directly how the 'tell' works. Jeremy Narby, in his work alongside Ashaninca communities in the Peruvian Amazon, was regularly confronted with the statement that local ecological knowledge came from the *ayahuasqueros*, or shamans, who said that their knowledge of plants came from the plants themselves. In his discussion of ayahuasca (the primary visionary botanical brew used by the *ayahuasqueros* in their role as healers and mediators with the spirit world), he notes that the very combination of the elements required for the brew is beyond 'rationality', as the westernized mind may conceive of it:

So here are people without electron microscopes who choose, among some 80,000 Amazonian plant species, the leaves of a bush containing a hallucinogenic brain hormone, which they combine with a vine containing substances that inactivate an enzyme of the digestive tract, which would otherwise block the hallucinogenic effect [ ... ] and when one asks them how they know these things, they say their knowledge comes directly from the hallucinogenic plants (Narby 1999, p. 11).

Although the botanical knowledge of indigenous Amazonians astonishes scientists, there is no acceptable explanation beyond the assertion that their extensive knowledge must be acquired through 'trial and error'. The related claim, that ayahuasqueros acquire communications directly from the ayahuasca brew, detailing the rest of their extensive medicinal repertoire (equally as impressive), is just beyond the explanatory faculties of scientists. The discussion as to how their knowledge is acquired,

<sup>15</sup> Authors such as the brilliant polymath, Lyall Watson, biologist Rupert Sheldrake, Stanley Krippner and others, have been detailing what might be thought of as extraordinary animal behaviors for some years now, whilst human equivalents are generally subsumed under the headings of 'culture' (non-Western), 'religion' (specifically non-Christian) or 'parapsychology' (not legitimate). (See Sheldrake 1991, 2011; Watson 1973, 1986, 1987; Webb 2013).

and how their medicine works, has been put aside in favor of the greater objective of appropriating 'shaman pharmaceuticals' for western doctors. Much of what is happening in these accounts comes down to understanding relationship, but not in the manner assumed by Narby's scientists.

Consider the explanation of Arola, who conveys a Native American, yet philosophical, position on 'knowing'. He writes that the only way to know what a bird *is* (for example), comes via understanding the web of relations in which it participates. It is in a *particular* place, at a *particular* time, and it plays a part in a structure of relations that is larger than the bird itself. 'Knowing' the bird is therefore dependent upon knowing its relation to the whole and yet, realizing that the relationship is fluid and thus, ever changing. In Arola's work:

An indigenous comportment ... must perpetually attend to the fact that the manner in which what is shows itself will be multifarious and unpredictable. Any attempt to fully conceptualize how things will appear to us prior to our experience of them will place undue limits on the presencing of things (Arola 2011, p. 557).

In other words, any *predetermined* concept that an animal, a stone, or a storm cannot speak (or exhibit other features that do not 'match' their designation), can silence their 'tell'. In plain terms, you cannot learn from anyone or anything if you are not open to the possibility that it has the ability teach you.

A. Irving Hallowell [1960] (2002), an anthropologist who made the very first attempt to explain this in scholarship, was noted for using an Ojibwe example regarding an old man's account of the 'aliveness' of a stone, and his openness to regarding the stone as a potential teacher (for a contextual discussion of this, see Bird-David 1999). Arola writes that there is simply no distinction in a Native American worldview between natural and supernatural, animate and not. Hallowell's account did not necessarily mean the old man *had* spoken to a stone, just that he would not close off the possibility that such an interaction might teach him something. "If we approach the stone as an inanimate object in advance, assuming that it is nothing but a mute object that sits in front of us [ ... ] we will never encounter a stone as anything more than such a mute object" (Arola 2011, p. 557). In this way of being, the same is true of mountains, rivers, and weather.

In the documentary film, *The Grammar of Happiness*, there is an extremely brief moment when the Pirahã men (in the Amazonia region) are hunting and listening to the monkeys, and one man asks another if he heard what they said (Everett 2008; O'Neill and Wood 2012). This was by no means a 'mystical' moment, but one scene in a documentary that had nothing to do with hearing and understanding the monkeys. For the Pirahã, this was an ordinary event, and it remains ordinary, provided we do not (as Arola warns) close down ontological possibility, which is the prerequisite for what can, and cannot, 'be' or exist.

Indigenous cosmologies (also called origin stories, or charter myths) generally leave room for considerably more ontological possibility than the dominant cosmological frameworks which continue to inform the processes of westernization. Cosmology sets the 'order' of things, quite literally, in predetermining the set of objects, events, and so forth, that are the terms of reference in the ontological, epistemological (knowledge), and axiological (value) schema of any cultural complex.

This may sound rather complex, but it is actually quite simple—if the creation story sets up certain conditions of possibility (consider God, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, or the Big Bang onset of a material universe), then values and beliefs about what is possible and what can exist (atoms, genes, talking birds) flow on from this. In the Big Bang version of events, and the cascading narratives of earth's beginning that fill in the time between then, and now, at no point does an animal, nor a stone, talk. In a fundamentalist view of the Christian Bible, however, this happened, but only in a 'special place' (the Garden) and the animal was evil. Nor can you find an ancestral spirit speaking to you in a dream in either of these origin stories. So ontology, or what is possible/what can exist, is fixed by these stories.

In the complex we refer to as 'western', these stories are a mixture of scientific beliefs and Abrahamic religious ideas (with a very healthy substratum of pagan-Christian dogma regarding the necessity of controlling errant spirits). These cosmological narratives ultimately inform what is 'allowed', and what is 'good' or 'useful' to believe or do. This worldview excludes everything being discussed herein, as it denies other species (and the more-than-human world) all potential for conscious interactions, personhood, and agency. The contrasts that can be drawn are stark.

All of these 'tells' are based, fundamentally, upon a core understanding of origin-in-the-sentient-land (earth as mother), on active attention to the kin relations for which we are responsible, and the other life forms with which we share a connection. Although they might be place-specific, origin in the land and kinship with a particular 'place' are not quite the same thing, in that land is the mother of connection to the *specific* places in which humans make home.

Rose (2013, pp. 102–3) notes a number of 'tells' that all depend upon paying attention—those that are visually or habitually cued (such as the march flies 'telling' that the crocodiles are laying their eggs), and those that rely on an internal sort of communication. Intuitive knowing, good listening, and familiarity with the landscape are all integral to 'figuring out the tell' that comes from a combination of connection, observation, and communications with other species. Usually this is called 'seeing', and 'hearing', rather than 'knowing', as such. Holmes and Jampijinpa (2013, n.p.) note *the land can talk to Warlpiri people*. This includes the nonverbal body language of Country.

Anthropologist Nurit Bird-David (1999), who has studied with the Nayaka peoples (of South India), describes their concept of kin, or relatives, as 'anyone whom we share with'. 'Sharing with' makes kin into persons. She also describes the Nayaka explanation of "talking with" other persons (in her example, trees) as something akin to 'attentiveness' to the variances (and invariance's) in the behavior, and responses, of those with whom the Nayaka are in relation. Seeing, hearing, talking, knowing, and other divisions, are collapsed in Nayaka ways of being, or perhaps not delineated in these discrete ways. Nayaka, indigenous Australian, First Nations and Native American descriptions all concur that intimate and useful knowledge comes from these sorts of relations.

There are also, importantly, reminders from indigenous scholars not to reify (or concretize) such experiences to appear as magical or purposeless mysticism. Cordova, for example, who was trained in the western philosophical tradition and 'studied white people' (as she put it), warned against divorcing pragmatism from the popular trope of the Native American who speaks to trees and birds and receives all knowledge from a spirit guide. She writes "If the American aboriginal peoples were truly of such a nature, they would never have survived. Embedded in the mythology, legends, and traditions, is a pragmatic core ... based on acute observation" (Cordova 2007, p. 213). In this defense against stereotyping Native Americans as 'mystics', Cordova might be misconstrued as suggesting a purely utilitarian connection with the more-than-human world, when in fact she eschews any such binary between myth and utility. Her perspective is inherently relational. Relationality, equally, collapses and disrupts privileged western categories of nature/culture and human/animal however this embedded ecological awareness is accompanied by responsibility, and what Cordova calls, *reverence*. Westernized people (beautifully phrased by Cordova as 'ghostly beings residing in decadent bodies on inanimate and alien ground) can, however, learn to be 'human' again (ibid).16

<sup>16</sup> None of these scholars are advocating for a 'seeker' culture in which westernized peoples descend upon indigenous communities for guidance (or appropriate ceremony etc.), and nor are they proposing that there is something 'more intuitive' about indigenous peoples in general. Many of the traditional ways of being discussed in this paper are endangered and have been for some time, in other instances they have been almost entirely eradicated from a people or region, as have the languages that help sustain them. It is not the responsibility of indigenous elders, scholars, or communities to 'save' the westernized peoples of the world; rather, pedagogical responsibility for un-learning has been occurring through networks of transmission which venerate these life ways without reduction, or through appropriations which have not been gifted. It is the responsibility of each individual within one's own community to help one another 'get right' with the world, and to understand/teach how to have 'right relations'. Gifting is nonetheless a part of what the Haudenosaunee, and others, see as part of the remedy for decolonizing the westernized. For instance, David Mowaljarlai, senior Lawman of the Ngarinyin peoples of the west Kimberley, has said: "We are really sorry for you people. We cry for you because you haven't got meaning of culture in this country. We have a gift we want to give you. We keep getting blocked from giving you that gift [ ... ] And it's the gift of pattern thinking. It's the culture which is the blood of this country, of Aboriginal groups, of the ecology, of the land itself [ ... ] What we see is, all the white people that were born in this country and they are missing

Robert Wolff (2001), a psychologist and educator who has worked and lived in Indonesia and the Pacific Islands, writes of his experiences as follows:

For many years my work took me to many parts of Southeast Asia and the Pacific. I recorded and collected what I could of methods of healing and herbal medicines ... It seemed that all such knowledge was being erased by our intolerance of other-ness. I was deeply saddened by what I believed was an irreparable loss. In our rush to create man-made chemicals, we rejected age-old knowledge of the riches of the earth that are freely available all around us. We invented machines, but ignored talents and abilities we must have in our very genes (p. 5).

Wolff recounts a story from time spent in Sumatra (in an aptly titled chapter called *Learning to Be Human Again*) about a walk he takes with a man called Ahmeed, when they came upon a snake in some bamboo (ibid, pp. 144–70). Ahmeed stops and motions, be silent—*no talking, stay still, quiet*. A large snake crawling along the ground crosses their path, maybe fourteen or more feet in length, uncommon in size and on the ground instead of a tree. Wolff, curious as to how Ahmeed knew the snake was there, questions him at length. All he would respond with, given the absolute lack of any signal from the snake prior to the encounter, was that he knew. He had neither seen, nor heard it, but he knew. The remainder of the chapter details how Wolff himself comes to learn how to pay attention, to find water, to hear the tell of a tiger (in Malay '*rimau*) and to recognize himself as a human in-relation to the knowledge and voices of the larger ecological unit in which he comes to recognize his connection to the whole. Once Ahmeed realizes the transformation that has taken place, he asks Wolff:

"Do you turn off the seeing?" Yes, I told him, I had to [ ... ] "Good," he said [ ... ] "You are alone [ ... ] It will be difficult for you to see because you do not have the village around you." He used the word *kampong*, suggesting not only a settlement, but especially the extended social relationships of a village, or a Sng'oi settlement (ibid, pp. 166–67).

This example highlights one of the biggest obstacles to actualizing some of the wisdom and praxis described here. To embody Macy's concept of the ecological self would be a necessary first step towards feeling less isolated, and heal the 'breach' that Graham mentioned in her description of an indigenous Australian worldview.17 A necessary second step would be for westernized peoples to adopt a systems view of what is referred to as 'consciousness,' in conceiving of the spaces-between-people as being *full* of communications and relationships, and our human selves as potential receivers to those communications.18

I, like many others, was not taught how to be in-relation-with the 'pattern that connects'—as Gregory Bateson (1991) famously phrased it—with the world around me, with other humans, and with other species. I was born *already colonized*. I descend from a variety of variously hued migrants without a clear blood memory or place to which I might *whakapapa*—to use a genealogical word borrowed

the things that came from us mob, and we want to try and share it. And the people were born in this country, in the law country, from all these sacred places in the earth. And they were born on top of that. And that, we call *wungud*—very precious. That is where their spirit come from. That's why we can't divide one another, we want to share our gift, that everybody is belonging, we want to share together in the future for other generations to live on. You know? That's why it's very important" (ABC Radio 1995).

<sup>17</sup> There are a number of initiatives in this area (called nature-connection modeling) which have emerged in the last fifteen years. In addition to the long-term work of Joanna Macy (Macy 2007, 2013; Macy and Brown 1998; Macy and Johnstone 2012) it is instructive to look at the work of Jon Young (Young 2016; Young and Gardoqui 2012) as supported through his work with Native American and San communities in Botswana, and by Richard Louv (2005, 2011) and Darcia Narváez (2014, 2016a, 2016b).

<sup>18</sup> This perspective is sustained by philosophy of consciousness researchers who pursue non-local ideas of consciousness, as supported by quantum physicists such as Amit Goswami (Goswami 2000, 2008, 2011; Goswami et al. 1993), David Bohm (Bohm 1994, 2002; Bohm and Edwards 1991; Bohm and Hiley 1993; Bohm and Peat 2000), F. David Peat (Briggs and Peat 1984, 1999; Buckley and Peat 1996; Peat 1994, 2000), and others. Unlike the old scientific view of consciousness as localized to individual minds, this view is consistent with the inherent principle of non-locality within indigenous and traditional cosmologies in numerous communities, throughout the world.

from the indigenous nations of my country.<sup>19</sup> I have no such word that can mean anything close to the same thing and the English language is all I know. The processes of colonization have converted and distorted all histories that might have aided me in knowing to whom, and to where, I belong. I know only that I lack any ancestral memory of a relationship with place, and have no knowledge of how to find, nor kill, nor be respectful toward, my own food.

I can attest, however, to the idea that it is possible for us to become aware of what we are being 'told,' and that we can learn, despite familial, social, or geographical disadvantages, to do this in modest ways. There is a *difference* between the chattering of my mind (in Abram's opinion, enhanced by literary culture), and the arrival of intuitive knowings or intuitive experiences with more-than-human nature as a component of waking consciousness. This confirms (to me) that we can begin from where we are, learn to pay attention to the conscious web of relations, and trust those intuitive moments that happen when we recognize what it really means to be a human, born on the earth, who is *also*, animal. We are not (as dictated by the fantasy of human exceptionalism) somehow *more* human according to the degree we move away from nature, but *less* human by way of this presumption.

#### **7. Conclusions**

Somewhat prophetically, Luc Ferry (1995) wrote that either ecology or barbarism would be the 'slogan of this century'. A barbarian, according to the ancient Egyptians, Chinese, and Greeks, is a term of reference for *those who did not know the language* (Nicholson 1999). Perhaps he was not referring directly to the language of the earth (or Rose's 'earth' words), and yet it would seem that this is precisely where we are 'at'. If we do not know the language personally, then we should be open to learning from those who do.

Trans-species psychologist, Gay Bradshaw (2013), in a memorable essay on ecological relations, wrote that the greatest myth is that we are all disconnected from the natural world: we are not and have *never been* disconnected, despite the sometimes overwhelming feeling that we are. She states that to imagine so is artificial, and it is a distortion that minds *can* be separate from nature:

[The] present planetary state that we wish to heal has been achieved by *denying connection*. Western society's false sense of separation has led to ethical distancing and legitimized an existence of psychological dissociation, normal [ ... ] Now when learning of Harp seal mothers who have no ice on which to give birth and garbage islands the size of states floating in the Pacific Ocean, we understand that their plight is intimately connected to the hand that tosses away the plastic bag (p. 134).

I could add to this the insight that if we are (and have always been) connected, then it must follow that the character of our societies are a reflection of the *quality* of those connections, or lack thereof. If Bradshaw, Macy, Abram, and others are right, then we must become *aware of biospheric sentience* to mitigate the precariousness of our current situation, "given our age-old reciprocity with the many-voiced landscape" (Abram 1996, p. ix). I concur with these ecologically-oriented thinkers, and a multitude of global indigenous voices, in their assessments of our current global socio-ecological problems, and I agree with their conclusions that the continuance of our species and others relied upon immediate correctives to these errors in worldview.

It is possible, as suggested by the novelist, Amitav Ghosh (2016, para. 8.8), that 'the urgent proximity of non-human presences' in the Anthropocene are *forcing* a kind of recognition upon us. He asks:

<sup>19</sup> *Whakapapa* is a Maori term that is used to refer to kinship ties, as both a noun (my whakapapa, or family tree) and a verb ¯ or process (as in, I whakapapa to that river). In Aotearoa New Zealand (unlike many other countries) indigenous words and concepts are used cross-culturally, with respect, as recognition of indigenous sovereign status despite on-going Crown ownership, and as recognition of *tangata whenua*, which refers to Maori ancestral and contemporary traditional guardianship ¯ of the land. Furthermore, the use of Te Reo Maori is a national language, and is encouraged and taught in schools. The ¯ adoption of appropriate words, such as the use of Maori greetings, is not considered to be cultural appropriation. ¯

Can the timing of this recognition be mere coincidence, or is the synchronicity and indication that there are entities in the world, like forests, that are fully capable of inserting themselves into our processes of thought? And if that were so, could it not be *also* said that the earth has itself intervened to revise those habits of thought that are based on the Cartesian dualism that arrogates all intelligence and agency to the human while denying them to every other kind of being? (ibid, para. 14.8).

Perhaps, if we might set aside our 'enchantment with how clever we think we are'20 and how far we have supposedly come as a species, there may yet be a chance in what is being called the era of the 'sixth extinction'. Hope is as important as action. Presently, myths, including those upon which contemporary religious lives are founded, are often conceptualized as important only in fictional, or developmentally immature terms (meaning what we believe in before we 'grow up' to accept the material realities of a naturalistic world). As such, appeals to intuition or nonlocal ways of knowing, and the possibility of sentience and intelligence in more-than-human beings (such as animals) are far outside the parameters of what is generally considered as possible. Yet my own beloved tomes of myths, legends, and fables now reside adjacent to rich ethnographies with which they have an extraordinary amount in common. Both afford glimpses into worlds in which animals have a 'voice' (as even Aristotle claimed), in which what we may be encouraged to deride as 'magical thinking' simply indexes a different way of living in the world; one in which animals are people and humans are just another kind of animal. These modern ethnographies are literally crawling with more-than-human life. Microbial ecologies—on us, in us, all around us—and the numerous plant and animal agencies that were once unfathomable except within the realms of storytelling or myth, are being gradually 'awakened' to. Do these life-forms *also* have 'tells'? Presumably, they do.

Decolonization, as a mode of engagement, involves far more than just ethnographic exploration. As a method, to decolonize is to interrogate all cultural, religious, and scientific content that is a part of westernization and assess these elements in terms of their contemporary utility. In other words, what is their *usefulness*? What is good and useful to know, and what is not? Determining utility can be differently rendered in relation to different ethical objectives, so what ethical objectives do we *now* wish to pursue? These are questions that are still being negotiated, and are a necessary precursor to determining the most efficient and effective actions in response to the socio-ecological demands of the present time.

The objective of decolonization, as a global project, is to reassess our collective, diverse, cosmological assumptions with respect to all our relationships, in a manner that allows for the reconfiguring of the dominant perceptions of humanity, and recalibrates human relations with otherness of all kinds. If decolonization is ultimately oriented towards improved human-to-human and human-to-earth relations as the initial goal (if decolonization is thought of as *relational* and *processual*), an increased awareness of connection with the wider multispecies environments within which we are all embedded must involve caring for it. Conservation follows connection (see Young 2016; Young and Gardoqui 2012).

If westernized peoples remain afraid and isolated, perceiving of other humans as a threat, then altruistic communal behaviors (following Wilson) are likely to remain idealistic goals. Rebuilding communities, by any means possible, is therefore of critical importance (see Cajete 2015; Wahl 2016). Cordova (2007, p. 213) wrote that it was 'unrealistic' to expect people to give up their time-honored view of human superiority, trapped (as they are) in 'mundane' bodies in a 'hostile' environment. Conversely, I think decolonization offers a way out of this chronic state of alienated insecurity. Decolonization may be a way to find a crossing into another way of being in the world, and perhaps one which still exists under the convincing artificiality of westernized cities, structures, families, and selves.

<sup>20</sup> This is paraphrased from a song lyric from *Saltwater* (1991) by Julian Lennon: "We light the deepest ocean, Send photographs of Mars, We're so enchanted by how clever we are . . . " (Lennon 1991).

The Yu'pik (real people) of south-central Alaska say that the separation of the 'outsiders' (or the westernized peoples) from nature is 'too complete'; that the colonizers are 'the people who change nature' (Lopez 2001, para. 9.67). Through this on-going colonization, the world has been turned upside down, and those who 'take the fat' (an Alaskan First Nations term) have nearly destroyed entire collectives of people who have kept the wisdom of how to live on earth, *safe*. We cannot change this history, but responsible, respectful, and restorative practices may be able to reverse some of the damages to people and their communities, to other species, and to the planet we share.

The oft-cited idea of the 'seventh generation' ethic, a gloss from popular representations of Native American thinking, has at its centre a revelation as to where we might find a beginning. The worldview of many indigenous and traditionally living peoples the world over *includes* westernized people in conceiving of a collective human future. Very recently, in the media coverage of the Standing Rock Sioux occupation for water protection, the people gathered stated outright that they are also protecting the future of the children and grandchildren of the police, the army personnel, and the population of the US in general. This type of statement surfaced several times.

In light of this, I suggest that the world's populations defer to the indigenous, traditional, and ecologically-centered visions of leadership and suggestions for change which already exist, and have done for some time.<sup>21</sup> Some of these suggestions are grounded in technology, engineering, and the wider sciences, repurposed to ecological goals, such as many of the solutions emerging from the *Bioneers*. Some are much older, and are literally grounded in place, tradition, and history. Both paths are needed, however, as directed by those who are *already* including the river, the wolves, the food, fire, and future generations in their sense of 'self'. As this paper has argued, there is wisdom there if only we might learn to hear it.

In closing, it is perhaps good to think with a concept from Bawaka Country and apply it to what lies ahead. In YolNu mathematics (the word YolNu have chosen to represent their technical systems of reckoning),<sup>22</sup> there is a concept of *Gänma*, which is where the salt water and the fresh water meet.

As the fresh water comes off and out of the land and sky, it meets the salt water of the sea. There is a mixing, a meeting and mingling, that brings difference together without erasing it. *Gänma* thus means new life and new ideas. It evokes knowledges coming together. There is power and knowledge with two waters mixing ... *gänma* has to be actually be two ways. Western knowledges too need to learn ... people are not separated from nature. The earth is not separated from the sky. Songs and stories are not separated from people and objects. All these things exist as part of one another and come into being together ... [as Lalak Burarrwanga explains] ... you have to start from the place—whoever, whatever clan you are you start from your own land. And then you sing what's there in the land (Lloyd et al. 2016, n.p.).

**Acknowledgments:** Research for this paper was undertaken as a part of my doctoral work, with the support of the Department of Geography at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. I wish to thank Kelly Dombroski, David Conradson, Joela Jacobs, Cushla Dargan, and Andrew Sepie for their guidance and assistance in conceiving of this paper.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.

#### **References**

ABC Radio. 1995. *The Law Report: Aboriginal Law (David Mowaljarlai)*. Radio Broadcast; New York: ABC Radio.

<sup>21</sup> As many indigenous elders, scholars, activists, and communities have strongly advocated for indigenous leadership, especially regarding ecological issues, and will readily draw parallels between their own traditions and other indigenous traditions around the world, I offer this paper with due respect and support for this initiative.

<sup>22</sup> "YolNu mathematics, like Western mathematics, is the science of patterns, groups, relationships, rhythms and space [ ... ] it has to be linked to place" (Lloyd et al. 2016, n.p.).


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Tuan, Yi-Fu. 1980. *Landscapes of Fear*. Oxford: Blackwell.

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© 2017 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

## *Article* **Narrating Entanglement: Cixous' "Stigmata, or Job the Dog"**

#### **Christina Gerhardt**

Languages and Literatures of Europe and the Americas, University of Hawai'i, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA; cg2020@hawaii.edu

Received: 28 June 2017; Accepted: 11 October 2017; Published: 15 October 2017

**Abstract:** Cixous' "Stigmata, or Job the Dog" sits at the intersection of animal studies, autobiography, narrative voice, and philosophy. In this essay, I focus on narrative voice and trace its shifts—from human to entangled to animal. At the heart of this essay rest questions about what epistemological shifts are necessary vis-à-vis literature, such that an animal "voice" can be heard as a narrative voice. What would constitute a non-anthropocentric autobiography? What would constitute one narrated by, in this instance, an animal, specifically, a dog? In answering these questions, this essay at once grapples with philosophical-theoretical paradigms, with animal studies, with literary genre studies, and especially autobiography, and with narrative voice. I explore these questions with the aim of contributing to what Derrida has called zoopoetics and particularly to the study of non-anthropocentric autobiography.

**Keywords:** autobiography; genre; narratology; narrative voice; human; animal; anthropocentrism; entanglement; Cixous; dogs; zoopoetics

#### **1. Introduction**

Animals traverse the landscape of Hélène Cixous' writing. They include cats in *Messie* (1996); chickens and a three-legged dog in *Le jour où je n'étais pas là* (2000); the pigeon and the dog in *Les rêveries de la femme sauvage: Scènes primitives* (2000); the ox in "Bathsheba or the Interior Bible", the lamb and the wolf in "Love of the Wolf", the birds, especially the stork in "Unmasked!" and the donkey in "Writing Blind: Conversation with a Donkey" in *Stigmata: Escaping Texts* (1998). While the animals assume different shades of meaning depending on their specific context within the trajectory of Cixous' oeuvre, they consistently put forward questions about borders, about difference, and about alterity.

Cixous opens the section of *Stigmata* titled "From My Menagerie to Philosophy" by grappling with the difference between human and animal ethics. In that first chapter titled "Shared at Dawn", Cixous wakes up and discovers what she presumes to be a dead bird stuck in the outside of the latticework of her apartment's balcony (Cixous 1998b). Yet, she realizes, through the cat's pounce, that the bird is both not dead and not on the outside but on the inside of the latticework, and hence balcony. She puzzles over what to do: "I cannot separate the two without getting cruel" (Cixous 1998b, p. 177). That is, her wishes conflict with those of her cat, Thea's (those of the bird go unmentioned until the end. But Cixous is implicitly aligned with them). Ian Blyth and Susan Sellers, in their study of Cixous' writings, describe the scene, quoting from Cixous' texts, as follows:

Although she [Cixous] 'recognizes the rights animals have among themselves' (p. 178), as a human, Cixous still instinctually intervenes when the dead bird suddenly comes to life in her hands. Not wanting 'something to die in my house' (p. 178), she catches the bird and releases it out of the window. However, in doing this, she is faced with the anguish and 'sorrow' of Thea (p. 179), who searches in vain all day for the now missing bird. Cixous realizes that, in acting as a human, she has 'betrayed' her cat (p. 179). This realization leads her into the position of imagining herself in Thea's place, behaving as Thea would do, becoming genuinely other. (Blyth and Sellers 2004, p. 65)

What would it mean to imagine the world from the vantage-point of the animal, in this instance, the cat? What would telling the story of the overlooked reveal?

In what follows, I examine Cixous' autobiographical essay, "Stigmata, or Job the Dog", focusing on the vantage point of the dog and delineating the experience of the borders articulated (Cixous 1998a). In so doing, I consider how this story aims to present or to narrate from a non-anthropocentric point-of-view. How, in other words, does this story and Cixous' writing suggest, as Cecilia Novero put it in an analysis of a dog in Kleist's "Beggar Woman of Locarno", a reading that is attuned to an alternative "cognitive mapping of the world" (Novero 2015, p. 492)? As Cixous states it towards the beginning of the story: "At the bottom of the bottom of all my ignorances, I must have had a prescience inaccessible to myself, that this mydog [not sic] was something else, that he *was*, much more than I, and that I do not know what a dog is nor what being a dog is" (Cixous 1998a, p. 186). In other words, what is being dog and how does Cixous' story narrate it?

#### **2. Fips the Dog**

In her autobiographical essay, "Stigmata, or Job the Dog", Cixous tells the tale of the dog, Fips, she had as a young child. More specifically, she shares how Fips experiences the effects of borders created by nation-states, colonization, race, class, and religious beliefs, which are incomprehensible to the animal. The story takes place in Algiers, Algeria, in a predominantly Algerian and Muslim neighborhood, that is, not in the part of town in which most of the French colonizers resided. Cixous' father was a physician and a humanitarian, who chose to live in the rather destitute neighborhood, in order to be able to offer his services to the area's residents. "The Arabs", Cixous tells us, read her family as French, that is, as colonizers. "*Arab*", she writes "is what one said at the time, though it was in no way the appropriate word, no one said Algerian, but rather Arab without any distinction. The Arabs. The word Arab belonged to French colonization" (Cixous 1998a, p. 183). She delineates the borders circumscribing relations or relating.

This reading of her family as French, she states, was "an absolute misreading" (Cixous 1998a, p. 183). For her, this reading compounds the fact that her family had just, as she puts it, "re-become" French after the Nazi era and World War II: "as Jews during the war [World War II and the Nazi occupation of France] we were thrown out of French nationality, we became nothing" (Cixous 1998a, p. 183). In other words, as a French Jew and as humanitarians, she and her family did not really identify as only French or with the French colonizers in Algeria. Additionally, she tells us that her family was originally Spanish on her father's side and German on her mother's side. "But the history of nationalities had in turn made us French, de-French and re-French, and we were Jewish. Yet we did not identify with any nationality. For the Arabs this jewfrenchness was a double original sin" (Cixous 1998a, p. 183). Cixous' identity thus de-stabilizes a whole range of borders–ones created by colonization, by wars, and by nation-states, and ones suggesting differences of nationality, race, class, and religion. Cixous shows us, however, how slippery the borders are between each of these categories: she sometimes fell into more than one or no category or slipped from one to the next and back or on (re-French). And as humanitarians, her father and family overstepped and overlooked boundaries determined by race and nationality and class and religion to emphasize humanitarian aid for well-being and health instead.

Fips, Cixous' dog, bears the brunt of these confusing border crossings. As long as her father is alive, her family's presence is tolerated in this neighborhood. As soon as he dies, discord ensues. Neighboring residents begin to pelt their house with rocks: "It was then that from outside the garden the hunt was unleashed against us. Our Arab neighbors encircled us in a daily siege" (Cixous 1998a,

p. 189).1 Fips was kept on a chain outside the house, so that he would not attack any attackers. "Ten times a day", Cixous tells us, "there rained on the family a hail of stones. In no time, the volleys that wounded our spirit made Fips into a mad dog" (Cixous 1998a, p. 189). As a result of the daily barrage, Fips reacted, not understanding the religious, political, and colonial sources of these tensions.2

The figure of Fips thus pushes to the forefront all the categories and borders that humans establish for themselves, which he does not understand.<sup>3</sup> Fips reveals what I have called elsewhere the animality of humans.<sup>4</sup> That is, these categories at once classify and organize peoples by nation, by religion, by race, by border. But these categories also lead to the very violence brought about by their delimitations. In other words, as Novero puts it, "[it is] the landscape of human devastation that is the product of anthropomorphic insight" (Novero 2015, p. 492), referring to human speciesist claims or perspectives. Or, as Bowker and Star argue in *Sorting Things Out*, "To Classify Is Human".

In this essay, I examine Cixous' "Stigmata, or Job the Dog" and how his narrative voice, if one can call it that, reveals human-animal entanglement.5 In so doing, the tale contributes a multispecies narrative to the field of eco- or zoopoetics. Cixous' essay and my analysis consider what might constitute a non-anthropocentric6 or animal autobiography.7 As such, it contributes to the Anthropocene-induced need to rethink epistemological and literary frameworks: the borders or genres, and their defining conventions, such as narrative voice for autobiography.8 In order to capture the *multispecies* narrative, rather than say, a cyno-narrative, the notion of sympoeisis, drawing on Donna Haraway, who has proposed it in conjunction with "Sympoeisis: Becoming-With in Multispecies Muddles", will be critical. That is, this re-framing would entail a very constitutive shift in how we define being—as entangled, as multispecies, as a muddle—and would be celebratory of this entanglement or of this becoming with and of this muddle.

#### **3. Animal History—Human History: Autobiography of a Dog**<sup>9</sup>

Cixous describes "Stigmata, or Job the Dog" as "an autobiographical narrative" (Cixous 1998a, p. 183). Yet whose autobiography is it? And what constitutes an autobiography? "Stigmata" begins, she states, with a *felix culpa* (blessèd wound), which will play a key role later in the text, hence the title "Stigmata". The term, she states, comes to us from St. Augustine: she references his *Confessions*, while the term originally appeared in his *Enchiridion*. St. Augustine is, of course, a border crosser extraordinaire, as his *Confessions* reveals. The son of a pagan (who converted to Christianity on his deathbed) and a Christian, he became one of the Church Fathers of early western Christianity. He was

<sup>8</sup> On this pivotal shift, see also (Braidotti 2009, pp. 526–32; 2006, pp. 197–208).

<sup>1</sup> See previous page for Cixous' reasons for her use of the term.

<sup>2</sup> Fips' behavior is narrated by Cixous and his behavior is narrated as a response to these borders.

<sup>3</sup> Dogs are, of course, territorial and thus protect a different array of borders. But these borders are not the ones on which Cixous focuses in this essay.

<sup>4</sup> By contrast, Cixous' term humanimality or humanimal considers the fluid border between the human and the animal. Marta Segarra, Hélène Cixous' Other Animal: The Half-Sunken Dog," "Hélène Cixous: When the Word Is a Stage," Special issue of *New Literary History* 37.1 (Winter 2006): 119–34. See also the work of philosopher Cora Diamond.

<sup>5</sup> Although I am aware of the terms "nonhuman animals" and "human animals", I will use the terms "animals" and "humans" throughout this essay.

<sup>6</sup> Anthropocentrism is, of course, the focus on the human, e.g., in discussions related to the Anthropocene, the "Anthro" names that humans created climate change, which will leave a trace in the geologic record ("cene"). This human-centered viewpoint is being challenged in discussions beyond the focus on climate change, to which this article aims to contribute. As Margaret Ronda put it: "We might see *anthropos* and its related term *anthropogenic*, then, as words that speak to the non-identity and internal estrangement that accompany this species-wide agency" (Rigby 2016, p. 103).

<sup>7</sup> On animal autobiographies, see also (Colombat 1994; Dwyer 2015; Herman 2016; Huff and Haefner 2012; Middelhoff 2017).

<sup>9</sup> Theodor W. Adorno, in his 1932 lecture "Die Idee der Natur-Geschichte" proposed the use of the hyphen between *Natur* (nature) and *Geschichte* (history) to underscore how each informed the other: how nature cannot be thought without (human) history and (human) history cannot be thought without nature. Or, as he puts it in *Negative Dialectics*: "It would be up to thought to see all nature [ ... ] as history, and all history as nature" Theodor W. Adorno, *Negative Dialektik*, *Gesammelte Schriften*, ed. Rolf Tiedemann, vol. 6 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1997) 353. *Negative Dialectics*, trans. E.B. Ashton (New York: Seabury, 1973) 359. (Adorno 1997, vol. 6, p. 353; 1973, p. 359). I use the hyphen here, in human-animal, to suggest a similar relationship or to put the human and animal into a configuration or relationship with one another.

born in Thagaste, Numidia, present-day Algeria and then part of the Roman Empire. Despite his Berber heritage, his family was Romanized and spoke only Latin at home.

In mistakenly stating that the term *felix culpa* appears in St. Augustine's *Confessions*, rather than his *Enchiridion*, Cixous refers back to or re-inscribes her text into a genealogy of the genre of autobiography. "It is an autobiographical narrative, which does not mean very much, because an autobiographical narrative is at the same time a creation" (Cixous 1998a, p. 183). Cixous dwells on the genre, and what unfolds appears to offer a rumination about animal and human autobiographies, and on the place of narrative voice in both.

Cixous focuses on the wound referred to in the term *felix culpa*, considering its appearance in Joyce, Proust (buried), Genet (founding secret), and, quoting Genet, in Rembrandt. She thinks, at first, it might be very "Catholic" (Cixous 1998a, p. 182). Then, "as it became visible in [Derrida's] 'Circonfession'", she revises this assessment and states "it wasn't Catholic. This text is about circumcision, a wound inflicted on someone who is not present at the scene of his own mutilation" (Cixous 1998a, p. 182). Of course, the person is present at the infliction of the wound. They are (and are) not cognizant or aware of the wound being inflicted. As "Stigmata" reveals by its end, it, too, is about a wound inflicted and about not being fully cognizant of what it bespeaks. As I argue in what follows, the wound in Cixous' essay, in essence, expresses the human inability to hear, see, or think a non-anthropocentric narrative.

Cixous continues on wondering: "is the fertile wound [ ... ] part of the masculine phantasmal makeup? And is there anything analogous in women's texts? What about my own relation to the inscription on the body of psychomythical events? I wrote a text called *Stigmata,* or *Job the dog*. Or else *The Origin of my Philosophy*. Or else *First Symptoms of Writing*. Or *The Opening of the Mouth*" (Cixous 1998a, p. 182). In his foreword to *Stigmata*, Derrida writes: "I hear it as a blessing of the *blessure*, a great poetic treatise on the scar at the origin of literary writing" (Cixous 1998a, p. ix). If this is so, what is this scar or wound at the origin of literary writing? I will come back to her question about the wound and its appearance in "Stigmata" in a moment.

First, let us return to the borders. This vexing topic rears its head in many forms across Cixous' oeuvre. In "The School of Roots", she discusses borders, grappling first with the not un-related topic of assemblings and matter (Cixous 1993, p. 128). "When I began to read Clarice [Lispector,] I was enchanted by a tiny sentence in *The Stream of Life* that asked: '*And the turtles?*' This is her oriflamme. The forgotten of the forgotten" (Cixous 1993, p. 130). For Cixous, the oriflamme or rallying point in the struggle, is the thing overlooked, the thing forgotten. "What would the two natures be for Clarice?" (Cixous 1993, p. 130), Cixous muses:

"The first, the one I loved deeply, is the extraction from the repressed of what we are made of, i.e., *matter*. Clarice Lispector brings back more than the turtles to our feeble memories—because we notice tortoises from time to time; she returns the ability not to forget *matter*, which we don't notice: which we live, which we are. Clarice descends the ladder to the point of returning to think over matter. We are unable to think matter because we consider it to be invisible. We are made of assemblings that hide their truth, their atomic side, from us. We dislike matter, that is, ourselves, because we are destined to matter, because anonymous matter is called: death. (Cixous 1993, p. 130)

This matter. We dislike matter. We are unable to think matter. We consider it to be invisible. Donna Haraway, in her ground-breaking study, *Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene* argues: "It matters what matters we use to think other matters with: it matters what stories we tell to tell other stories with" (Haraway 2016, p. 12). The two natures for Clarice in *The Stream of Life* might be the very matter of bringing the turtles and our disregard for matter and our assemblings as Cixous puts it, that is, our entanglement, back into the conversation.

The entanglements of human-animal suggest a need to shift how we perceive, think, and write entanglements. On the writ large, Timothy Morton states in *Hyperobjects* that in this new age of the Anthropocene, which is new historically and geologically, "we are no longer able to think history as exclusively human [ ... ] The thinking style (and thus the writing style) that this turn of events necessitates is one in which the normal certainties are inverted or even dissolved" (Morton 2013, p. 5). Morton argues that this non-anthropocentric thinking demands a geo-philosophy, a model put forward by Gasché, that is, one that puts earth thinking at its center (Morton 2013; Gasché 2014). On the entanglements, Haraway continues: "human beings [ ... ] often forget how they themselves are rendered capable by and with both things and living beings" (Haraway 2016, p. 16). Doing so, she writes would mean "to re-member, to com-memorate" (Haraway 2016, p. 25). So, it would lead to a shift in thinking and remembering, a re-membering or com-memorating or restoration of beings to the web or configuration, and a return of their voice.10

Returning to Cixous' questions posed at the outset of "Stigmata" in her preamble to the tale of Fips, about whether the wound is Catholic or "part of the masculine phantasmal makeup", the wound articulates borders and, more so, border crossings, and also marks the intersection of the human and the animal and bespeaks the attempt at an animal narration. She wonders about her text, "called *Stigmata,* or *Job the dog*", which she writes could also be titled "*The Origin of my Philosophy*. Or else, *First Symptoms of Writing*" (Cixous 1998a, p. 182). Indeed, the origin of philosophy, is, de facto, if one shifts to a geo-philosophical lens, following Gasché, one that com-memorates entanglement. Cixous writes it could also be entitled: "*The Opening of the Mouth*" (Cixous 1998a, p. 182): who speaks, who narrates? And who speaks about whom? Or who narrates whom? Or, most provocatively, who narrates with what awareness of and acknowledgment of entanglement?

#### **4. Writing from the Wound—Entanglement**

While Cixous' dog Fips experiences a barrage of abuse mentioned at the outset as a result of human constructed borders, Cixous regards him with admiration and shame. "I marvel, my heart is loaded with a bitter joy and with shame, and I admire this dog, with the humility that in the past I was never able to feel, because a sacred terror prevented me" (Cixous 1998a, p. 184). A marveling, a shame, a humility, a sacred terror, invoking, thusly put, the Kantian sublime, and yet she continues reworking that idealist model by disavowing any universal law. "The manifestation of Fips", Cixous continues, "is the proof that there is no universal or absolute law of effacement" (Cixous 1998a, p. 184). Paul De Man had written about "the giving and taking away of faces, with face and deface, *figure*, figuration and disfiguration" vis-à-vis autobiography in "Autobiography of Defacement" (De Man 1979, p. 926). In this essay, De Man considers prosopopoeia vis-à-vis a stone. Following De Man's description, more recently Margaret Ronda has analyzed the importance of giving a face or a voice to a figure in anthropogenic poetics (Ronda 2014, p. 104).11 Cixous' recognition that Fips "is the proof that there is no universal or absolute law of effacement" challenges at once idealist philosophical models but also anthropocentric autobiographical models. Cixous continues, returning to the topic mentioned at the outset of borders. She recognizes Fips' desire to cross the borders:

Fips, you wanted so much to cross, all your forms outstretched every day to try to pass through, to shatter the walls, you wanted to break the prisons, lacerate the skins, your soul called for deliverance, never have I seen a being in such furious rebellion against the ancient fates that fix our bounds right from birth, the polices, the stupidity, *les bêtises* that have debasing powers over every creature who goes beyond. (Cixous 1998a, pp. 184–85)

<sup>10</sup> Of course, voice is often thought to related to humans as speakers of a human language. Yet this fact does not disavow the possibility of an animal voice. On this issue, see also Kári Driscoll, "An Unheard, Inhuman Music: Narrative Voice and the Question of the Animal in Kafka's 'Josephine, the Singer or the Mouse Folk," *Animal Narratology*, edited by Joela Jacobs, a special issue of *Humanities* 6.2, 26 (2017).

<sup>11</sup> For a more detailed analysis of the importance of the face, figure, and figuration, vis-à-vis anthropogenic poetics, read together with Bruno Latour's *An Inquiry into Modes of Existence: An Anthropology of the Moderns* (2013), see also Margaret Ronda, "Anthropogenic Poetics," *Writing on the Anthropocene*, edited by Tobias and Kate Marshall, special issue of *Minnesota Review* 83 (2014): 102–11.

She recognizes his desire to cross *human* borders, the ones fixed from birth. And as the text mentions, she recognizes that these borders are "debasing". They reduce "every creature". Despite her expansion of the creatures impacted by borders to encompass "every creature", what borders are experienced and how of course differs between humans and animals. But as argued in the opening section of "Stigmata" (Cixous 1998a, pp. 183–84), Cixous' essay pinpoints the animality of humans.

Then, the text shifts: Cixous' continues her first person point-of-view but states that Fips "is the innocent author of the signatures that inaugurated my book on my feet and my hands" (Cixous 1998a, p. 185). The narrative point of view is, in other words, entangled. Who is the author? Who is speaking? Here, Cixous' essay recalls the entangled text in E.T.A. Hoffmann's *The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr*, which consists of the autobiography of the Tomcat Murr spliced together with a biography of composer Johannes Kreisler (Hoffmann 1999). In this satirical novel, slow and subtle transitions take place, too. At first, the narrative seems to shift back and forth between the two texts. Even when sentences are abruptly interrupted at a chapter's end, and the other narrative voice continues in a new chapter, the narrative strands and voices are distinct and clear. Eventually, however, the sentences from one narrative become entangled with and flow into those of the other: a sentence left dangling at the end of one narrative (voice) and chapter is seamlessly picked up and continued in the other narrative voice and next chapter, grammar intact. A coincidence? It leads the reader to re-read, to wonder where one begins and the other ends. Entanglements abound: of genres, of human and of animal, and of narrative voices.

In previous autobiographical narratives Cixous had split the narrative voice. In *Le Livre de Promethea*, as Blyth and Sellers write, Cixous "splits her writing self in two [ ... ] Consequently, there are not one, but two narrators in *Promethea*: 'I' and 'H'" (Blyth and Sellers 2004, pp. 47–48). As Blyth and Sellers put it, "This destabilizes the very foundations of autobiography, a genre of writing which relies on the uniqueness of the writing I for its definition" (Blyth and Sellers 2004, p. 47). The hallmarks of autobiography typically include: (1) a first-person narrative; (2) a chronology of life events written and narrated retrospectively, generally late in life; and, (3) by a prominent person. Countless writers and works have, of course, thwarted each of these conventions. Gertrude Stein wrote *The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas*, her partner. *The Autobiography of Malcolm X* was told to Alex Haley. And David Eggers' autobiography, *A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius*, was written when he was thirty and *brought* him to prominence.12 As to the first person narrator, as Philippe Lejeune wrote, "In order for there to be autobiography (and personal literature in general), the *author*, the *narrator* and the *protagonist* must be identical" (Lejeune 1989, p. 5). But in Cixous' "Stigmata", an entanglement of human and animal and thus of narrative voice appears.

The entanglement of human and animal constitutes the second section of "Stigmata" (Cixous 1998a, pp. 185–86). To be sure, it is a physical entanglement. "I have his teeth and his rage, painted on my left foot and on my hands", Cixous writes, "I never think about it, because the little mute lips of the wounds have traveled, what remains of them on my feet and my hands is only an insensible embossment, the marks of the cries are lodged on the sensitive very sensitive membranes of my brain. I have that dog in my skull, like an unrecognizable twin" (Cixous 1998a, p. 185). The focus is not on one or the other but on both human and animal, Cixous and Fips.13 This physical tangle forms the transition or shift of the second section.

The essay is, in other words, not solely about what would constitute an animal autobiography but a *multi-species* narrative (meaning here the human and the animal). Philosopher Vinciane Despret

<sup>12</sup> I am engaging neither fictional autobiographies nor biographies in this essay. And truthiness is a slippery subject anyways or not an absolute category. On the slipperiness of the autobiography genre in the early 21st-century, see also Nancy K. Miller, "The Entangled Self: Genre Bondage in the Age of the Memoir," *PMLA* 122.2 (March 2007): 537–48 (Miller 2007).

<sup>13</sup> For more about "the ontological and generic hybridization" of animal autobiographies, see also David Herman, "Animal Autobiography: Or, Narration beyond the Human," *Animal Narratology*, Ed. Joela Jacobs, special issue of *Humanities* 6.2 (2017).

writes of this relationship: "What is commemorated, then, is not the animal alone but the activation of two 'becomings-with'" (Despret 2013, p. 15). Multi-species ethnographies might be useful for thinking about what would constitute a non-anthropogenic *autobiography* (Kohn 2007; Rose 1992). As mentioned, Cixous had previously written with more than one narrative voice in *The Book of Promethea*. Susan Sellers, focusing on Cixous' autobiographies, calls this "Writing with the Voice of the Other" (Sellers 1996, p. 55).

Cixous' narrative voice in section two, as it had done in her aforementioned autobiographical writings, shifts. "You who know my bursts of rage, the sudden moments when the door of my calm opens to give way to a very ancient furor, you do not know that then I am Fips", Cixous writes, continuing "I leap out of myself called by his gallop that hoped to pass in a prodigious bound over the spikes of the portal, barking I follow his hope" (Cixous 1998a, p. 185). She is Fips. She leaps out of herself. She begins to bark, to adopt his (narrative) voice. She follows his hope. An intertextual reference point appears here: Derrida's subsequent *L'Animal donc je suis*, where he plays on the double entendre of *suis*, meaning both "to be" (*être*) and "to follow" (*suivre*) (Derrida 2002; Derrida 2008). Thus, the animal that both Derrida, and here Cixous, is and follows.

Cixous follows Fips' hope. What is this hope especially for a recognition of the entanglement? It seems to be more or rather something else. Fips, she writes, "invented invisible wings for himself, [ ... ] belying the envelope that made him small and dog" (Cixous 1998a, p. 185). The envelope? The category? That labeled him dog? That made him small. That rendered him mute. Not audible. Not heard. The envelope. In other words: The human construct, also responsible for the borders and the walls mentioned previously. Fips manages to lift himself out of the envelope, out of these human boxes or categories.

An opening appears in the text, through the wound, through the mutual recognition. An opening. A responsibility. A response-ability, as Haraway puts it. That is, responsibility entails the ability *and* the obligation to respond. "Response-ability", she writes, "is about both absence and presence, killing and nurturing, living and dying—and remembering who lives and who dies and how in the [ ... ] naturalcultural history" (Haraway 2016, p. 28). This exchange is one of edification: "All that I manage to think today", writes Cixous, "I learned from him without knowing that I was and would be his disciple while we lived tempestuously together" (Cixous 1998a, p. 185). But it is also about suffering, about inflicting wounds on one another. As Cixous put it, "At the time, the suffering that came to us from the suffering that we inflicted on ourselves each one by the other was so great" (Cixous 1998a, p. 185). This mutual recognition, in Cixous, appears in tandem with suffering or pain, physical or ethical. The latter is illustrated, for example, by how torn Cixous is between the ethics towards the bird and the cat in "Shared at Dawn".

#### **5. Non-Anthropocentric Autobiography and Animal Narration**

In what I would call the last section of Cixous' essay, she recognizes that she does not recognize the dog or dog-dom, what being a dog is, and begins to consider the dog and what constitutes being a dog. Here, then, the focus is, for the first time in the story, on what would be a dog's narrative. "At the bottom of the bottom of all my ignorances, I must have had a prescience inaccessible to myself, that this mydog was something else, that he *was*, much more than I, and that I do not know what a dog is nor what being a dog is" (Cixous 1998a, p. 186). The narrative provides an opening for thinking what being a dog is. What follows, however, does not answer this question or what the dog might be.

Instead, the narrative shifts from the first person singular to the first person plural and tallies up the reasons why the family did not recognize him. "We did not want to give our life to the dog. We wanted the ideal dog, the all powerful, the assistance, the idea of dog in the heavens. This is how his misfortune began even before he appeared preceded by our desire" (Cixous 1998a, p. 186). The dog does not accord with the image the humans have pre-formed for and of him. In the narrative, the *idea* clearly precedes the arrival of the dog. Marta Segarra analyzes how Cixous and her brother, as children, attempt to have the dog fit their notions of him, creating a box for him, to sleep in, but also reading that box as one indicative of attempts to humanize through this imposition of ideas and will and figuratively as bespeaking human boxes and categories (Segarra 2006, p. 120). Of course, Cixous might simply be presenting the temporal

unfolding of events. Yet she also flags a philosophical quandary, taking another jab at Kantian idealism. "For our inevitable misfortune, I the child-of-man, I considered him in the beginning as a dog of man, and *bêtement* ineluctably like every child-of-man I spoke to him as we do inadvertently with foreign visitors up to the day I stopped addressing him forever" (Cixous 1998a, p. 186). The approach responsible for the misfortune, mentioned twice, is that she as a human, "child-of-man", spoke to him "as a dog of man". In other words, this misfortune stems, as Cixous precisely puts it, from her anthropocentric lens or her *lacking* geo-philosophical model; and, from the imposition of a model that considers Fips as a "dog of man" rather than one that considers what he is, what being a dog is. And then, rather than listen for the answer, however it might articulate itself, she never began listening and stopped addressing him.

Cixous is, in retrospect, aware of this lack. "On the one hand, he came too early: we the children were not ready, we were far from having the animal height and even from imagining that it existed, which is the trait of human immaturity" (Cixous 1998a, p. 186). Only years after his death does Cixous make "the unexpected discovery of those heights so near and so denied [ ... ] I nearly missed it, because it took place so accidentally, it could have not taken place, and it was accomplished in an oblique form, as if in order to happen it was obliged to deceive my old vigilances, take the most cunning detour" (Cixous 1998a, p. 186). She realizes, belatedly, that another approach was called for. "I should have spoken to him. I should have, if I had been able to understand him but I thought him perhaps incapable of understanding for I was then not capable of understanding the profound animal humanity" (Cixous 1998a, p. 190). Haraway writes about how the animal exists, in such a model, "on the other side of an unbridgeable gap":

Not least, Derrida eloquently and relentlessly reminds his readers that responsibility is never calculable. There is no formula for response; to respond is precisely not merely to react, with its fixed calculus proper to machines, logic, and—most Western philosophy has insisted—animals. In the lineage of those philosophers with and against whom Derrida struggled all his life, the Human only can respond; animals react. The Animal is forever positioned on the other side of an unbridgeable gap, a gap that reassures the Human of His excellence by the very ontological impoverishment of a life world that cannot be its own end or know its own condition.14 (Haraway 2009, p. 121)

Cixous' awareness here is key but as with Derrida's concept of *animot*/*animaux*, put forward in *L'Animal que donc je suis*, as Michelle Slater has pointed out in her article on Derrida and Cixous, "[it] doesn't necessarily 'give speech back to animals' but accedes to a thinking in which they are not deprived of language" (Slater 2012, p. 687). Cixous' "Stigmata, or Job the Dog" takes the first step. It leaves us with an opening for or awareness of the need for this epistemological shift. Her essay does not answer but rather sets the stage for the question of what would constitute a non-anthropogenic autobiography or an animal's narratological point of view. As Marta Segarra, writing about Cixous' "Love of the Wolf" argues, Cixous raises the question: "how can we understand or translate the other's speech without betraying it?" (Segarra 2006, p. 122). Through readings based on an epistemological shift, keenly attune to the differences in temporal and spatial relations, in being, perceiving, hearing, speaking, that is, ones committed to what Haraway celebrates as the "becoming-with", different narrative voices could emerge.

#### **6. Conclusions**

Recent studies at the intersection of literary and animal studies, putting forward models that shift away from an anthropocentric lens, to some extent responding to the Anthropocene and attendant epistemological shifts, have considered zoopoetics, that is, paying attention to the voice or behavior of

<sup>14</sup> In this section, Haraway is referring to Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy, "'Eating Well,' or the Calculation of the Subject: An Interview with Jacques Derrida," Translated by Peter Connor and Avital Ronell, in *Who Comes After the Subject?* Edited by Eduardo Cadava, Peter Connor, and Jean-Luc Nancy (New York: Routledge, 1991), 96–119 (Derrida and Nancy 1991).

non-human animals and "translating this alter-species semiotics into human discourse" (Gannon 2014, p. 91). It involves or hinges on "discovering innovative breakthroughs in [poetic] form through an attentiveness to another species' bodily *poiesis*" (Gannon 2014, p. 91).15 Scholars have carried out this type of analysis, providing careful re-readings of fiction and excavating the animal voice (Driscoll 2017; Novero 2015; Rigby 2016). While these re-readings contribute to animal studies and zoopoetics, they also reconsider and rewrite what constitutes the narrative voice, across various genres.

Re-reading Cixous' "Stigmata, or Job the Dog", as an autobiographical narrative whose narrative voice consists of more than one voice, of an entangled human and animal voice, suggests a new area of genre studies of autobiography, that is, the study of non-anthropocentric autobiographies. What would this narrative voice consist of? As Cixous' essay suggests and as I argue, the narrative voice is not solely a cyno-narrative, whereby the dog speaks. The entanglement or what Cixous called "her unrecognizable twin" (Cixous 1998a, p. 196) or her "own raving twin" (Cixous 1998a, p. 200) is key. She is not one. We are never one. So it is not about shifting solely from a human to an animal narrative. We are entangled. For the study of an animal narrative or perspective, the mindfulness of the entanglement, as proposed by Cixous, and by Haraway, among others, is pivotal. It is less about a cyno-narrative and more about *multispecies* poiesis or narratives or ethnographies.

This entanglement challenges not only the anthropocentric model but also the individualistic hubris of the human-centered model. Which is why Cixous' discussion of the animal, or Haraway's discussion of the animal, is also always one of all the other interrelations. The borders are and are not the issue. They are only problematic in that they aim to and yet cannot erase our inter-dependence, our inter-relationship, or to move beyond the notion of two independent beings to ones more entangled or, as Karen Barad put it, our intra-actions.16 Mireille Calle-Gruber in her afterword to *The Hélène Cixous Reader* writes that "the human which Hélène Cixous explores has nothing to do with 'humanism' nor with any anthropocentrism. What she places on the scene are the perspectives of a 'human better' [ ... ] by which all frontiers are crossed, the being human enters in floods and expands its others, vegetal, mineral, animal: knows itself to be dust, convolvulus (*Dedans*), butter (ibid), air (*L'Ange*), body-fruit (*Vivre l'orange*); recognizes its arch-vegetal kinship (*La*)" (Calle-Gruber 1994, p. 210). Again, as Haraway writes, it is about "staying with the trouble" and about "becoming kin". If Cixous writes at the outset of the essay, "I wrote a text called *Stigmata,* or *Job the dog*. Or else *The Origin of My Philosophy*. Or else *First Symptoms of Writing*. Or *The Opening of the Mouth*" (Cixous 1998a, p. 182), what the wound bespeaks, what grounds this first philosophy or writing or opening of the mouth, might well be the epistemological shift or learning (of) this kinship or entanglement.

For why "Stigmata, or *Job* the Dog"? Job as the prophet of all three Abrahamic religions: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. By naming this shared figure, is Cixous gesturing to (unnecessary) borders (given commonalities) among religions? It is certainly possible, given Cixous' fixation on borders throughout her writing and in this particular essay. Or is she gesturing to the story of Job, who was blessed but also blessèd (in the sense of the French verb, *blesser*, to injure, to hurt, to wound), his faith tested by God, who took away Job's protection and prosperity, and who then restored it. Is Cixous suggesting a similar testing of human faith by Fips? That is, given how Cixous depicts the plight of the family, is her story about a quest for faith's restoration? Or, since *the dog* is named Fips but also called Job in the title, is the story about how *his* faith is tested by the humans? And if so, what then, would constitute restoration?

I read Derrida's foreword to Cixous' *Stigmata*, where he writes: "I hear it as a blessing of the *blessure*, a great poetic treatise on the scar at the origin of literary writing" (Cixous 1998a, p. ix) as

<sup>15</sup> Gannon, 91, quoting Aaron Moe, *Zoopoetics: Animals and the Making of Poetry Poetry (New York: Lexington Books, 2013)* (Moe 2013, p. 10).

<sup>16</sup> Karen Barad, "Meeting the Universe Halfway: Realism and Social Constructivism without Contradiction," in *Feminism, Science and the Philosophy of Science*, Edited by L.H. Nelson and J. Nelson (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996), 161–94 (Barad 1996).

indicative of this radical (also in the sense of *radix*, root) rupture. This scar or wound at the origin of literary writing, and more, could be read as precisely bespeaking the need for a non-anthropogenic philosophy, autobiography, and narrative point of view, or for one aware of kinship and entanglement.

**Acknowledgments:** I have received no sources of funding in support of my research work or to cover the costs to publish in open access. I am grateful to Joela Jacobs for the invitation to contribute this essay to the special issue. Kindest thanks to Joela Jacobs, Joni Adamson, Sarah Allen, Hanna Roman and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.

#### **References**

Adorno, Theodor W. 1973. *Negative Dialectics*. Translated by E. B. Ashton. New York: Seabury.


Blyth, Ian, and Susan Sellers. 2004. *Hélène Cixous: Live Theory*. New York: Continuum Press.


Herman, David. 2016. Animal Autobiography: Or, Narration beyond the Human. *Humanities* 5: 82. [CrossRef] Hoffmann, E. T. A. 1999. *The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr*. Translated by Anthea Bell. New York: Penguin.


Moe, Aaron. 2013. *Zoopoetics: Animals and the Making of Poetry*. New York: Lexington Books.


Ronda, Margaret. 2014. Anthropogenic Poetics. *Minnesota Review* 83: 102–11.

Rose, Deborah Bird. 1992. *Dingo Makes Us Human: Life and Land in an Australian Aboriginal Culture*. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Segarra, Marta. 2006. Hélène Cixous's Other Animal: The Half-Sunken Dog. *New Literary History* 37: 119–34.


© 2017 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

## *Article* **Animal Poetry and Empathy**

#### **Tirza Brüggemann**

Faculty of Humanities, Vrije Universiteit, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands; tbruggemann@amsterdams.com

Academic Editor: Joela Jacobs Received: 24 January 2017; Accepted: 5 April 2017; Published: 10 April 2017

**Abstract:** This article discusses how our ideas of empathy are influenced by the dichotomy of mind versus body, also known as Cartesian dualism. Within the aesthetic field, this dichotomy is seen when researchers define narrative empathy as imaginatively reconstructing the fictional character's thoughts and feelings. Conversely, the empathy aroused by a non-narrative work of art is seen as an unconscious bodily mirroring of movements, postures or moods. Thinking dualistically does not only have consequences for what we consider human nature; it also affects our view on animals. To show the untenability of dualistic thinking, this article focuses on the animal poetry genre. Using the ideas of the French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty, I analyze two animal poems: "Inventing a Horse" by Meghan O'Rourke and "Spermaceti" by Les Murray. The analysis of these two poems suggests that the presiding ideas about aesthetic empathy and empathy in general need re-evaluation.

**Keywords:** empathy; Cartesian dualism; Maurice Merleau-Ponty; animal poetry; 'Inventing a Horse; 'Spermaceti'

#### **1. Introduction**

For anyone interested in empathy research, the many definitions of the concept, the sometimes contradictory ways in which distinctions are made between forms of empathy, and the variety of fields and subjects in which the idea of empathy appears can be discouraging. Psychologists, philosophers, biologists, neuroscientists and aestheticians seek to answer questions about humans' supposed empathic nature, about our ability to read other people's minds, about our reservation to ascribe mind-reading to members of a different species than our own and about the question of how we can have the experience of 'feeling with' regarding a work of art. Researchers even differ in opinion on whether they should strive at a unifying theory on what empathy entails or not. For example, the psychologist Stephanie Preston and the biologist Frans de Waal favour a 'unified story', whereas the psychologist Amy Coplan maintains that the different definitions of empathy refer to different phenomena. In "Understanding Empathy: its Features and Effects", Coplan writes: "Preston and De Waal take us in the wrong direction [...] [t]he differences among processes [...] haven't been emphasized enough, particularly those that exist between some of the higher-level processes. We need more specificity, not more generality" ([1], p. 5).

One of these specifications in the empathy debate (of which Coplan believes requires further specification) is the distinction between high-level empathy and low-level mirroring. In this article, I argue that the peripheral genre of animal poetry can show us that this distinction rests on untenable Cartesian convictions about human nature. What these poems demonstrate is not only important in the literary field, but it also affects the empathy debate in general.

The structure of my argument is as follows: firstly, I explain the distinction in the empathy debate between high-level empathy and low-level mirroring as well as some concepts related to this distinction: affective matching, emotional contagion, self-oriented perspective taking and other-oriented perspective taking. Secondly, I analyze the underlying presuppositions to this distinction and I discuss some counterarguments. Thirdly, I will turn to the work of the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Endorsing his position, I will argue that dividing low-level mirroring from high-level empathy is in fact based on the Cartesian dualistic conviction that there is a strict division between the mind (Descartes' *res cogitans*) and the body (Descartes' *res extensa*). Fourthly, I show how this distinction plays a role in aesthetic studies in general and literary studies in particular. Finally, I will return to the work of Merleau-Ponty. His critique of Descartes and his search for a monistic view on human nature is a fruitful way to approach animal poems. To illustrate this, I will discuss two animal poems, Meghan O'Rourke's: "Inventing A Horse" and Les Murray's, "Spermaceti". The analysis of these two poems suggests that the presiding ideas about aesthetic empathy and empathy in general need re-evaluation.

#### **2. High-Level Empathy versus Low-Level Mirroring**

It is difficult to give a unified definition of empathy. When theorists do define the phenomenon, the first step usually consists of contrasting empathy with sympathy. Empathy, then, is described as 'feeling with', whereas sympathy is described as 'feeling for'. For many researchers who strive for specificity, including Amy Coplan who I take as their representative, this definition of empathy is too broad. It captures instances that are perfectly described as 'feeling with', but would nevertheless not be generally considered as instances of empathy. For example, when we both suffer from arachnophobia and a spider approaches us, my fear will be similar to your fear, but this would not count as empathy. Sharing the same emotions, or 'affective matching' seems to be a necessary condition for empathy, but not a sufficient one. Another example of affective matching that would not be regarded as empathy according to Coplan, is the phenomenon of emotional contagion. Emotional contagion takes place when people catch the emotions of other people but are themselves unaware of the object of the copied emotion. An example of emotional contagion is the sensation of happiness one can suddenly feel when watching a group of happy people. To exclude such instances from empathy, Amy Coplan inserts the precondition that affective matching must be the result of imaginatively reconstructing the subjective experience of somebody else. She writes:

One of the key differences between emotional contagion and empathy is that contagion is a direct, automatic, unmediated process. Empathy is never fully unmediated since it requires perspective-taking. Roughly, perspective-taking is an imaginative process through which one constructs another person's subjective experience by simulating the experience of being in the other's situation ([1], p. 9).

Reconstructing someone's subjective experience can only be done through other-oriented perspective taking, which is to be distinguished from self-oriented perspective taking. I engage in the first form when I ask myself how it would be for *me* in *her* situation. When I, however, imagine what it is like for *her* in *her* situation, I am taking on an other-oriented perspective. According to Coplan, together with a matching of feelings *because of* my other-oriented perspective taking, the phenomenon deserves the denomination of 'empathy'. Coplan adds as a reminder that it is necessary in other-oriented perspective taking to 'preserve a separate sense of self' ([1], p. 15), because if we don't we "might end [...] up experiencing the other's perspective as [our] own" ([1], p. 15). The awareness of the other person as someone who has "his own unique thoughts, feelings, desires and characteristics [...] prevent[s] one from losing sight of where the self ends and the other begins *and* where the other ends and the self begins" ([1], p. 16). A final prerequisite for empathy is the perceived similarity between myself and the other: Coplan writes: "[...] since the more unlike the target we are, the more difficult it is to reconstruct her subjective experiences" ([1], p. 13).

In summary, according to Coplan, to feel empathy one needs to have a separate sense of self, have matching affects with the target—which is more likely to happen when the other is similar to one's self—, and these matching affects must be the result of other-oriented perspective taking. Someone's perspective consists of his own unique thoughts, feelings, desires and characteristics and can be reconstructed imaginatively. Empathy is thus a mediated process, because it requires reflection on the self and the other. The reconstruction of someone else's subjective experience must be, according to Coplan, a conscious, non-automatic process, since otherwise I might confuse my own feelings and thoughts with that of the target.

Coplan distinguishes this non-automatic, voluntary, conscious process from another form of affective matching, which is, according to her, the result of the opposite: an involuntary automatic, unconscious process. Before I discuss the supposed differences between the two forms of 'feeling with', it is necessary to dwell on the many terms used in the empathy debate. Some researchers use the term 'mind-reading' where others would rather use the term 'empathy'. There are even theorists who use the term 'sympathy' in place of 'empathy'. Furthermore, the terms for the so-called higher processes differ. Coplan, in the citation above, describes perspective taking as an 'imaginative process', whereas others prefer the term 're-enactive empathy' or avoid the term 'empathy' altogether because of its unclear connotation. In some cases, researchers use different terms for the same concept, but in other cases the terms refer to slightly different instances of empathy. It is important to keep in mind that for almost all researchers there is a difference between automatic low-level mirroring resulting in affective matching and voluntary conscious perspective taking resulting in affective matching. For the purposes of this article I will use the term 'low-level mirroring' instead of 'high-level perspective taking'.

The idea that there are two routes to affective matching is thoroughly described by Alvin Goldman in *Simulating Minds: the Philosophy, Psychology and Neuroscience of Mind-reading.* Goldman goes even further in distinguishing these two routes from each other by linking them to different areas in the brain. In contrast to Coplan he calls both processes 'empathy'. This seems nothing more than a question of definition, because the distinction stays the same: there is a voluntary, conscious route to empathy and an involuntary unconscious route to empathy. The former "targets mental states of a relatively complex nature whilst the latter is to be considered as "simple", "primitive" "automatic and unconscious" ([2], p. 147). The low-level route to empathy is 'automatic' and 'unconscious' because Goldman connects this route to the working of mirror neurons. Since their discovery, mirror neurons have been considered to be the 'hard-wire of empathy'. They fire when we perform, for instance, a goal-oriented action, but they fire as well when we see the same action performed by someone else. It would be beyond the scope of this article to go into detail of how mirror neurons work. For the argument presented here, it suffices to say, that Goldman considers this route to empathy to be distinct from the high level, cognitive route, because the mirroring route stays "below the threshold of consciousness" ([3], p. 33). To illustrate the two routes, Goldman refers to a situation in which someone sees a friend with a happy face and mirrors that happy state, while "the object of the stranger's happiness remains undisclosed by mirroring". Mirroring reproduces in the observer only happiness, not happiness *about X or about Y*" ([3], p. 43). The 'aboutness' of the happiness can be reconstructed through other-oriented perspective taking, which can only be consciously done and is therefore a high-level process.

Before I discuss some counterarguments against the distinction between the two types of empathy, or the two types of affective matching, it is helpful to make the presuppositions visible on which this distinction is built:


(5) Similarity between the empath and the empathizee is a necessary condition for empathy.

Most of these presuppositions seem to go without saying, and maybe because of that Coplan and Goldman presume them without further reflection. However, the claims in these presuppositions have consequences. For instance, when we assume that subjective experience, or my perspective, consists of thoughts, feelings and desires and that these mental states are something other than bodily behaviour, we assume that there is a distinction between my perspective, or even *me*, and my body. Another consequence is that since someone's body only gives me an inkling of her closed-off inner mental states, I assume that my reconstruction of her perspective is far more likely to be successful when I judge her to be like myself.

This distinction between mind and body, between conscious and unconscious and between voluntary and automatic is known as Cartesian dualism. Looking at humans in this dualistic way has implications for our idea of empathy. Since it is exclusive to others we judge to be not like ourselves, it cannot account for an experience of 'feeling with' with animals. Descartes thought of animals as machines and even if we think this goes too far, empathy with animals is still looked upon with suspicion: are we assuming too many similarities and in doing so, are we anthropomorphizing the animal? These questions are natural outcomes when we have dualistic ideas about nature. However, I will show that they lose their validity when we give up Cartesian dualism.

#### **3. Objections to the Distinction between High and Low Level**

The objections against the distinction between high-level empathy and low-level mirroring can be categorized as direct objections and fundamental objections. Frédérique de Vignemont formulates some direct objections against the distinction in her article "Drawing the Boundary Between Low-Level and High-Level Mindreading" and more fundamental objections can be found in the work of the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

In her article, Frédérique de Vignemont claims that the two systems in the brain do not operate separately and that, consequently, there is no clear distinction between high-level processes and low-level processes. To demonstrate her argument, De Vignemont takes 'motor imaging' as an example of how the two systems work together. Motor imagery is the phenomenon of imagining an action whilst not performing it. Goldman considers motor imagery to be a case of high-level simulation, because of its voluntariness and its demand for consciousness. The observation of a movement, however, would be a case of a low-level process to Goldman, given the automaticity of the mirroring process. In contrast to this idea of separate processes, De Vignemont writes: "action execution, action observation, and also action imagination, all three, overlap at the neural level. In other words, here is a case of high-level simulation implemented in the cortical circuit of low-level mindreading" ([4], p. 459). Hence, the two systems are not as easily divided as Goldman suggests. To further substantiate her view, De Vignemont refers to various studies that indicate that one can control one's emotions and empathy. The study by Cheng et al., for instance, showed that mirroring pain was subject to the intention with which the pain was caused. When the pain was caused by a medical practitioner with the intention to heal, brain images showed that mirror neurons for pain fired far less frequently ([4], p. 461).

Defending a non-division in the brain, like De Vignemont does in her article, is only necessary because of what I labeled as the first presupposition in the former paragraph, namely that there is a clear distinction between conscious, voluntary processes and unconscious, automatic processes in the brain. This assumption is nothing other than a modern version of Cartesian dualism. Descartes distinguished two substances: the physical, material substance (*res extensa*) and the mental, non-material substance (*res cogitans*), which he also linked to automatic, machinelike behavior and conscious voluntary thinking. Both Coplan and Goldman use terms that fit this dichotomy to describe high-level empathy and low-level mirroring. For instance, Coplan lists "making inferences about another's mental states" ([1], p. 4) as one of the most popular descriptions of empathy. She defines affect as "a broad category encompassing multiple mental states" ([1], p. 6). Goldman writes that some researchers might "balk at calling the resonant (i.e., mirroring) states 'mental' states, because the mirroring

episodes commonly occur below the threshold of consciousness" ([3], p. 33). The dichotomy between a conscious mind and automatic bodily behavior also becomes clear from the earlier cited passage in which Goldman divides the smile itself from the 'aboutness' of the smile. Reconstructing the 'aboutness' is the conscious, reconstructive method, whereas mirroring the smile is only unconsciously mirroring the surface.

Although many philosophers and scientists have questioned this dualistic conviction about human nature, from Descartes' own time until today, it remains present in our day-to-day language and even in the way we do research. The philosopher Mark Johnson writes about these common assumptions about human nature: "although most people never think about it very carefully, they live their lives assuming and acting according to a set of dichotomies that distinguish mind from body, reason from emotion, and thought from feeling." [5]. Johnson claims that the opposing idea of embodied thoughts and thus of the inseparableness of our body and mind seems far more difficult to maintain.

One of the philosophers who tried to think through what it would mean to leave Cartesian dualism behind is the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961). His work belongs to the school of phenomenology. Phenomenologists try to capture the 'lived experience' in their theorizing about the world. Studying 'lived experience' puts theory in the second place. It is therefore not surprising that Merleau-Ponty's research is far more inclusive than that of dualistic thinkers and that his work *Nature. Course Notes from the Collège de France* deals with animals who are, according to Merleau-Ponty, our kin. Our experience of 'feeling with' animals is not something that has to be theorized away, on the contrary, we need to learn from it.

Just as Cartesian dualism has many consequences for thinking about human nature, the idea that body and mind are inseparable alters our ideas about who we fundamentally are. Consciousness, for instance, according to Merleau-Ponty, is always consciousness *of* something and not a faculty detached from the world. Relating to this central point Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin writes: "When I reach out my hand for a cup of coffee, there are not two actions, first my thinking about the action and then my arm responding to perform the action; it is one integrated bodily action" ([6], p. 168). Dengerink Chaplin cites Merleau-Ponty: "'I do not have a body, I am my body'" ([6], p. 168). From this follows, according to Dengerink Chaplin, that "[w]e have to reject any Cartesian subject-object, mind-body or consciousness-world dichotomies" ([6], p. 168). Fundamental to Merleau-Ponty's approach to other minds is his insistence that the human body is a psychophysical whole.

The question is what giving up these dichotomies might mean for the subject of empathy. First of all, since Merleau-Ponty sees consciousness as fundamentally embodied, it is not a question of whether I can take on your perspective by reenacting your thoughts, feelings and desires, as is suggested by approaches like those of Coplan and Goldman (cf. presupposition 3 in my overview above). So, my smile is not an expression of a specific joyous feeling, it is the specific joyous feeling. Since so-called mental states cannot be separated from the body, my mind is consequently not something that is closed-off from others: a detached thing that resides inside my body and to which others potentially can get access. Alec Hyslop writes in his entry to "Other Minds" in the Stanford Encyclopedia about the position of Merleau-Ponty: "to perceive a human body in action is to perceive, directly, a person" [7]. Even more strongly, and phrased by Merleau-Ponty himself: "thus there is an indivision of my body, of my body and the world, of my body and other bodies, and of other bodies between them" ([8], p. 279). From this it follows that our subjective experience does not hide inside of our brains; it is visible in a shared social world.

The idea that subjective experience is outside our heads and is to be found in a shared social world, seems difficult to envision and brings us back to Mark Johnson's remark that it is hard to leave standard dichotomies behind. One of these dichotomies is a result of the presupposition that my self has a boundary, which I formulated earlier (cf. my presupposition 5). As a result of this, my self is to be separated from others or the surroundings. For Coplan, having a separate self is an important prerequisite for empathy. According to Merleau-Ponty, however, there is rather an indivision between me, others and the surroundings. Subjective experience is not the same as a mental state. It is found in a shared world, since we are our bodies and our bodies interact incessantly with the world. For Merleau-Ponty, this idea of a shared subjective experience rather than a closed-off subjective experience is not limited to humans. He writes:

Why would not the synergy exist among different organisms, if it is possible within each? Their landscapes interweave, their actions and their passions fit together exactly: this is possible as soon as we no longer make belongingness to one same "consciousness" the primordial definition of sensibility [...] ([9], p. 142).

He chooses to refer to this shared world as "the man-animality intertwining". We can derive from this citation what consequences are connected to leaving Cartesian dualism behind. When one does not deny that living beings have intentions, wishes, thoughts and feelings, but at the same time rejects a mind-body dualism, one has to rethink not only the connections humans make amongst each other, but also the assumed special status of human beings in relation to other living beings. A simple and vivid example of this "man-animality intertwining" is given by Diane Dutton in her article "A View from the Bridge: Subjectivity, Embodiment and Animal Minds". She writes that when a dog-owner walks his dog, the intentions of both parties are felt through the leash and are therefore not hidden inside their heads ([10], p. 216).

This man-animality intertwining connects with the presuppositions that I mentioned in the first paragraph. The supposed difficulties of empathy—knowing that I have a separate self, knowing that this 'feeling with' is the result of other-oriented perspective taking for which I need my consciousness to work—are being compromised by Merleau-Ponty's statement that our subjective experience is present in a shared social world and that there is no boundary between body and mind. The presupposition of 'similar to me' consequently becomes far more inclusive than Coplan proposed, since we share the world not only with humans, but with other experiencing living beings as well. In the final paragraph I will formulate the implications for our ideas about empathizing with animals through a text. First, it is necessary to demonstrate that Cartesian dualism is also alive in the aesthetic empathy field.

#### **4. Cartesian Dualism in the Aesthetic Field**

Before I discuss what leaving the mind-body distinction behind might mean for the aesthetic field, let me first go back to the distinction made by Coplan and Goldman between high-level empathy and low-level mirroring and see how it materializes in aesthetics.

Within aesthetic studies, researchers usually approach empathy in the same way as interpersonal empathy. Therefore, the ingredients of narrative empathy are considered to be the same: there has to be a fictional character with who the reader can identify and the reader has to experience a matching of feelings between herself and the character and, lastly, the matching of feelings has to be the result of perspective taking. This makes the novel with a human protagonist the standard choice of genre in the narrative empathy debate. In the same way, when there are no characters involved, aesthetic researchers typically link aesthetic empathy to mirroring (bodily) movement. For instance, Gregory Curie in his article "Empathy for Objects" defines empathy as a bodily simulation of forms [11]. For example, he writes that if we look at Rubens' painting *Descent from the Cross* we "undergo bodily simulations which mirror aspects of [the depicted people's] dispositions" ([11], pp. 86–87). Not only with paintings, but also in poetry, researchers choose to link the engagement between a reader and a poem to bodily sensations. In this respect Susan Lanzoni refers to the work of the psychologist and poet June Etta Downey (1875–1932) who, in the early years of the twentieth century, concluded that "[i]mages of felt or bodily movement were of particular significance for empathic response" ([12], p. 39). Although attention to bodily sensations is a somewhat forgotten tradition in the aesthetic field, linking human fictional characters to high-level processes of empathy and aesthetic expressions without linking them to low-level bodily processes of empathy in fact reinforces Cartesian dualism.

Conversely, in the narrative field, empathy is understood as reconstructive, high-level perspective taking. I will give two examples of the working of the body-mind division in this field: one in which Noël Carroll discusses mirror reflexes to characters in fiction and one in which Lisa Zunshine discusses Virginia Woolf's *Mrs Dalloway* as an example of a cognitive experiment.

In his article "On Some Affective Relations between Audiences and the Characters in Popular Fictions" Noël Carroll writes about mirror reflexes: "these imitative reflexes grant us some *inkling* of what others are feeling" ([13], p. 178) and "[t]his (our muscular feedback) need not give us full *access* to his emotional state, but it supplies us with a valuable *clue* to the nature of that state by providing us with an experiential sense of the bodily-component [...] (italics are mine, tb [13], p. 178). Note that this bodily-component is separated from the full emotion, similar to Goldman's idea of dividing the bodily smile from the 'aboutness' of the smile. Carroll presents to us here the classic idea of the mind closed-off from the outside world and the body as a mirror of that mind. Facial expressions are the *clues* for entering the mind; they represent the mind, and are the outcome of thinking and feeling. Just as we have seen in the former paragraph, this classic idea that the mind is something that is hinted at on people's faces but is ultimately hidden from the outside world, is based on the presupposition that mind and body are separate.

In *Why We Read Fiction. Theory of Mind and the Novel*, Lisa Zunshine even goes so far as to consider the novel essentially a cognitive experiment [14]. According to Zunshine, readers test their ability to form a theory of mind of fictional characters; when we read, we ascribe to characters a mind of their own. Likewise, writers rely on this cognitive ability of their readers. So, just as Carroll described, we read about a certain behaviour and then, according to Zunshine, deduce, like a detective—hence the cognitive experiment —, certain feelings or states of mind. Before I come to the reservations of viewing the novel as a cognitive experiment and, more generally, aesthetic empathy as a phenomenon that is essentially an achievement of the mind, let me give Zunshine's reading of Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.

Zunshine, in her opening chapter "Why did Peter Walsh Tremble?" uses the meeting of Clarissa Dalloway and her former lover Peter Walsh as an illustration of the novel as a cognitive experiment. *Mrs Dalloway* starts off with the protagonist, Mrs Dalloway, preparing for a party that she will throw in the evening. Since readers are immediately drawn into the sensations, half uttered thoughts and not fully felt feelings of Clarissa Dalloway, they are not introduced in an orderly way as to who is who in the novel. When the reader arrives at the scene of their meeting, she does know that Clarissa and Peter were lovers years ago, but that instead of marrying him, Clarissa decided to marry Richard Dalloway. Peter went to India, but is now returning, pays a visit to Clarissa and trembles when he sees her. According to Zunshine, we, as readers, implicitly ask questions about the behaviour of fictional characters. We infer states of mind and emotions from their body language and solve the other-minds-puzzle by filling in missing information. In this case, the trembling of Peter Walsh needs an explanation. According to Zunshine, the ability of a reader to explain behaviour proves that their theory of mind is working well. Zunshine writes the following about Peter's trembling:

When Woolf shows Clarissa observing Peter's body language (Clarissa notices that he is "positively trembling"), she has an option of providing us with a representation of either Clarissa's mind that would make sense of Peter's physical action [...] or of Peter's own mind [...]. Instead she tells us, first, that Peter is thinking that Clarissa has "grown older" and, second, that Clarissa is thinking that Peter looks "exactly the same [...]" Peter's "trembling" still feels like an integral part of this scene, but make no mistake: we, the readers are called on to supply the missing bit of information (such as "he must be excited to see her again" which makes the narrative emotionally cohesive) ([14], p. 22).

Here, we can see that indeed Zunshine considers the novel to be a fundamentally cognitive affair. The reason why we read, Zunshine says, is that we like to fill in, like a detective, the missing clues and in that way solve the puzzle and make the narrative cohesive. In an 'objective reading', Peter Walsh's trembling could have been caused by Parkinson's disease, but, claims Zunshine, since we are

trained readers we interpret the trembling in the right way—as indicative of his mental state—and are consequently pleased by our well-functioning theory of mind ([14], p. 18). That this occurs almost effortlessly does not change the fact that "we have cognitive adaptations that prompt us to 'see bodies animated by minds'" ([14], p. 15). Deducing the thoughts and feelings from bodily language would count as high-level empathy, high-level mindreading or reconstructive empathy. Similarly to persons in the real world, readers grant fictional characters a mind of their own. All in all, Zunshine's interpretation perfectly fits into the distinction made by Goldman and Coplan.

When we read the passage by Woolf, however, we can see that there is so much more going on than 'cognitively filling in a puzzle'. Here follows the passage that describes Peter Walsh's entrance. The servant Lucy opens the door and hesitates to let him see Clarissa. In response, Peter answers her:

"Mrs. Dalloway will see me," said the elderly man in the hall. "Oh yes, she will see ME," he repeated, putting Lucy aside very benevolently, and running upstairs ever so quickly. "Yes, yes, yes," he muttered as he ran upstairs. "She will see me. After five years in India, Clarissa will see me" [15].

This passage is followed by Clarissa's reaction to Peter's unexpected visit:

"Who can—what can," asked Mrs. Dalloway (thinking it was outrageous to be interrupted at eleven o'clock on the morning of the day she was giving a party), hearing a step on the stairs. She heard a hand upon the door. She made to hide her dress, like a virgin protecting chastity, respecting privacy. Now the brass knob slipped. Now the door opened, and in came—For a single second she could not remember what he was called! so surprised she was to see him, so glad, so shy, so utterly taken aback to have Peter Walsh come to her unexpectedly in the morning! (She had not read his letter.)

"And how are you?" said Peter Walsh, positively trembling; taking both her hands; kissing both her hands [15].

Perhaps the literary term 'stream of consciousness' is misleading in this context. What we can read in this short excerpt from the novel is a stream of sensations—whether they are conscious or not is not mentioned—and more importantly, the stream of sensations are not specific to a character. It is clear that Clarissa hears "a hand upon the door", but "Now the brass knob slipped. Now the door opened" are surely her observations, but they lead the reader to see the opening of the door in their own mind's eye rather than Clarissa's. The interpretation of Peter's trembling is not just a cognitive achievement; the whole of the text trembles, the whole atmosphere is vibrant. We can read the hurry in Peter's 'yes, yes, yes' as he runs upstairs, one 'yes' on each stair tread. When Woolf puts what Clarissa is thinking in a proposition, between brackets, it is only meant as a helping hand to the reader. Clarissa's propositional thought is in fact the stumbling "Who can—what can". We feel his excitement and her initial irritation in the short sentences "She heard a hand upon the door. She made to hide her dress [...]" and "Now the brass knob slipped. Now the door opened, [...]". As a reader, we do not deduce a feeling from body language, we are not given an *inkling* of Peter's thoughts, and we do not read 'bodies animated by minds'. The trembling of Peter Walsh ís his excitement and we know this not because of a puzzle we solve, but because Woolf lets us tremble with him.

#### **5. Leaving Cartesian Dualism behind**

Perhaps a trembling text is not what we consider to be the cause of an empathetic reaction towards a protagonist. Usually, when we look at a narrative, we think that the protagonist's likeness to us, her similar opportunities, her comparable course of life and her understandable thoughts and feelings make it easier for us to shift perspectives. We might think of Woolf's sensory language and rhythmical sentences as means to enter Mrs Dalloway's mind and not as empathy itself.

To show that this idea rests on a body-mind division is best seen when we focus on a genre in which no humans are present, namely that of animal poetry. When reading an animal poem we might hesitate as to what to call the feeling of engagement we can experience. The only reason, however, for this hesitation is because we do not think of animals (or ourselves) as psychophysical wholes. Contrastively, poets of the following poems do think of the animals as psychophysical wholes and stay close to their 'lived experience'. First I discuss Meghan O'Rourke's "Inventing a Horse" [16] and thereafter Les Murray's "Spermaceti" [17].

In a public reading on 19 February 2010, O'Rourke explained how the poem came into existence: "I grew up in New York City and, like not a few other little girls, was infatuated with horses. My main resentment about living in a big city was that it was impossible to have a horse. So, many years later, haunted by this childhood drama, I wrote 'Inventing a Horse'" [18]. Since the lines run over the stanzas, I will present the whole poem before discussing it:

Inventing a Horse by Meghan O'Rourke

Inventing a horse is not easy. One must not only think of the horse. One must dig fence posts around him. One must include a place where horses like to live;

or do when they live with humans like you. 5 Slowly, you must walk him in the cold; feed him bran mash, apples; accustom him to the harness;

holding in mind even when you are tired harnesses and tack cloths and saddle oil 10 to keep the saddle clean as a face in the sun; one must imagine teaching him to run

among the knuckles of tree roots, not to be skittish at first sight of timber wolves, and not to grow thin in the city, 15 where at some point you will have to live;

and one must imagine the absence of money. Most of all, though: The living weight, the sound of his feet on the needles, and, since he is heavy, and real, 20

and sometimes tired after a run down the river with a light whip at his side, one must imagine love in the mind that does not know love,

an animal mind, a love that does not depend 25 on your image of it, your understanding of it; indifferent to all that it lacks:

a muzzle and two black eyes looking the day away, a field empty 30 of everything but witchgrass, fluent trees, and some piles of hay.

The poem starts off with "Inventing a Horse" as an optimistic title, only to be downplayed again immediately by the first line that completes it: "Inventing a horse is not easy". To explain why this may not be easy, O'Rourke asks the reader to imagine all the things that one has to have and bear in mind when keeping a horse in real life. Hence, the invention of the horse is not a gratuitous fantasy. Inventing a horse goes further than only focusing on a mental picture. In fact, it involves visualizing all the things you would have to do and give up to maintain a horse. All these things are listed in the first four stanzas. They probably echo the reservations her parents might have had when O'Rourke, as a child, expressed her wish of having a horse.

In the fifth stanza O'Rourke interrupts her list of practicalities. The sentence that began in line 6 ends here in line 13 with the imagining of the absence of money being the outcome of all the material things that one would need. After this conclusion of all the constraints it is as if she asks herself again what inventing a horse involves and the listing of practicalities seems to not be enough. Then, in line 18 and 19, she focuses first on the body (the living weight, the sound of his feet on the needles and again his heaviness in line 20) and after that on the horse's mind, a word that she alternates with 'love'. It is noteworthy that in the second line of the poem O'Rourke warned the reader that one must not only think of the horse, but rather of its surroundings. However, after imagining the horse's environment its body nevertheless slowly comes into view. In line 16 begins a sentence that ends in the final line. Since the main clause is interrupted by a subordinated clause and a coordinated clause, the reader almost forgets that "since he is heavy and real/.../one must imagine love". 'Real' is a word that stands out in this line. All the characteristics of the horse are mentioned and it is as if its realness is one among these many qualities. One might recognize this as a category mistake ("I have a brown, quick, strong and real horse"), but in this case the category mistake is intended. It reminds the reader of the task of a poet, which lies in the Greek word 'poïesis', which is to make or create something. Hence, it emphasizes the task O'Rourke has set for herself which is to overcome the drama in her childhood by inventing a horse.

The enjambment after 'love' in line 23 reflects the difficulty with the kind of love O'Rourke wants the reader to imagine. One must imagine love, yes; the whole point of keeping a horse is the love for the animal. However, this love will be less romantic than the clichéd imagery of horses offered by a TV-series. The love that is at stake here is a love for a real animal who has a mind that does not know love. Or, as the following line says: it is a love that does not depend on the image of it in a human mind. How can anyone imagine this? Can we set aside our comforting images and picture an animal mind?

In the final lines, O'Rourke helps the reader to imagine the hardest part of the invention, which is the understanding of the horse on his own terms. For doing this, one needs to leave one's own images of love and understanding behind. When she focuses on the horse's black eyes, she does not only describe what they look like, but also what they see. In the ongoing act of invention, the realization that easy images will not do and the constant effort of setting aside one's own convictions of what a horse essentially is, O'Rourke finally arrives at imagining the horse from the horse's point of view and she describes the world seen through his eyes: "a field empty of everything but witchgrass, fluent trees and some piles of hay". What we can learn from the poem is that the horse's mind, or the horse's point of view is not something that is to be found inside his mind. The final sentences are formulations of the horse's experience, but show at the same time that there is another way of approaching subjective experience. These sentences seem to indicate that there is no boundary between knowing what it is for me to have a horse's experience and knowing what it is for a horse to have a horse's (i.e., his own) experience. Such a boundary would, again, assume an underlying separate self, detached from the body.

Does this 'perspective shifting' count as an instance of empathy? It certainly would not if we as readers were to hold onto an idea of empathy based on Cartesian dualism. Then, we would not be able to know the horse's subjective experience, since his mind would be understood as being closed-off from the world and his behaviour as an easily misinterpreted outcome. The inferences from his behaviour would probably be called anthropomorhic; ascribing human-like features to the animal. However, what we can read in the poem by O'Rourke is that inventing a horse does not begin from the inside of the horse, but starts by a focus on his surroundings that cannot be separated from the horse himself. This is exactly what Merleau-Ponty means by the idea that subjective experience is to be found in the world. Notice how the final lines "a field empty/of everything but witchgrass, fluent trees, /and some piles of hay" are comparable to the lines from Mrs Dalloway: "Now the brass knob slipped. Now the door opened [...]". Similar to Woolf's presentation of subjective experience-in-the-world, we are at the end of the poem not *inside* the horse's mind; rather the horse's intentions and interests are visible to the trained eye of the poet.

A famous answer to our hesitations with the possibility of taking up an animal's perspective is giving by John Coetzee in *The Lives of Animals* through his protagonist Elizabeth Costello [19]. She answers that she once wrote a book about a fictional character and had to "think [her] way into [her] existence" and then states about this 'thinking into': "If I can think my way into the existence of a being who has never existed, then I can think my way into the existence of a bat or a chimpanzee or an oyster, any being with whom I share the substrate of life" ([19], p. 49). To Costello, just as to phenomenologists, poems are the apt way of bringing forth animals' "living, electric being to language" ([19], p. 114). Elizabeth Costello is a fictional character and can therefore speak freely about the limitlessness of our imagination. Her ideas, however, were already addressed by Merleau-Ponty and are still being examined by phenomenologists. The phenomenologist Louise Westling writes in her monograph *The Logos of the Living World. Merleau-Ponty, Animals and Language* about how humans' and animals' behaviour and expressions are to be found in a shared world:

[H]uman linguistic behavior gradually emerged in the course of evolution from neural structures and physical behaviors we share with primates and other animals, [...] it remains embedded within shared abilities and cultures in a continuum of animal behaviors that are themselves part of a myriad of communications in the living world, and that increasing evidence suggests that it is embodied and gestural, as Merleau-Ponty claimed more than a half century ago ([20], p. 103).

Understanding empathy as entering an intersubjective realm is easier to understand when we share physical behaviour with an animal or when we can see that there is a continuum between the animal and ourselves. Costello claims that sharing a substrate of life is enough to get access to the world of another being. Along these lines, Louise Westling writes about Merleau-Ponty's view on the ecological relationships between all beings that "they carry with them the weight of time and entanglements with space" ([20], p. 34). The poem *Spermaceti* by the Australian poet Les Murray endorses the view of Costello and Merleau-Ponty. Although we are inclined to classify a whale as a creature very different from ourselves, Murray pushes the reader in this poem to feel her way into the lived experience of a sperm whale.

Spermaceti by Les Murray

I sound my sight, and flexing skeletons eddy in our common wall. With a sonic bolt from the fragrant chamber of my head, I burst the lives of some and slow, backwashing them into my mouth. I lighten, breathe, and laze below again. And peer in long low tones 5 over the curve of Hard to river-tasting and oil-tasting coasts, to the grand grinding coasts of rigid air. How the wall of our medium has a shining, pumping rim: the withstood crush of deep flight in it, perpetual entry! Only the holes of eyesight and breath still tie us 10 to the dwarf-making Air, where true sight barely functions.

The power of our wall likewise guards us from slowness of the rock Hard, its life-powdering compaction, from its fissures and streamy layers that we sing into sight but are silent, fixed, disjointed in. Eyesight is a leakage 15 of nearby into us, and shows us the taste of food conformed over its spines. But our greater sight is uttered. I sing beyond the curve of distance the living joined bones of my song-fellows; I sound a deep volcano's valve tubes storming whitely in black weight; I receive an island's slump, 20 song-scrambling ship's heartbeats, and the sheer shear of current-forms bracketing a seamount. The wall, which running blind I demolish, heals, prickling me with sonars. My every long shaped cry re-establishes the world, and centres its ringing structure.

In 'Spermaceti' the 'I' in the poem seems to be the sperm whale. The title refers to the organ through which a sperm whale perceives its world: the spermaceti organ [21]. This organ consists of a waxy substance and was originally wrongly taken to be the whale's semen. A sperm whale has poor eye vision and uses echolocation—an auditory imaging system—for hunting and communication. Sperm whales emit a series of clicks through the spermaceti when they dive and the reverberation of the clicks gives them information about prey and other whales. The reverberation is picked up by an 'acoustic' fat pad in the whale's lower jaw which sends the information to the brain. There, three-dimensional images are formed about the size and the movement of the prey (mostly squid).

Entering Murray's poem from a biological perspective adds to the understanding of it. Knowing how echolocation works helps to understand certain lines in the poem in which this phenomenon is addressed. However, what a biological perspective cannot bring about is what it is like to be a sperm whale and this is what Murray is after. He does not emphasize the similarities between humans and whales to establish perspective taking, he instead focuses on two main differences between the two species: being in the water instead of being on land and using echolocation instead of using eyesight. In contrast to human experience, the air to a whale is rigid (line 7), dwarf-making (line 11) and true sight (i.e., echolocation) barely functions there. The Wall (the water and its surface) on the other hand gives the whale the possibility to shape his world through his song. Repeating in various depictions the difference between human and whale is one way to make the reader familiar with the whale's world. But Murray goes further than familiarizing the reader with another world. He even lets the reader feel the subjective experience of echolocation by using the poetic device of alliteration. When we read the first four words—I sound my sight—, we are drawn into the sensation of echolocation firstly by the use of 'I' and secondly by the alliterative use of the 's' in 'sound' and 'sight'. The alliteration establishes the effect of experiencing sound and sight as one thing—exactly what echolocation entails. The notion of 'sound as sight' occurs five times in the poem: 'I sound my sight' (line 1), 'I peer in long low tones' (line 5), 'we sing into sight' (line 14), 'our greater sight is uttered' (line 17) and 'I sound a deep volcano's valve tubes' (line 19). Becoming familiar with the world of the whale through repetition and alliteration establishes a sense of recognition even in the untrained reader. Following Merleau-Ponty, Louise Westling sees precisely in literature and poetry the possibility of bridging the gap between others—be they of a different species or not—and myself:

it [literature] functions as one of our species' ways of singing the world to ourselves, in concert with the songs and artistic creations of many other creatures, from birds and primates to dogs and dolphins ([20], p. 103).

This musical metaphor articulates that the human world is consonant with the non-human world. There is an obvious connection between this insight and Les Murray's 'Spermaceti', and not only because the citation reminds us of the singing whale in the poem. 'Spermaceti' gives us access to the world of the whale through its almost bodily language and lets us recognize our 'man-animality intertwining'. When we see animals and ourselves as psychophysical wholes in interweaving landscapes it is not a question of being alike enough to establish empathy. It is rather a question of how to train the senses to be able to see this wholeness. In finding a route to accomplish this, poets can serve as a guide.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.

#### **References and Notes**


© 2017 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

## *Article* **A Question of Life and Death: The Aesopic Animal Fables on Why Not to Kill**

#### **Tua Korhonen**

Department of World Cultures, Ancient Languages and Cultures, University of Helsinki, Unioninkatu 40 A, 00014 Helsingin yliopisto, Finland; tua.korhonen@helsinki.fi; Tel.: +358-2941-22-159

Academic Editor: Joela Jacobs Received: 12 March 2017; Accepted: 3 May 2017; Published: 13 May 2017

**Abstract:** This article deals with Greek animal fables, traditionally attributed to a former slave, Aesop, who lived during the sixth century BCE. As a genre, the Aesopic fables, or the *Aesopica*, has had a significant impact on the Western fable tradition and modern Western children's literature. The *Aesopica* owes much to the Mesopotamian fables and has parallels in other Near Eastern cultures. Modern research has concentrated on tracing the oriental roots of the fable tradition and the dating of the different parts of the *Aesopica*, as well as defining the fable as a genre. The traditional reading of fables has, however, excluded animals *qua* animals, supposing that fables are mainly allegories of the human condition. The moral of the story (included in the *epimythia* or *promythia*) certainly guides one to read the stories anthropocentrically, but the original fables did not necessarily include this positioning element. Many fables address the situation when a prey animal, like a lamb, negotiates with a predator animal, like a wolf, by giving reasons why she should not be killed. In this article, I will concentrate on these fables and analyse them from the point of view of their structure and content. Comparing these fables with some animal similes in Homer's *Iliad*, I suggest that these fables deal not only with the ethical problem of 'might makes right' as a human condition, but also the broader philosophical question of killing other living creatures and the problem of cruelty.

**Keywords:** fable; Aesopic fables; Greek fable; antagonistic fables

The so-called animal turn has encouraged classicists to read Graeco-Roman literature from the point of view of Human-Animal Studies, that is, to focus on human-animal interactions and the agency of animals.1 However, although animals have many eminent functions in ancient literature—as symbols and as metaphors and similes—animals figured very seldom as protagonists or proper characters. There are no stories in which a non-human animal is depicted as voicing its (imagined) experience, perceptions, and life—like animals do in modern animal 'biographies', such as Anna Sewell's *Black Beauty* (1877). Yet, there seems to be one well-known exception: in Apuleius' *The Golden Ass*, which had a shorter Greek equivalent mistakenly attributed to the satirist Lucian (both versions are based on a Greek story), the protagonist is a donkey, which experiences various adventures and abuse by different owners.2 However, the donkey is, in fact, a human named Lucius, who has been transformed into a donkey by the agency of a Thessalian witch. The aim of the story is not to make the audience feel sympathy for the ill-treated donkey, but to identify with the human, Lucius, whose body has been metamorphosed into that of a donkey. The reader is constantly reminded that the donkey is, in fact, a human being.

<sup>1</sup> On Human-Animal Studies, see, for example, (Marvin and McHugh 2014).

<sup>2</sup> Stefan Tilg argues that the original Greek story of this metamorphosis into a donkey is from the first century CE (Tilg 2014, pp. 2–3). However, the story itself could be earlier.

Besides the minor genre of the parodic animal epic,<sup>3</sup> only animal fables used animals as prominent characters in antiquity. However, animals in animal fables are depicted as humanised, that is, they talk, reason, and act like humans—although they are seldom so humanised as in the fable where a dog wishes to sue a sheep for stealing a loaf of bread (Phaedrus 1.17). The main function of different species of animals in fables seems to be to mirror fixed human character types—foxes are cunning and sheep represent timidity. Animal fables are read as reflecting human experience, presenting it in an allegorical way by projecting human relations onto an artificially created animal world, often with fake interspecies relationships. In other words, fables picture social relationships and interactions between diverse species in an unnatural realm—the animal kingdom—which mirrors the human world, as well as its social structures and hierarchies. Like nowadays, the Aesopic fables were sometimes interpreted to especially represent the voice of the oppressed (human) classes, like slaves, in antiquity. Both the legendary Aesop and the Roman fable writer Phaedrus were former slaves.<sup>4</sup>

Animal characters in animal fables are thus thought to be easily substituted by humans and their situation can be smoothly transferred to the human world. This kind of allegorised reading of fables was already dominant in antiquity.<sup>5</sup> Consequently, it is no wonder that modern animal sensitive6 scholars have lately criticised the Aesopic animal fables because ancient fables (in their view) seem to guide the reader to interpret the story *only* as an allegory. Fables are not supposed to convey animal life, with the result that the animals themselves—as animals—are erased.<sup>7</sup> Therefore, although animal fables are nearly the only literary genre in antiquity where animals are the protagonists, actual 'real' animals seem to be absent.

However, some classicists, like Jeremy B. Lefkowitz (2014), have recently at least posed the question of the possible 'animality' (animals *qua* animals, not substitutes for humans) of the Aesopic animal fables. By seeing affinities with stories in ancient natural histories, Lefkowitz argues that fables sometimes depict animals not merely symbolically, but also reveal a zoological interest in animal behaviour.<sup>8</sup>

The first fable in Greek literature is from the eighth-century BCE, namely 'The Hawk and the Nightingale', which Hesiod included in his *Works and Days* (lines 202–12). The fable is told to a specific addressee, Hesiod's brother Perses, as a moral lesson. A hawk has caught a nightingale and answers its cries of distress:

And now I will tell a fable (*ainos*) to kings who themselves too have understanding. This is how the hawk addressed the colourful-necked nightingale, carrying her high up among the clouds, grasping her with its claws, while she wept piteously, pierced by the curved claws; he said to her forcefully, 'Silly bird, why are you crying out? One far superior to you is holding you. You are going wherever I shall carry you, even if you are a singer; I shall make you my dinner if I wish, or I shall let you go. Stupid he who would wish to contend against those stronger than he is: for he is deprived of the victory, and suffers pains in addition to his humiliations.' So spoke the swift-flying hawk, the long-winged bird. As for you, Perses [ . . . ] (Trans. Glenn W. Most, see (Hesiod 2007)).

Usually, this fable has been interpreted simply to expose the ideology of 'might makes right'. In Lefkowitz's view, the fable also functions to show that animals 'behave in a way which is not

<sup>3</sup> The only extant animal epic from antiquity is *The Battle of Frogs and Mice (Batrachomyomachia)*. On animal and bird epics, see (West 2003, pp. 229–37).

<sup>4</sup> (Lefkowitz 2014, pp. 18–20).

<sup>5</sup> On ancient theories of fable and its functions, see (Dijk 1997, pp. 38–78). Dijk mentions persuasive, didactic, comical, and aetiological functions of fables (Dijk 1997, pp. 38–78).

<sup>6</sup> By the notion of 'animal sensitive', I mean not only an awareness of ethical issues concerning animals, but simply the awareness of animals, in addition to their function and role in human cultures.

<sup>7</sup> (Simons 2002, p. 119; Teittinen 2015, pp. 152–53).

<sup>8</sup> Naama Harel discusses the Aesopic fables in her essay as translations and also deals with such classic modern fables as George Orwell's *Animal Farm* (Harel 2009).

appropriate to humans'. Lefkowitz combines this fable with the famous passage in the same work, *Works and Days*, in which Zeus is said to have only given justice (*dike¯*) to humans and not to birds, fish and land animals, and this is shown by the fact that animals eat each other (*Works and Days* 274–80).9 The moral of the story is thus that decent human beings are not allowed to behave like the hawk in this fable. However, there are many unsolved problems with the interpretation of this fable. One way of explaining is that the nightingale as a singer possibly represents the epic poet Hesiod himself, so that the fable is an affirmation of the power of song that triumphs despite all. Be this as it may, 'The Hawk and the Nightingale' was well known in antiquity and functioned as a model for later fabulists with different emphases.<sup>10</sup>

What is notable about this fable is that the predator would seem to be justifying his behaviour to his helpless prey. Why would this be necessary if 'might is right'? There are similar fables in which the victim begs for mercy, even giving reasons why (s)he should *not* be killed. Animal fables often depict conflict or antagonistic situations between species, a motif – as well as a dialogic form – that goes back to Mesopotamian fables, to which the Graeco-Roman tradition owed a great deal.11 Additionally, Homeric, especially Iliadic, animal similes depict conflict situations.12 Therefore, it might be fruitful to compare antagonistic (or agonistic) animal fables with antagonistic Homeric similes – without, however, making any suggestions about the mutual influence between these two genres. In this paper, by comparing the Aesopic antagonistic fables with some animal similes in Homer's *Iliad*, I suggest that agonistic fables deal not only with ethical problems concerning the human condition ('might makes right'), but also the broader philosophical question of killing other living creatures, as well as the idea of the 'war' between different species. I will argue that although the 'animality' of the animals in fables is reduced in many ways, the philosophical problem of killing can be seen as an 'animal' topic in fables. I will start, however, with the problems of the interpretation of ancient fables, as well as their narrativity.

#### **1. Animal Fables as Stories**

David Herman defines *zoonarratology* as 'an approach to narrative study that explores how storytelling practices (and strategies for narrative interpretation) relate to broader assumptions concerning the nature, experiences, and status of animals'.13 Animal fables are narratives—even the Greek terms for fable (*ainos*, *mythos*, *logos*) semantically refer to stories14—in which animals are the characters of stories, but which seem, as mentioned before, to tell little about the animals themselves. Ancient critics noted that fables were 'false' (*pseudos*), that is, fictive, not historical or natural historical stories.<sup>15</sup> Reading ancient animal fables as textual sources for a discussion on 'broader assumptions concerning the nature, experiences and status of animals' (Herman's wording) in antiquity poses some basic difficulties, like the dating of fables and their elements. The development of this genre is difficult to figure out in general. The problems for discussing how animal fables relate to assumptions

<sup>9</sup> (Lefkowitz 2014, p. 2). Others, like Edward Clayton and C. Michael Sampson have introduced the same kind of interpretation. See (Clayton 2008, pp. 180, 196; Sampson 2012, pp. 473–74).

<sup>10</sup> Deborah Steiner interprets 'The Hawk and The Nightingale' as an expression of rivalry between different kinds of poetics, see (Steiner 2010, p. 107). The hawk has also been interpreted to represent a divine instrument. On the different interpretations of this fable see (Dijk 1997, pp. 127–34). The antagonism between hawk and nightingale is the topic in two other Aesopic fables, Perry 4 and 567.

<sup>11</sup> On the Mesopotamian fable and its influence on Greek fable, see (Adrados 1999, pp. 287–306); on the agonistic ethos in the Aesopic fables, see (Zafiropoulos 2001).

<sup>12</sup> On fables and Homeric similes, see (Dijk 1997, p. 125). According to Rodriguez Adrados, who has compared the fable with many other genres of archaic Greek literature, the typical situation of agonistic confrontation in the Iliadic similes, like a lion attacking a herd of cattle or a fold of sheep, 'provide the basis for fables from the Classical Age and collections'. Adrados does not, however, clarify what he means by 'the basis' (Adrados 1999, p. 198).

<sup>13</sup> (Herman 2012, p. 95).

<sup>14</sup> On the terminology of the Greek fable, see (Adrados 1999, pp. 3–16; Dijk 1997, pp. 79–89).

<sup>15</sup> The grammarian Theon of Alexandria, who lived in the first century CE, defined a fable as 'a fictitious story picturing or reminding one of (*eikonizein*) reality' (Dijk 1997, pp. 47–48, 408; Adrados 1999, p. 23).

concerning the status and experiences of animals are problems of interpreting a genre which had a wide audience in antiquity, but no original authors. Fables were the product of oral literature, and literary fables were usually the author's reimagination of oral fables, although later, there were certainly some genuine literary (invented) fables. Besides the numerous references and retellings of fables by Greek and Roman authors, what we have—what the ancient fables have preserved for us—are mostly prose fable collections. The most important collection is the so-called Augustana, which consists of several anonymous collections first assembled around the third century CE (numbers 1–231 in the Perry index).16 Roughly contemporary, or even a little later, is the lyric fable collection produced by the Roman-Syrian Babrius, who wrote in Greek. Another Roman, Phaedrus, versified fables into iambic metre in Latin a few centuries earlier, in the first century CE. All these fables fall under the general term of 'the Aesopic fables'.<sup>17</sup> The simple style of fables was noted by ancient critics and to versify a fable or amplify its prose was a rhetorical exercise for schoolboys, at least since Phaedrus' time or earlier.18

As narratives, fables recount some event, and they have a temporal dimension—one event follows another; events are structured in some order and they are told from a specific point of view or by a certain voice.19 From the formal point of view, fables are varied, but as Gert-Jan van Dijk notices, fables often have 'a tripartite narrative structure (introductory sketch of the situation—action—concluding action or comment)'.20 This is evident, for instance, in a fable from the above-mentioned Augustana collection, 'The Donkey, The Raven, and The Passing Wolf' (Perry 190):

A donkey who had a sore on his back was grazing in a meadow. A raven alighted on his back and began to peck at the wound, while the donkey brayed and reared up on his hind legs in pain (*algein*). The donkey's driver, meanwhile, stood off at a distance and laughed. A wolf who was passing by saw the whole thing and said to himself, 'How unfairly we wolves are treated! When people so much as catch a glimpse of us, they drive us away, but when someone like that raven makes his move, everyone just looks at him and laughs.'

#### *The fable shows that even before they act, dangerous people can be recognized at a distance*. (Trans. Laura Gibbs)

The fable starts with an introductory sketch of the situation, which has two actors: a donkey is grazing in a meadow and a raven pecks at its wound on his back. The 'action' simply consists of the owner of the donkey laughing at what he sees. The concluding action brings forth the fourth actor, the wolf, who is passing by and observes the situation. Although dialogues are common in fables, it is typical, too, that there is only one speaker, such as in this fable the wolf, who comments on the situation in the end.21 From this wolf's point of view, wolves suffer unjust treatment from humans. Thus, the wolf criticises humans. As the wolf sees it, the driver's laughter is the opposite reaction to the usual or normal one by humans concerning predators, namely anger and fear. The driver does not drive the raven away but lets him continue pecking at the donkey's wound. If the wolf had approached the donkey, the enraged (and perhaps frightened) driver would have immediately driven it away.

<sup>16</sup> I am using the index system of Ben Perry's (Perry 1952). On fable collections, see (Adrados 1999, pp. 48–136).

<sup>17</sup> One of the first collections was composed during the third century BCE in Alexandria by Demetrius of Phalerum, the one-time student of Aristotle's philosophical school. Demetrius' (now lost) collection could have been in use until late antiquity. On Demetrius' collection, see (Dijk 1997, pp. 410–97, 540; Adrados 1999, p. 23).

<sup>18</sup> On writing fables as part of the rhetorical exercises (Progymnasmata), see (Kennedy 2003).

<sup>19</sup> These four features of narratives—time, structure, voice, and point of view—are listed by Peter Lamarque. See (Lamarque 1990, p. 131).

<sup>20</sup> (Dijk 1997, p. 114); On different kinds of narrator–character combinations in fables, see (Dijk 1997, pp. 373–74) and on different formal schemes, see (Adrados 1999, pp. 35–36).

<sup>21</sup> This kind of character is called *survenant* by the fable scholar M. Nøjgaard (1964–7). See (Dijk 1997, pp. 9, 373).

The *epimythium*, <sup>22</sup> the moral of the story (italicised in the excerpt above), explains that the point of the story here is to tell us that dangerous people ('wolves') can be recognised. One raven can usually cause no serious harm to a donkey, whereas one wolf may. So, the driver laughs because he is not scared by the raven.

A modern, animal-sympathetic reader may still ask why the donkey's driver laughed. The donkey is described as rearing up on his hind legs, apparently in order to get rid of—at least momentarily—the pecking raven. Was it the two-footed stance which appeared so funny to the driver? The raven is, however, physically harming the donkey and thus affecting its ability to be a good draft animal. That the raven was causing *pain* to the donkey is clearly stated by the verb *algein*, 'to be in pain'. Modern critics often point to the different attitudes to laughter in antiquity (including open expressions of *Schadenfreude* and the acknowledged comicality of slaves and other underdogs). <sup>23</sup> Yet, one might ask in this particular case whether there is a somewhat sympathetic attitude to the donkey in pain and a critique of the laughing driver—that laughing at someone clearly in pain is an example of uncivilised behaviour. Or, to put it another way, if the donkey is thought of as simply a commodity, then it is stupid not to prevent the raven pecking at the wound. The implied critique, if there were any, is then directed towards the human in the fable, not towards predators harming or possibly killing domestic animals.<sup>24</sup>

One may, of course, ask whether this is an anachronistic way of reading a Greek fable. These kinds of doubts are natural when reading succinct Aesopic fables because they are often enigmatic and the moral of the story frequently seems to point in puzzling, albeit not altogether incomprehensible (for the modern reader), directions—often simply because *epimythia* and *promythia* were late additions.<sup>25</sup> Written fables were stories told in a specific context which guided the interpretation. When fables were assembled together in collections, the contexts were lost. However, in their oral form, fables were originally quite flexible stories, so they fitted many situations and could be adjusted by storytellers. When ancient rhetoricians or other prose writers cited a fable, they used it for their own purposes, often as clarifications.26

Ancient fables thus have common features with riddles and proverbs: they are enigmatic, and in this respect, they are part of the gnomic tradition. However, a fable can be differentiated from other gnomic forms in the sense that it is a narrative genre. Like fairy tales, fables are stories which are usually vague about the time and place. Moreover, the actors in fables are not described in detail. Although gods are specified by name (Hermes, Zeus), and there are some mythical persons (Teiresias) and fictionalised historical persons (Socrates and Aesop himself), humans are usually only characterised by their occupation or class (a shepherd, a donkey-driver, a sacrificer, a slave). For their part, animals represent their species, which accounts for their stereotyped descriptions. However, the events are depicted as unique and specific: they happen to that donkey, to that driver, and to that raven and wolf.<sup>27</sup>

<sup>22</sup> The term *epimythium* (plural: *epimythia*) denotes that the moral of the story is given at the end. The moral can also be given at the beginning, when it is called *promythium*. The latter case was probably the earlier practice, originating in the days when fables were collected and when the moral functioned as a kind of title for the fable (Perry 1965).

<sup>23</sup> (Halliwell 2008, pp. 38–50, 69–76, 301).

<sup>24</sup> A similar but much later fable in Latin is 'The Wolf, The Crow and the Sheep' (Perry 670). See also 'The Well-meaning Wolves' (Perry 676). Both are from the codex Bruxellenses 536 from the 14th century, including fables from late antiquity.

<sup>25</sup> (Adrados 1999, p. 29).

<sup>26</sup> Aristotle was the first to discuss fables theoretically in his *Rhetoric* (2.20.1393b8–94a9). In Aristotle's view, the fable (*mythos*) is a good instrument of persuasion and he tells two animal fables ('The Stag, the Horse and the Man' and 'The Fox and the Lice') to prove their usability in political speeches, especially in those directed towards the common people.

<sup>27</sup> Sometimes fables remind one of *mirabilia*, stories of the strange ways of animals, a genre which Aristotle made good use of in his zoological works, and later writers like Plinius, Plutarch, Aelian, and Athenaeus developed them as an ingredient in their works on animals. Miraculous stories of animals were part of natural histories depicting the wonders of nature, but they also included stories of unique incidences and individual animals. The Aristotelean corpus included falsely attributed work belonging to the *mirabilia* genre: *On Marvellous Things Heard*. On this genre and the paradoxographers, see, e.g., (French 1994, pp. 299–303).

In short, ancient animal fables are stylistically simple, fictitious narratives, which have animal characters. However, despite their simplicity, they are not non-reflective. Animals' reflections can be funny or satirical, often pointing to overly narrow, or too self-centred points of view. The wolf's speech in the above-cited fable is a reflective speech or self-reflective thought. The wolf is not communicating with other actors in the fable, but reflecting on the situation by himself (and in his own distorting way). In all, the wolf is a focalised character. Before considering focalisation, it is worthwhile to discuss one common topic in all kinds of animal stories, including the Homeric animal similes, namely antagonism, a conflict situation between different species.

#### **2. Animal Antagonism and Focalisation in the Homeric Similes**

The epic genre developed the effective literary device of an epic (also known as Homeric) simile. Animal similes in Homeric epics compare the human situation with that of animals. As, for instance, Helmut Rahn has pointed out, at the very core of the idea of animal similes, there is the supposition of the possible continuation between the qualities of human and non-human animals, which is what makes it possible to compare them in the first place. The comparison is not only with the animal's movement (body), but also its emotions and moods, representing its current situation in life.<sup>28</sup> The Iliadic warriors are compared not only with predators (like lions, wolves, boars, hounds), but also with a donkey (Ajax) and with a just-mothered cow (Menelaus): the donkey's steadfastness suggests the same quality in Ajax, and the anxiety of the cow for her calf describes how Menelaus protects Patroclus' body (*Iliad* 11.558–562 and 17.4–6).

Although the human situation is most central, similes can provide a glimpse into some aspects of the active life of an animal. Animals in similes can, as Steven Lonsdale has put it, often be viewed as 'actors in their own right'.29 The vivid descriptions of a lion's corporeality and movements in the lengthiest of the lion similes (*Iliad* 20.164–75), for instance, almost turns the simile into an animal poem, one that praises the solemn existence of this predator. Here, Peleus' son Achilles runs to engage with Aeneas, the Trojan warrior, who was, like Achilles, of divine descent:

On the other side Peleus' son ran to meet him, like a lion / bent on slaughter that a whole village's resolute men have / gathered together to kill; at first it pays them no attention and / continues on its way, but when some war-swift young man / hits it with his spear it crouches, jaws gaping, and foam / gathers around its teeth, and the brave spirit in its heart / groans, and with its tail it lashes its ribs and flanks on / both sides, and drives itself on to fight; staring-eyed, / its fury carries it straight at the men, hoping either to kill / one of them or to die itself in the forefront of the conflict. / In just this way his fury and noble spirit drove Achilles on / to come face to face with great-hearted Aeneas. (*Iliad* 20.164–75) (Trans. Anthony Verity)

Fables do not have these kinds of forceful descriptions, which are like eulogies to animals as embodied beings with specific bodies.30 Although humans are compared with some animals in similes—like Achilles with the lion in this simile—animals do not act as substitutes for humans in similes. Instead, there is an imaginative assimilation of Achilles with a lion, despite their dissimilar bodies (the hero, of course, has no tail with which to lash his flanks). In the Aesopic fables, although there are some references to the bodies of animals, the human *words* uttered by the animal characters are usually more important than their non-human *bodies*. Although their speeches may, however, be

<sup>28</sup> (Rahn 1953, p. 288; Rahn 1954, pp. 452, 466–67). According to Rahn, human beings are not seen as 'rein menschlich'.

<sup>29</sup> (Lonsdale 1990, p. 1).

<sup>30</sup> The famous stallion simile, which occurs twice in the *Iliad* (6.506–14 and 15.263–268), depicts the stallion's exultant gallop. All translations of Homer's *Iliad* in this paper are by Anthony Verity. See (Verity 2011).

uttered from the (imagined) point of view of the animal, animals' bodies are not utilised to any great extent as a narrative element in animal fables.31

Thus, the emphasis on animals *qua* animals in fables is slight, if not altogether missing when compared with such expressive animal similes as the lion simile above. Furthermore, fables may mention the emotions of animals, but usually only by naming an emotional state. Instead, the Iliadic animal similes depict emotions, like anger and fear, quite lengthily, in order to simulate the emotional state of the warriors in the battlefield. One of the best examples of the depiction of fear or panic is the simile where a mother hind loses her fawns. The object of comparison in this simile is that Agamemnon kills two young Trojan princes, which causes fear in the Trojan troops (*Iliad*, 11.113–21):

As a lion easily crushes the bones of a swift hind's / young fawns, when it came upon their lair and seized / them in its mighty teeth, and rips out their tender hearts; and the mother, even if she chances to be nearby, cannot / help them, because fearful trembling overcomes her limbs, / and at once she darts away through dense thickets and woodland, / in a sweating fervour to escape the powerful beast's attack; / so no one of the Trojans could keep death from these two, / but were themselves driven in panic before Argives. (Trans. Anthony Verity) <sup>32</sup>

This simile contains elements of a story by telling what 'happens' to the mother hind. Lonsdale observes that the scene is seen 'both from the point of view of the aggressor and the victim'.33 Irene De Jong has compared the Iliadic narrator to a war reporter: the narrator is an external narrator-focaliser.<sup>34</sup> In this simile, it is as if the narrator is accompanying the mother hind and her sweating dart through woodland.

It is often noted that the Homeric equality of vision is rare in war literature in general. In the *Iliad*, a tale of war, the rapid focalisation from one side to the other (from the Achaeans to the Trojans or between the different factions inside each camp) is a token of the general Homeric narrative technique, which is then reflected in the similes. The agonistic animal simile thus depicts the situation with different focalisation—sometimes giving only the predator's point of view, sometimes the victim's point of view, and sometimes both the predator's and victim's viewpoints. Only very rarely does the animal victim in the Homeric similes manage to win, that is, to escape. One example is that where the goddess Artemis' fear is compared to that of a pigeon:

The goddess Artemis fled cowering and weeping, like a pigeon / that flies from a hawk's pursuit into the hollow of a rock, a / deep cleft, because it was not its destiny to be caught; just so / Artemis fled weeping, leaving her bow and arrow where they were. (*Iliad* 21.493–496) (Trans. Anthony Verity)

In Hesiod's fable, the hawk has already captured the nightingale. Here, the pigeon manages to flee from the pursuing hawk and the emotional focus is on the prey animal. However, in another Homeric simile concerning the hawk and the pigeon, which characterises Achilles' pursuit of Hector, the emotional focus is on the frustration of the *hawk*, which does not manage to catch the pigeon (22.138–44).

The focus of the Homeric animal simile can thus vary from predator to prey animal. Along with focalisation, the Homeric narrative in similes is 'objective'; it observes the situation as a detached

<sup>31</sup> Fables can play with the differences in animal bodies, like in the fable 'The Fox and the Stork', where one animal cannot enjoy the food served by the other—the stork cannot lick the broth from the low bowl or the fox eat from the narrow-mouthed jug (Phaedrus 1.26).

<sup>32</sup> The frame of the simile is the following: Achilles formerly captured two sons of King Priam, Isos, and Antiphon, when they were herding the king's cattle on Mount Ida, but then he gave them up as a ransom. In this scene, Agamemnon kills these warrior princes like the lion kills the fawns. Hector is not there to rescue his young brothers. The absence of Hector is compared with the *absence* of the mother hind, but the *fear* of the mother hind simulates the fear of the Trojans.

<sup>33</sup> (Lonsdale 1990, pp. 58–60).

<sup>34</sup> (De Jong 2014, p. 69, 61).

onlooker, in the sense that it does not condemn the predator's behaviour as cruel. The reason for this is that the Iliadic heroes are compared with predators on account of their courage and skill as warriors.35 For their part, the Aesopic fables may express the imagined animal point of view of both prey and predator animals in the speeches by their humanised animal characters. Often, it is expressed with comical and satirical twists, but nevertheless, animals are pictured as genuine narrators of their own stories.

#### **3. Begging for Mercy**

In the Homeric similes, the emotional and narrative focus on the victim may sometimes be elaborated, as in the above-mentioned mother hind simile. In the Aesopic fables, however, the victim also has the opportunity to clearly voice its (imagined) situation. This is along the general lines that fables tell the other side of the story, the view of common people, the underprivileged, or the underclass.

Even the predator himself may be pictured as considering the situation from the point of view of his victim. In Babrius' fable 'The Hare and the Hound', a hound starts a hare from her lair. The hare runs away, and after a long chase, the dog gives up. A goatherd observes the situation and mockingly addresses the dog: 'The little one proved to be faster than you.' The dog replies that the goatherd does not see the different purposes of their running: the dog runs for his dinner, the hare for her life (Babrius 69). Thus, for the outside human observer (who is not a hunter, the owner of the hound, but a goatherd), the chase is like a running contest. The dog for his part—as though giving an excuse for his frustrated failure to catch the hare—knows the difference between running for one's life and running in order to fulfil one's transitory needs. The hare's speed allows her to survive.

In 'The Wolf and the Lamb', a lamb negotiates for her life. This fable is included in the Augustana collection (Perry 155), but also the Roman fable writers, Phaedrus (1.1) and Babrius (89), both retold this fable in verse. In Phaedrus' Latin version, the wolf and the lamb have come to drink from the same brook. The wolf is hungry ('prompted by his wicked gullet', *improba latro incitatus*) and therefore begins a 'quarrel' (*iurgium*) with the lamb. He accuses the lamb of spoiling the water. The lamb, however, is able to deny this accusation because it stands much lower down the river than the wolf. The wolf then states that the lamb has cursed him six months ago. The lamb is able to reject this too because she was not even born then. Eventually, the wolf accuses the lamb's father of cursing him. Using this as a reason for killing the lamb, the wolf pounces upon her and tears her to pieces (the verb *lacerare*). Phaedrus ends the fable with the statement that the lamb died because of unjust killing (*iniusta nex*).

The reasons given by the wolf for killing the lamb are like playing with one's prey: they are pretexts. It is as if it is part of the predatory disposition to tease or bully one's prey. However, the fable also seems to record the common demonising stereotype that wolves are insatiable and unnecessarily cruel.<sup>36</sup> Wolves occur in some Homeric animal similes, too, as paragons of predators, and their 'predatory' ways of eating are depicted graphically (cf. *Iliad*, 16.156–163).37 According to the modern zoologists, wolves sometimes attack their prey without eating them at all or only partially eating them.38 This so-called 'surplus killing' was surely an observed fact in antiquity, too (for ancient shepherds at least), although it is rarely mentioned in ancient texts. In a probably late fable, preserved only in the so-called Syntipas collection, a hunter (not a shepherd) encounters a wolf tearing to pieces (*diasparattein*) as many sheep as he can. The hunter with his hounds defeats the wolf and says: 'Where

<sup>35</sup> (Clarke 1995, p. 137).

<sup>36</sup> On wolves in ancient Greek iconography and literature, see (Calder 2011, pp. 67–69). Aelian states that wolves are extremely fierce and they might even eat one another (*On the Characteristics of Animals* 7.20).

<sup>37</sup> In this simile, Achilles' men, the Myrmidons, are compared to wolves, which are depicted as 'eaters of raw flesh, whose hearts are full of unbelievable strength'. They have killed a stag and tear it apart, their muzzles are gory. After that, they go in a pack to the river to drink and have eaten so much that they 'belch forth clots of blood' (*Iliad*, 16.162).

<sup>38</sup> Wolves may cache food for times when prey are scarce, but 'surplus killing' may happen when prey is abundant. See, for example, (Peterson and Ciucci 2003, p. 144).

now is the might that you formerly had? Against the dogs you can't make any stand at all.' The hunter's question echoes the ancient ideas of hunting as a noble sport, where two mighty and/or cunning antagonists confront each other.<sup>39</sup> The wolf was only successful in attacking the weaker and more helpless creatures. Thus, the hunter is rebuking the wolf for bad 'sportsmanship'.

In the Augustana version of 'The Wolf and the Lamb' (Perry 155), the wolf accuses the lamb of drinking from his spring and insulting his father. In vain, the lamb denies these accusations, followed by the wolf killing and eating her. The *epimythium* states that when rulers commit crimes, they do not listen to the reasoning of their subordinates.<sup>40</sup> In Babrius' version of 'The Wolf and the Lamb' (Babrius 89), the lamb has gone astray and the protagonists do not meet beside a river:

Once a wolf saw a lamb that had gone astray from the flock, but instead of rushing upon him to seize him by force, he tried to find a plausible complaint by which to justify his hostility (*egklema ekhthr ¯ es eupros ¯ opon ¯* ). 'Last year, small though you were, you slandered me.' 'How could I last year? It's not yet a year since I was born.' 'Well, then, aren't you cropping this field, which is mine?' 'No, for I've not eaten any grass nor have I begun to graze.' 'And haven't you drunk from the fountain which is mine to drink from?' 'No, even yet my mother's breast provides my nourishment.' Thereupon the wolf seized the lamb and while eating him remarked: 'You're not going to rob the wolf of his dinner even though you do find it easy to refute all my charges.' (Trans. Ben Perry)

Babrius begins the fable by asserting that the wolf resolved not to kill and eat the lamb immediately, for the wolf wants to find a plausible complaint by which to justify his hostility (*egklema ekhthr ¯ es¯ euprosopon ¯* ). The above-mentioned Augustana version (Perry 155)—which in its written form could be earlier than Babrius' version—has the expression *met' eulogou aitias katathoinesasthai ¯* , to feast with good reason or pretext. Precisely the same phrase is used in a similar fable in the Augustana collection, 'The Cat and the Cock' (Perry 16):

A cat had seized a rooster and wanted to find a reasonable pretext for devouring him (*met' eulogou aitias katathoinesasthai ¯* ). He began by accusing the rooster of bothering people by crowing at night, making it impossible for them to sleep. The rooster said that this was actually an act of kindness on his part, since people needed to be woken up in order to begin their day's work. The cat then made a second accusation, 'But you are also a sinner who violates nature's own laws when you mount your sisters and your mother.' The rooster said that this also was something he did for his masters' benefit, since this resulted in a large supply of eggs. The cat found himself at a loss and said, 'Even if you have an endless supply of arguments, do you think that I am not going to eat you?' (Trans. Laura (Gibbs 2002) slightly modified) <sup>41</sup>

The fable may remind one of the hunting practice of cats, in which they 'play' with their prey—not killing it immediately. <sup>42</sup> In any case, like the lamb, the rooster wins the argument, but is still going to be killed. However, the cat accuses the rooster not only of minor misdemeanours, but of unnatural or criminally taboo behaviour. The cat's second accusation deals namely with inbreeding, which as such, can easily be observed in domestic animals (whereas in wild species, there are many means to

<sup>39</sup> Syntipas 6 (404), see (Perry 1952, p. 531). On the ideology behind hunting in antiquity, see (Barringer 2001).

<sup>40</sup> On the Augustana version of this fable, see (Clayton 2008, pp. 179–80). Clayton interprets this fable to point to the difference between humans and other animals: justice does not matters to animals and the wolf enacts here 'a parody of justice' (Clayton 2008, p. 195).

<sup>41</sup> Gibbs translates the last line as 'Well, even if you have an endless supply of arguments, I am still going to eat you anyway!' The elaborate *epimythium* of this fable states: 'The fable shows that when someone with a wicked nature has set his mind on committing some offence, he will carry out his evil acts openly even if he cannot come up with a reasonable excuse.' See also Perry 122, in which a cock tries to persuade humans (thieves) not to kill him.

<sup>42</sup> One reason for this behaviour is that it ensures that the prey is weak enough to be killed (Fraser 2012, pp. 35–36, 57–58).

avoid breeding among close relatives, for instance, by dispersal).43 Here, the cat accuses the rooster of violating 'nature's own laws' (or, literally, that the rooster is impious or unholy towards nature, *asebes¯ eis ten phusin ¯* ). Thus, if the 'reason' for the wolf's predatory behaviour is 'personal', that this lamb has caused *him* harm once, the cat finds more general charges against the rooster.

Sometimes, the prey animal manages to convince the predator not to kill and eat it. However, the result of the convincing is not always clear. In Babrius' fable, a fox begs a wolf to spare her life (*zogrein ¯* ) because she is so old. The wolf promises not to kill her if she can produce three true statements. The fox pronounces three clever platitudes and the fable ends there (Babrius 53). The fox may have managed to persuade the wolf or maybe she didn't. In another fable told by Babrius (107), a lion catches a mouse, and the latter remarks that it is suitable for lions to hunt down stags and bulls and 'with their flesh make fat your belly', but a little mouse is not a sufficient meal for a big lion. The lion releases the mouse, which later, when a hunter has captured the lion in a net, releases him by gnawing through the ropes. The fable may also begin with a predator in trouble, which causes it to ask for help from other animals, including its prey. However, the difficulties or dangers are sometimes fake and the weaker ones either decline the request because they know that after being rescued the predators will attack them, or the prey animal assists the deceptive predator, to its own ruin. The replies of the weaker ones are often sarcastic—they know the ulterior motive of the predators.44

There are thus various fables where a powerful animal is defeated by a weaker one. In an Augustana fable, a bat begs for mercy from some weasels (*galai*) (Perry 172). A weasel has managed to catch a bat, which has fallen to the ground. After the bat has begged for mercy, the weasel argues that weasels are at war (*polemein*) with all birds. The bat then assures the weasel that she is not a bird but a mouse, so the weasel must let her go. The fable thus plays with the uncommon nature of bats, a mammal which is able to fly. The second part of the fable recounts that the bat is in danger of being killed by another weasel. This time, the other weasel states that there are constant hostilities (the verb *diechthrainein*) between weasels and mice.<sup>45</sup> The bat assures the weasel that she is not a mouse at all, but a bat. It is noteworthy that the fable calls the prey-predator relationship 'a war' between species. This was, however, a common idiom, and was also used by Aristotle.

#### **4. 'A War against Each Other Among All Animals'**

In the eighth Book of his *Study of Animals* (8.609a4–610a36), Aristotle lists pairs of animal species which are each other's enemies (*polemios*), that is, at war (*polemos*) with each other, like the eagle with the snake, the crow with the owl, the gecko with the spider, and the horse with the heron. The reason for 'war' or enmities between different (non-carnivorous) species can be the harm which they cause – such as some species of birds stealing other species' eggs. In Aristotle's view, the most obvious reason for the enmities is the scarcity of food for animals which occupy the same place and obtain their sustenance from the same things. However, Aristotle begins this passage by assuring that even the 'wildest' or 'cruellest' (*agrios* means both 'wild' and 'cruel') animals can live with each other if there is enough food (8.608b32–3). Yet, as Aristotle puts it, some animals are at war with *many* animals: for example, the wolf with the ass, the bull, and the fox. The wolf is likely the most dangerous predator in some areas, but for Aristotle, the simple reason for this expansive enmity of wolves is that the wolf is *omophagos ¯* (literally 'an eater of raw meat'), that is, carnivorous (8.609b1–3). Besides, all animals are at war (the verb *polemein*) with carnivores, which feed on other 'animals' (*apo ton z ¯ o¯on¯* ).<sup>46</sup> The Greek

<sup>43</sup> On the so-called inbreeding avoidance hypothesis, see, for instance, (Pusey and Wolf 1996, p. 202).

<sup>44</sup> (Adrados 1999, pp. 174–75; Zafiropoulos 2001, pp. 125–26). Examples of these kinds of fables are 'The Kid and the Wolf', in which a kid asks a wolf to play the flute in order that she can dance her death dance before the wolf kills her. The piping sends hounds to the spot and the kid is rescued (Perry 97).

<sup>45</sup> The war between mice and weasels was the topic of animal epics and fables. See Perry 165, Syntipas 51 (see Perry 1952, p. 546) and Phaedrus 4.6.

<sup>46</sup> Aristotle discusses flesh-eaters in the seventh Book of the *Study of Animals* using the usual word *sarkophaga* (*zoa¯* )—not the word *zoophaga ¯* . See, for instance, 7.594b18 (lion).

word for 'animal', used and generalised by Aristotle, is *zoon ¯* , which refers to a living being, especially sentient living beings. In his *Politics*, Aristotle discusses different kinds of human lifestyles (nomadic, hunting, and agriculture) and prefaces this by speaking of different kinds of food, which different kinds of 'animals' (*zoa¯* ), sentient living beings, use: some eat plants, some eat other (sentient) living beings (*zoophaga ¯* ), and some are omnivorous. Aristotle concludes that it is the liking for different kinds of food that makes the lives of living beings different. Nature (*phusis*) has made different modes of life to suit different kinds of natural abilities and preferences for food, so that each lifestyle facilities the acquisition of suitable food (*Politics* 1.8.1256a26–28).

Aristotle has, apparently, a neutral or non-sentimental view about the fact that some animals (including most humans) eat other animals. Sometimes, however, he describes the enmity between species in a way which may be reminiscent of animal fables. For example, in the above-mentioned passage from the *Study of Animals*, he tells about a bird named the *anthos*, which is 'at war' with the horse (8.609b14–19). The bird only seems to make minor mischief for the horse by, for instance, mimicking him or scaring him:

Anthos is at war with the horse: the horse drives it out of the pasture, for the anthos forages in grass, and has white film on its eyes and does not see sharply: it mimics the horse's voice and scares him by flying at him; and he drives it away, but whenever he catches it he kills it. The anthos lives beside river and marshes; its colour is beautiful and it lives well. (Trans. D.M. Balme)

The *anthos* has been identified as the yellow wagtail, because some of its sub-species have been observed to pick insects from farm animals and some of their calls remind one of the whinnying of horses.<sup>47</sup> Aristotle also mentions a bird named the *aigithios* (probably the long-tailed tit), which pecks the sores of donkeys—like the raven in 'The Donkey, a Raven and a Passing Wolf' quoted above. The reason for the *aigithios*' enmity is, according to Aristotle, that donkeys accidentally upset their nests placed in thorn bushes (8.609a31–35).<sup>48</sup> Modern ethology may interpret reasons for 'enmities' between species as based on (in this case) parent defence behaviour due to the possible damage to be done to the offspring. For his part, Aristotle seems to stress specific reasons, using a specific case when the nests were upset. Particular reasons are also the cause (or pretended cause) for the wolf's enmity toward the lamb in the fable 'The Wolf and the Lamb' quoted earlier.

However, the idea of peaceful existence between species—rather than constant war—was assured by Aristotle in the above-mentioned passage. In his view, wild animals—even the wildest, 'cruellest' ones—can live peacefully together if there is enough food. Aristotle gives an example of crocodiles in Egypt which have become tame and gentle (*hemeros ¯* ) towards the priest who feeds them (8.608b33–609a2).49

Some fables point to the idealised Golden Age—also known as the Age of Zeus' father, Cronus—when all living beings lived in peace and harmony, or when they were at least striving for all-inclusive justice. One of the defences against injustices was to seek help from the gods. Aristotle mentions in passing an animal fable in which the hares insist on equality with the lions (*Politics* 3.13.1284a15–17 = Perry 450). Traditionally, the passage has been understood to include the lions' answer (which Aristotle does not mention) that the hares' petition lacks 'teeth and claws'.<sup>50</sup> An equally disappointing result occurs in a fable told by Phaedrus, in which a lion which had appointed

<sup>47</sup> (Arnott 2007, pp. 14–15) s.v. *anthos*.

<sup>48</sup> (Arnott 2007), s.v. *aigithios*. The description of the *anthos*/*aigithios* and other stories of animal friendships and enmities are later copied by Pliny (*Natural History* 10.95) and Aelian (*On the Characteristics of Animals* 5.48).

<sup>49</sup> Aristotle is naturally referring here to Egyptian animal cults. Although there were no animal cults in Greece, some animals were in a way protected as sacred animals to gods (like Apollo's doves in Delphi). On gods linked to specific animals, see (Gilhus 2006, pp. 93–95).

<sup>50</sup> Aristotle is here presenting the idea that the best men in the *polis* are outside the law, like gods. Laws are made for citizens, which are equal, but the 'lions' in the *polis* are above/below the average citizens. After that, Aristotle moves on to discuss the *ostracismus*, the institution which made it possible to get rid of unpopular rulers—unpopular 'lions'. Aristotle mentions

himself king tries first to be fair by restricting his diet, thus upholding 'the sacred law of justice' (*sancta incorrupta iura*); nonetheless, the lion soon lapses into his old habits of eating other animals (Phaedrus 4.14). Babrius, however, tells a fable (102) about an animal kingdom ruled by a lion which is not 'wild' or 'restive' (*thymodes ¯* ), but is fair-minded (*dikaios*)—as fair-minded as a human might be assures the fable—and therefore all animals are 'at peace' (*eiren¯ e¯*). The lion acts as a judge and weak animals are able to seek justice: the lamb against the wolf, the wild goat against the leopard, and the deer against the tiger. One hare then states that he had always prayed that this would happen, that weak animals would be 'feared' by the strong. Here, the topic of the equality of the weak with the strong is also a reference to the mythic Golden Age with its all-inclusive justice. The weaker ones could seek protection without having to submit to the natural law that 'might makes right'.

The oldest example of this type of fable is the fragment preserved by the seventh century BCE iambic poet Archilochus, in which a fox pleads for justice from Zeus against an eagle which had violated their friendship pact (fr. 177). The fox says that Zeus is a source of justice *both* among men *and* animals (*theria ¯* ). This has been interpreted as Archilochus' mocking comment on the Hesiodic passage mentioned above of Zeus only giving justice (*dike¯*) to humans (*Works and Days* 274–80).<sup>51</sup> For Hesiod, Zeus' *dike¯* means, in its basic form, the right to live and not to be killed. If this basic right is violated, the transgressor should be punished—but this right concerns only the human sphere.

Hesiod thus makes a clear distinction that Zeus' justice concerns only humans. However, both Plato (*The Laws* 7.766a) and Aristotle (*Politics* 1.1.1253a34–7) state that without education and other restraints, it is man who is the cruelest (*agrios*) living being. Although both philosophers were only concerned with human cruelty towards other human beings, the fable genre also discussed, to a certain extent, the ill-treatment of animals and cruelty towards animals by humans.

#### **5. Humans as a Threat to Other Animals**

There are hence some fables or fragments of fables where animals seek help or even justice from Zeus—sometimes against other animals, including humans, and sometimes specifically against humans. For instance, bees ask for killing stings from Zeus so that they would be able to defend their honeycombs against humans (Perry 163), donkeys ask to be released from their toils (Perry 185), and a snake which has been trodden on by several men complains about it to Zeus (Perry 198). Dogs also petition the supreme god for better treatment by humans in Phaedrus' fable (4.19 = Perry 517).<sup>52</sup> However, in general, Zeus declines animals' petitions or promises to give them what they want on impossible terms. Therefore, these kinds of fables surely functioned as aetiologies—and justifications—for animal husbandry, as well as the ill- or carefree treatment of domestic animals. Donkeys were worked to death because Zeus did not give them equal justice.

The most extensive of the kinds of fables depicting humans as an enemy for other animals is the fable 'The Owl and the Birds', part of which is found in the so-called Ryland papyrus 493, which is from the first century CE.53 The owl tries to warn other bird species of the dangerous fowler (*ikseutes¯* ). It is naturally an everyday observation that birds warn birds of their own species (and therefore, unintentionally, also of other species) about enemies. That the owl, a predator bird, is the warner here, is perhaps because of its sharp sight. The same kind of fable is preserved in the Augustana

that the fable of the hares and the lions was told by Antisthenes. We may suppose that Antisthenes, the founder of the Cynic School, has told the fable in order to advocate the philosophy that 'might makes right'.

<sup>51</sup> (Steiner 2010, p. 104). Steiner also suggests that Archilochus' fable functions as a subtext for Callimachus' (fragmentally preserved) second *Iamb* (from the third century BCE), where a fox and a swan complain that Zeus' rule is not fair—thus implying that it is not like the rule of his father Cronus, which guaranteed peace and harmony for all animals and not just for humans. (Steiner 2010, pp. 97–99, 102).

<sup>52</sup> The camel asks for bull-like horns (Perry 117; Syntipas 59, see (Perry 1952, p. 549)), and in a later fable, a hare asks the supreme god for horns like those of a stag (Perry 658). See also 'Jupiter and the Goats' (Phaedrus 4.17). In the Latin later fable, it is the lion as king of the animals, not Zeus or Jupiter, who dispenses justice by ordering that a wolf be hanged for eating sheep (Perry 596).

<sup>53</sup> The Ryland papyrus contains remnants of a collection of fables, five in all. (Adrados 1999, pp. 54–60).

collection (Perry 39), where it is not an owl, but a swallow, which tries to warn other birds about the fowlers' nets.<sup>54</sup>

Dio Chrysostom, who lived in the second century CE, tells the same fable in a more elaborate fashion. The owl's warnings happen in the course of a long time. The time of the story marks human cultural and technical development, which meant more advanced methods in fowling. Time after time, the owl tries to warn other birds, but the situation becomes worse at every step. Finally, when she sees a man armed with a bow, the owl 'prophesies' (*prolegein*): 'This man will outstrip you with the help of your own feathers, for though he is on foot himself, he will send feathered shafts after you.' Other birds do not trust the owl's warning, albeit too late.<sup>55</sup> The teaching of this fable is apparently that wise men ('owls') are worth listening to. However, the fable also approaches bird-catching from the birds' point of view: fowling methods are painful and lethal and it becomes increasingly difficult to escape them. The growing threat to birds from human fowlers in these bird fables, and the one portrayed especially in Dio Chrysostom's version of 'The Owl and the Birds', reminds one of such modern classics as Richard Adams' *Watership Down* (1972) and Walt Disney's film *Bambi* (1942), where men are depicted as impersonal threats.

Describing humans as the enemies of many animals is expressed more clearly when humans are represented as carnivorous, as eaters of other animals. Some fables include sacrificial scenes and sacrificial animals, but they rarely make the connection between sacrificing and meat eating (see Phaedrus 5.4, Babrius 132, Perry 465). Eating animals is, however, treated in a much more concrete sense in the Old Comedies with animal choruses from the fifth century BCE, e.g., *The Birds*, *The Storks*, *The Ants*. <sup>56</sup> One possible theme in these mostly only fragmentally preserved animal-named comedies was the question of why humans treat animals as they do and why humans eat animals despite usually having plenty of other food to eat. The most explicit example of this theme is Crates' *Animals* (*Theria ¯* ).57 The animal choruses demanding the basic right to live or decent living can be compared with Aristophanes' women's comedies (*Lysistrata*, *The Women Celebrating the Thesmophoria* and *The Assemblywomen*), where women take over power (at least temporarily). Although these demands by animals in animal chorus comedies were apparently viewed as comical, these 'animal comedies' might also point to the current ways in which humans treated animals. Thus, in Aristophanes' *The Birds*, the only extant one of animal chorus comedies, cruel fowling practices are referred to both by the human protagonist Peisetaerus (522–38) and by the bird chorus, which even declares laws to protect birds from fowlers and bird-sellers (1077–87). Because these are all comedies, the Athenian audience were more likely to have laughed at, rather than pitied, the animals for these kinds of appeals. However, both the women's comedies and the animal chorus comedies gave the male audience of Athenian theatre the possibility to imagine situations from the (imagined) animal or female point of view. Therefore, they could have been lessons in empathy, a partial immersion in another's situation.58

#### **6. Concluding Words**

Fables may sometimes bear traces of observation of the everyday behaviour of animals, although their motives can be humanised for the sake of the story. The most humanised feature of the animals

<sup>54</sup> Birds detect a man sowing flax seed, and then the seed sprouts. On both occasions, the swallow warns other birds that the men would make nets by braiding flax strings, but they ignore her. Therefore, birds live in constant danger of being trapped by nets. The swallow, however, decides to leave the other birds and live close to humans. The fact that swallows live near humans is also pointed out in the fable 'The Swallow and the Nightingale' (Perry 277, also told by Babrius 12): the nightingale declines the swallow's offer to live with humans by referring to her former tragic life as a human, a reference to the myth of Procne, Philomela, and Tereus. The swallow alludes to the same myth in 'The Crow and the Boastful Swallow', by asserting that she is the daughter of the King of Athens (Perry 377).

<sup>55</sup> Dio Chrysostom *Discourse* 12.7–10 (= Perry 437); see also *Discourse* 72.14–16 (= Perry 437a). See also (Adrados 1999, pp. 34–5). Translation of Dio's text is based on J. W. Cohoon's translation (1939). See (Cohoon 1939).

<sup>56</sup> The first were Magnes' Birds and Pherecrates' *Ant-men*. Crates' *Animals (Theria) ¯* in the 420s BCE was followed by Aristophanes' *The Birds* in 410 BCE, and later Archippus' *Fishes* (c. 402 BCE). On animal choruses, see (Rothwell 2007).

<sup>58</sup> (Korhonen 2017, pp. 144–58). The definition of empathy is Erika Ruonakoski's (Ruonakoski 2017, p. 40).

in fables is that animals are depicted as speaking human language.<sup>59</sup> While talking animals are part of the general storytelling in different modern genres (comics, animations, fairy-tales), talking animals were rare in Graeco-Roman literature and mythology. Fables are the exception, but the most commonly stated function of these talking animal characters in fables is to enable a discussion of ethical problems in everyday (human) situations by means of the simplification created by the use of animal characters. Unlike, for instance, the forceful and lively depictions of animals in the Homeric animal similes, which truly bring to mind the animals themselves, the animals in fables are humanised, often, however, more strongly in the concluding action (like the wolf's speech in 'The Raven, the Donkey and the Passing Wolf'). Yet, although animals in the Aesopic fables may talk, they are otherwise not overtly humanised (they do not, for example, wear clothes or stand upright).60 Furthermore, fables in the type 'Begging for Mercy' could deal with such observed zoological facts as the 'surplus killing' of wolves and cats 'playing' with their prey.

Besides, if humanising makes it possible to use fables as examples for human situations, it also makes non-human species more readily understandable. Pascal Etler speaks about the emotionalisation of human-animal relationships in modern children's literature, meaning that humanised animals form part of a child's emotional education.<sup>61</sup> In a way, fables already acted as children's literature in antiquity. The Roman rhetorician Quintilian from the first century CE states in his *Orator's Education* (1.9.2) that fables follow after nursery stories. However, the main function of the Aesopic fables was not to teach Greek and Roman schoolboys how to *feel*, but how to express themselves simply and clearly, along with the general worldly wisdom that fables offered.

Still, although animals in fables are humanised and the point of the story is not to sympathise with animals, fables also invite readers to consider the (imagined) point of view of animals, especially that of prey animals, the underdogs. If the audience of the *Iliad* identified with warriors and therefore, with predators in the similes, the overt focalisation of the victim, the prey, makes it possible to identify with them, the weak ones, in the fables. Then, one of the basic (and implied) questions behind some of these short stories, fables, may be why do animals (humans among others) harm, kill, and eat other animals? Why should one's life continue only at the expense of the death of others? Why are there those who kill? The modern response is that carnivorous predators eat prey because, otherwise, they simply could not survive and, furthermore, predators have an ecologically important role in the ecosystem. Instead, some fables imply that eating other sentient living beings may also be viewed as an act which needs to at least be humorously justified. The larger picture is the idea of decline, a lapse since the Golden Age when all animals lived in 'peace' without harming each other. In this train of thought, killing and eating other animals was a sign of moral decline.<sup>62</sup>

The 'war' between species, which was based on some enmities between two animals of different species, was not only a fictitious reason, but an explanation used by Aristotle. In his hunting manual with hounds, Socrates' contemporary Xenophon calls prey animals strong 'adversaries' (*antipala*) of (human) hunters, which fight both for their lives (*psychai*) and for their dwellings (*Cynegeticus* 13.14). Some fables can depict a reverse rhetoric by depicting humans as enemies – even as a collective threat to other animals, especially wild birds. Although animals attempting to seek justice against human

<sup>59</sup> In Greek myths, animals usually did not talk human language, but there were some humans, like the seer Teiresias, who could understand animal languages. In the *Iliad*, Achilles' divine horse Xanthus is bestowed with the gift of human speech at a critical moment (*Iliad* 19.400–423). But it was a special occasion, a present by the goddess Hera, not an ability of this divine animal in general. Poets sometimes used a certain rhetorical device, the so-called *prosopopoeia* ('making a mask', speaking as another person), like Theognis, the lyric poet from the sixth century BCE: he has a few lines in which the lyric speaker is a mare (Theognis 257–60).

<sup>60</sup> Although animals in modern animal sensitive children's literature, like the rabbits Hazel and Fiver in *Watership Down*, seem to be much more humanised than the animals in ancient fables (the rabbits have names, for instance), they also preserve their animal specificity, e.g., the societal structure of rabbits.

<sup>61</sup> (Eitler 2014, p. 95).

<sup>62</sup> On the ancient ideas that the introduction of meat eating coincided with the moral decline of mankind, see, for instance, (Dombrowski 2014, pp. 536–37).

violence can be viewed as a satirical or comical topic – like women gaining power in Aristophanes' women's comedies—this topic might also be viewed as an implicit way of educating empathy by putting oneself in the position of the underdogs in human societies, the non-human others.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.

#### **References**


De Jong, Irene. 2014. *Narratology & Classics: A Practical Guide*. Oxford: Oxford University Press.


Zafiropoulos, Christos A. 2001. *Ethics in Aesop's Fables: The Augustana Collection*. Leiden: Brill.

© 2017 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

## *Article* **Eloquent Alogia: Animal Narrators in Ancient Greek Literature**

#### **Tom Hawkins**

Department of Classics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA; hawkins.312@osu.edu

Academic Editor: Joela Jacobs Received: 21 January 2017; Accepted: 27 May 2017; Published: 3 June 2017

**Abstract:** Classical Greek literature presents a variety of speaking animals. These are not, of course, the actual voices of animals but human projections. In a culture that aligns verbal mastery with social standing, verbal animals present a conundrum that speaks to an anxiety about human communication. I argue that the earliest examples of speaking animals, in Homer, Hesiod and Archilochus, show a fundamental connection with Golden Age tales. Later authors, such as Plutarch and Lucian, look back on such cases from a perspective that does not easily accept notions of divine causation that would permit such fanciful modes of communication. I argue that Plutarch uses a talking pig to challenge philosophical categories, and that Lucian transforms a sham-philosopher of a talking-cock to undermine the very pretense of philosophical virtue.

**Keywords:** animals; Achilles; Archilochus; fox; Gryllus; Hesiod; Homer; Lucian; pig; Plutarch; Pythagoras; rooster; Xanthus

#### **1. Introduction**

Aristotle (*Politics*, 1.2) and Cicero (*De inventione*, 1.4) both maintained that language forms one of the critical distinctions between humans and beasts (Fögen 2003, 2007). This attitude can even be felt in the Greek adjective *alogon* ("without *logos*"), which means not only "irrational" and "without language" but also (as a noun) "animal".1 Thus, as Gera and Heath have amply demonstrated, in early Greek culture verbal mastery was strongly correlated to social standing (Gera 2003; Heath 2005). Animals, since they lack altogether the capacity for language, demarcate one end of a spectrum that leads toward the masters of persuasive speech, and marginal figures like children, women, foreigners, the uneducated, and those with communicative disabilities are mapped somewhere between these extremes. Verbal animals, therefore, represent a category crisis that demands explanation (Fögen 2003, 2007), and by situating speaking animals in the wider range of classical attitudes we can hear a paradoxically eloquent *alogia*.

The "animal turn" in contemporary literary studies seeks to take the role of animals in literature more seriously, based, in part, on the modern realization that animal (and even plant) communication is far more complicated than had previously been realized (McDonell 2014; DeMello 2013; Plec 2013; Karban 2015; Radick 2007; Diamond 1992; Herman 2016). Yet efforts to study animal narrators constantly bump up against the limits of this project.<sup>2</sup> Speaking animals are presented in terms of a uniquely human trait, namely *human* language (Wolfe 2016), and thus they are constructed via a pathetic fallacy that offers us not a window into the bestial soul but a mirror that reflects how humans

<sup>1</sup> In the story of Epimetheus' botched distribution of animal capacities, for example, Plato says that the dim-witted Titan apportioned all available skill-sets and capabilities among the beasts (*ta aloga*) while forgetting to reserve any such benefit for humans (*Protagoars*, 321b–c).

<sup>2</sup> See (DeMello 2013) and (Herman 2016) for creative efforts to overcome this problem.

conceptualize (i.e., create and make knowable through our language) animals. Such an assertion need not deny or even erode the possibility of animal languages or human–non-human communication.<sup>3</sup> I am confident that I and the dog, who keeps me company as I write this article, communicate, but as soon as I "report" his words by means of my vocabulary, grammar and personal context, I am speaking through or for him rather than hearing his voice.4

Even if the idea of hearing what animals really want to "say" must remain a fantasy, in taking literary depictions of verbal animals more seriously, we can hope to reach other goals. In the following pages I build on the work of Gera, Heath, and Fögen (Fögen 2003, 2007; Gera 2003; Heath 2005) to suggest that speaking animals from ancient Greek literature often engage with Golden Age narratives. I begin with two archaic case-studies: a horse, who speaks prophetic Homeric hexameters, and a fabular fox, whose voice provides an ethical example for human conflict. In these early examples, the animals are fully animal and their voices derive from an earlier world order that is no longer directly accessible. These animal voices thus have another-worldly authority, and their speech works differently from the limited and fallible language of humans, thereby setting up a contrast between the two systems of communication. I then turn to the later end of antiquity, where a pig and a rooster speak, but only because they used to be human. The gimmick of a talking animal may have lost its attractions by this era, since these animals speak not from another world but as overtly humanized voices that provide philosophical (pig) and satirical (rooster) commentary on their contemporary world and earlier Greek culture.<sup>5</sup> These later examples look back to earlier models to establish animal voices as a miraculous interruption of the world order, but the supernatural gambit quickly devolves into a commentary on purely human affairs.

#### **2. Houyhnhnmic Prophecy**

With his divine maternal inheritance, Achilles experiences human emotions at a superhuman level. His *mênis* (the "rage" that drives the *Iliad*) is a form of divine, rather than human, anger, and his grief at the loss of his beloved Patroclus prompts a berserker's bloodlust few social codes can tolerate (Muellner 1996). Thus, as he grieves for his dead friend it is hardly surprising that he rails even against Xanthus and Balius, his horses that had conveyed Patroclus into, but not back from, battle. The surprise, rather, is that Xanthus replies to Achilles' chastisement with ten hexameter lines that refute the hero's charge that the horses were somehow negligent in Patroclus' death and predict Achilles' own imminent demise at the hands of Paris and Apollo. Homer frames the horse's words with two divine interventions: he notes that Hera had granted Xanthus the power of speech (*audêeis*, 19.407), and the Erinyes (Furies) then immediately check his voice (*eskhethon audên*, 19.418).6

These lines have long puzzled Homeric commentators, and the relevant issues are difficult to resolve.<sup>7</sup> I follow Johnston's arguments that this scene pulls together a variety of mythical motifs that are only alluded to here (Johnston 1992). Most importantly, she reconstructs a heroic pattern of Hera giving divinely-sired speaking horses to heroes and claims that the Erinyes appear because of

<sup>3</sup> For this general concept, see (Plec 2013); for the ancient debate about animal rationality in general, see (Sorabji 1993; Horky 2017); and on the role of talking birds in this ancient debate, see (Sorabji 1993, pp. 80–85) and (Newmeyer 2017, pp. 66–67).

<sup>4</sup> I am grateful to the anonymous referee of this article who directed me to Arrian, *Cynegeticus* 5.2 as an ancient parallel for this relationship between an author and his dog.

<sup>5</sup> Though the historical disjunction is not strict. (Spittler 2008, pp. 130–40) discusses the example of a talking dog in the *Acts of Peter* in relation to classical models.

<sup>6</sup> Homer's *Odyssey* presents several other moments of animal communication: an eagle that represents Odysseus speaks in a dream to Penelope (19.535–50), Odysseus' dog Argus does not speak, but he lifts his head, sees through his master's disguise, and wags his tail at the sight of his long-lost friend (17.291–327), and the Cyclops Polyphemus addresses his ram (9.446–60) in a manner that may suggest that the animal had the ability to respond in the past. For the latter scene, see (Fögen 2007, pp. 67–68; Gera 2003, pp. 13–15; Heath 2005, pp. 79–84).

<sup>7</sup> Already the ancient commentaries (*scholia vetera*) on Homer grappled with these lines. A note on line 407 takes the time to explain that *audêeis* implies "having the voice of a rational animal" (ΏΓ·ΎΓІ ΊФΓΙ ΚΝΑχΑ σΛΓΑΘ΅) and another on 418 alternately proposes that the Furies are involved here because they are "overseers of things contrary to nature" ( πΔϟΗΎΓΔΓ ·ΣΕ ΉϢΗ ΘЗΑ Δ΅ΕΤ ΚϾΗΑ) or because a pronouncement about death had been made.

their chthonic connections with prophecy. On Johnston's reading, we should not assume that Hera has just now given Xanthus the power to speak nor that the Furies have done anything more than brought the motivation for this prophesy to an end. They do not, that is, permanently remove Xanthus' ability to converse in human language. I agree with Johnston's assessment of the details of this scene, but I add that the Erinyes' silencing of Xanthus parallels a range of details suggesting that epic bards pitched their tales as coming from a lost era that was closer to a Golden Age (Gera 2003, pp. 18–67). The Erinyes take the horse's voice, that is, not in a narrow move to deprive Xanthus of his special powers but as one of many indicators that the "*there and then*" is different from the "*here and now*".8

Narratives about the end of a Golden Age tend to draw on a standard set of motifs, such as the separation of divinities from humans, a shortening of the human lifespan, the end of spontaneously produced agricultural bounty, the need for clothing and, most important for our project, the transformation of language. Familiar stories from Genesis make this clear. Adam and Eve must leave the Garden of Eden, where they had interacted directly with God, after an encounter with a talking serpent. Once outside this enclosed paradisiacal space and cast into the wilderness beyond, the world is governed by a different set of rules. Later in Genesis, the cataclysmic flood (a common Near Eastern motif) provides a second cultural rupture that reboots humanity and leaves us with shorter life spans. The theme of language looms most prominently in the tale of Babel, where the unified human language is divided into countless tongues in response to human transgression.<sup>9</sup> The end of Golden Age narratives helps construct a familiar pre-modern world in which we no longer live as long as Methusela, and we wear clothes as we work the fields; animals provide us with labor and food; and whereas snakes no longer speak, humans have a wide variety of languages. Augustine even suggests that language as we now understand it is itself a consequence of our expulsion from the Garden: "The explanation for the bodily (*corporaliter*) uttering of all these words is the nadir of the age and the blindness of the flesh, by which thoughts cannot be seen, with the result that there is this tintinnabulation in the ears" (*Confessions* 13.23.34).<sup>10</sup>

Although the details can be changed, the rough opposition between *then* and *now* is replayed in Greek sources as well. The wedding of the mortal Peleus and immortal Thetis, which precipitates the entire Trojan saga, shows gods and humans feasting together as a feature of a world that is fading away in Homer's poems.11 Scodel has shown that the flood narrative has been adapted into the Homeric context through the anticipated deluge that Apollo and Poseidon will orchestrate at the end of the Trojan War to destroy the Achaean wall (*Iliad* 12.3–35) (Scodel 1982). Both the land of the Cyclopes and Scheria, the home of the Phaeacians, show some signs of being Golden Age spaces, at least until they interact with Odysseus.<sup>12</sup> The same idea of a new world ordering appears in Hesiod's tale of how gods and humans gathered at Mecone and made a new settlement to facilitate communication for the coming era in which mortals and immortals no longer interact directly. This new order came about when the Titan Prometheus (the father of Deucalion, the lone male survivor of the Greek flood) demonstrated the basic sacrificial precedent for burning the well-dressed but inedible portions of an animal to the gods while reserving the seemingly humbler but more nutritive bits for human consumption. Human existence is now framed in terms of our estrangement from the gods and

<sup>8</sup> This is not to say, however, that I agree with those who interpret the Erinyes as guardians of the natural order (e.g., (Edwards 1991, p. 285)). There is some evidence for this position in the scholium (ancient commentary) to line 19.418, but that is hardly convincing whereas Johnston's counterarguments are.

<sup>9</sup> Herodotus (2.2–5) preserves a tale about the Egyptian Pharaoh Psammetichus conducting an experiment to discover the original and natural language of humans. Based on the first word uttered by an infant raised in isolation, the Pharaoh concluded that Phrygian is the original human language.

<sup>10</sup> All translations are my own.

<sup>11</sup> Descriptions of the wedding are preserved at *Kypria* fr. 3 Davies 1988 = fr. 3 Bernabé 1987, Pindar *Pythian* 3.86–96, *Nemian* 4.65–68, 5.22–39, *Isthmian* 8.46–47, and on the Francois Vase.

<sup>12</sup> Both areas are notably fecund and their inhabitants have easier interactions with some divinities, yet both have non-Golden Age traits as well (Vidal-Naquet 1998, pp. 26–27) on Scheria as both an ideal and a typical Greek settlement; (Gera 2003, p. 15) on the land of the Cyclopes as a "halfway golden age world"; see also Plutarch, *Gryllus*, 986F.

our domination over animals, who come to serve as our food and a means for contacting the gods. The clearest proof that Hesiod was thinking in terms of epochal distinctions appears in his account of the five ages, in which the Golden Age fades to Silver, then Bronze before an age of heroes intervenes, and we find ourselves (with Hesiod) in the sad age of Iron (*Works and Days*, 109–201). The heroes who became the subject of Homeric poetry thus inhabit a story world that precedes our current degraded age, but they too are separated from the earliest and best eras. What all these stories have in common is that they present a different system of being in the world, in contrast to which the current era must develop indirect and imperfect means for communicating with the divine realm through such structures as sacrifice and prayer.

In classical sources, we hear more about the movement from loquacious humans into the animal realm (most famously in Ovid's *Metamorphoses*), but a few writers preserve the idea of a primordial world in which animals could speak. Callimachus, working in Alexandria in the third-century BCE, offers one example of this in the second poem of his now fragmentary collection of *Iambi* (Acosta-Hughes 2002, pp. 152–90; Steiner 2010). The poem centers in an Aesopic tale about an era when animals could talk, and a swan asked the gods for a release from aging.<sup>13</sup> The request seems to have been turned down, because a fox accuses Zeus of ruling unjustly (without *dikê*). In response to this increasingly unruly cacophony of voices, the father of gods and men decides to silence the animals and transfer their voices to humans. There follows a list of jokes that modern readers are not well positioned to assess, but the basic logic is simple enough: the story explains why so-and-so now speaks like a dog, someone else like a donkey, etc. Years later, Callimachus' fellow Alexandrian, Philo (c. 25 BCE-50 CE) told a similar tale, surely inspired, as Acosta-Hughes has shown, by Callimachus' poem (Acosta-Hughes 2002, pp. 175–82). In commenting on the Biblical story of Babel, Philo relays a tale about a time when animals shared a common language (*De confusione linguarum* 6–8). This ability to communicate leads to a network of shared values and sympathies, and eventually they raise a collective voice demanding immortality for themselves. Predictably, the animals are punished by having their shared language splintered. The unified political force of the animals is neutered when their ability to share their thoughts and feelings is taken away, and the Golden Age concludes by leaving the world with voiceless and brutish animals that have no claim to justice. Finally, the fable writer Babrius (probably working in Cilicia in the first or second century CE) looks back to a bygone era when animals could speak. His first prologue sets up this division between *then* and *now* by positing three ages (Gold, Silver and Iron) and then positioning Aesop as the unique intermediary whose knowledge of the animal world permits him to transmit that lore to us (Prologue 1.5–16, Perry):

πΔϠ ΘϛΖ Έξ ΛΕΙΗϛΖ Ύ΅Ϡ ΘΤ ΏΓΔΤ ΘЗΑ ΊФΝΑ ΚΝΑχΑ σΑ΅ΕΌΕΓΑ ΉϨΛΉ Ύ΅Ϡ Ώϱ·ΓΙΖ ϔΈΉ ΓϣΓΙΖ ΔΉΕ ψΐΉϧΖ ΐΙΌνΓΐΉΑ ΔΕϲΖ ΦΏΏφΏΓΙΖ, Φ·ΓΕ΅Ϡ Έξ ΘΓϾΘΝΑ ώΗ΅Α πΑ ΐνΗ΅Ζ ЂΏ΅Ζ. πΏΣΏΉ Έξ ΔΉϾΎ Ύ΅Ϡ ΘΤ ΚϾΏΏ΅ ΘϛΖ ΈΣΚΑΖ, Ύ΅Ϡ ΔΏΝΘϲΖ ϢΛΌϿΖ ΗΙΑΉΏΣΏΉ ΚϟΏУ Α΅ϾΘϙ, ΗΘΕΓΙΌΓϠ Έξ ΗΙΑΉΘΤ ΔΕϲΖ ·ΉΝΕ·ϲΑ БΐϟΏΓΙΑ. πΚϾΉΘ' πΎ ·ϛΖ ΔΣΑΘ΅ ΐΈξΑ ΅ϢΘΓϾΗΖ, ΌΑΘЗΑ Έ' ЀΔϛΕΛΉ Ύ΅Ϡ ΌΉЗΑ οΘ΅ΕΉϟ. ΐΣΌΓΖ ΪΑ ΓЂΘΝ Θ΅ІΘ' σΛΓΑΘ΅ Ύ΅Ϡ ·ΑΓϟΖ πΎ ΘΓІ ΗΓΚΓІ ·νΕΓΑΘΓΖ ϏΐΑ ̄ϢΗЏΔΓΙ. ΐϾΌΓΙΖ ΚΕΣΗ΅ΑΘΓΖ ΘϛΖ πΏΉΙΌνΕΖ ΐΓϾΗ.

Now, in the Golden age the other creatures, too, had intelligible voices and used words such as we ourselves do in telling each other tales, and their gatherings were among the trees. Even the Pine and the leaves of the Laurel talked, the Fish as it swam chatted with

<sup>13</sup> Speaking animals are, of course, a commonplace of ancient fables. See (Fögen 2007, pp. 67–68) and (Gera 2003, pp. 207–12).

the friendly sailor, and the Sparrows conversed intelligibly with the Farmer. Everything grew from the untilled earth, and among mortals and gods good fellowship prevailed. That this was so, you may learn and fully understand from wise old Aesop, who has told us fables with his free Muse.

The wisdom of fables, that is, comes to us from a different era of discourse, and whereas Homer and Hesiod claim to access privileged information via the inspiration of the divine Muses, Callimachus and Babrius set up Aesop as the historical intermediary node of communication. Callimachus, Philo and Babrius provide an outline for understanding the end of the Golden Age in terms of a transformation of language that explains why communication—among humans but also between the realms of animals, humans and gods—is so difficult. The fantasy of a time when such communication was simpler and more straightforward speaks to a deep human anxiety about limitations of language.

To return to the case of Xanthus, as the Erinyes silence the speaking horse, we can recognize one more epoch-ending moment. On this reading, it makes perfect sense that the horse speaks in an oracular mode. A speaking animal in this context does not replace human voices (as, for example, the mock-epic *Battle of Mice and Frogs*, which substitutes animals for Homeric characters), rather it gives the impression of a Golden Age moment of communication. The voice is, therefore, not uniquely equine either, since the information Xanthus gives could have been provided just as well by a passing eagle or come through the medium of a human prophet, a divine epiphany or an animal sacrifice.14 The layering of temporal frames within which Xanthus' lines ring forth makes this particularly poignant, as the greatest figure of the heroic age hears a last Golden Age communication. Achilles learns that his own demise draws near, while we realize that we stand at a double separation from such clarity of communication and understanding. Animals no longer speak, and Xanthus' unexpected Homeric eloquence derives not from his horseness or his animality but, rather, from the entire complex of Golden Age idealizations against which the human condition is framed.

#### **3. What Does the Fox Say?**

Whereas Homer and Hesiod emerge from a panhellenic story-telling tradition in contact with the Near East, Archilochus, remembered as the seventh-century BCE "inventor" of iambic (and sometimes also elegiac) poetry, speaks with a voice localized in the Aegean islands (especially Paros and Thasos). Archilochean *iambos* conjures a strikingly un-heroic world that contrasts sharply with the beauty and nobility of Homer. The scurrility for which he was later reviled, however, seems not to have been out of place in the archaic and classical eras. Indeed he was frequently remembered as one of the preeminent early poets ("second only to Homer"), which makes it all the more lamentable that his corpus survives today in a hodge-podge of papyrus scraps and quotations by later authors.15 Legends about his life coalesce around a scenario in which an older Parian named Lycambes had promised to give his daughter Neobule to him in marriage. When Lycambes reneged, Archilochus retaliated with such a vicious barrage of poetry that Lycambes and his daughters hanged themselves in shame. Whatever kernel of truth may lie beneath the accreted layers of elaboration, this story provides an ideal etiology for one aspect of archaic Greek *iambos*, namely its power to launch blistering verbal attacks upon a personal enemy. A prominent feature of Archilochean invective is the incorporation of fables (not yet associated with Aesop at this early date) in which animals speak, and these voices offer a starkly different kind of eloquent *alogia*.

<sup>14</sup> This is not to say that the role of the horse is irrelevant here. Horses have close connections with heroes, making the former an apt choice for communicating with the latter. The Greek fabular economy of animal types was rich and complex, but that is a matter of medium. In this case, the aptly chosen medium of the horse delivers a message that is not, in itself, in any way equine.

<sup>15</sup> Dio Chrysostom (*Orations* 33.11–12) is the most overt in putting Archilochus on par with Homer. For a detailed assessment of the ancient pairing of the two poets, see (Lavigne 2016).

*Humanities* **2017**, *6*, 37

The poem that has most plausibly been connected to the rupture between Archilochus and Lycambes begins by setting the conflict in front of the Parian community (fr. 172 West):

ΔΣΘΉΕ ̎ΙΎΣΐΆ΅, ΔΓϧΓΑ πΚΕΣΗΝ ΘϱΈΉ; ΘϟΖ ΗΤΖ Δ΅ΕφΉΕΉ ΚΕνΑ΅Ζ ϏΖ Θϲ ΔΕϠΑ ωΕφΕΗΌ΅; ΑІΑ Έξ Έχ ΔΓΏϿΖ ΦΗΘΓϧΗ Κ΅ϟΑΉ΅ ·νΏΝΖ.

Father Lycambes, what have you schemed?! Who has taken away your wits, Which once were sound? Now before the citizens You seem completely ridiculous.

Very little is certain about the reconstruction of this poem, but it seems to go on to mention a broken oath (fr. 173 West) before introducing a fable (*ainos*, cognate with *ainigma* or "riddle") about a fox and an eagle, who struck up a friendship (fr. 174 West). This fable later became associated with Aesop and was widely known throughout antiquity, but presumably Archilochus' version was not exactly the same as those later retellings. Nonetheless, the bits of this poem that survive accord with the basic plot that the eagle broke faith with the fox, snatched up its kits, and gave them as a meal to her eaglets (fr. 175 speaks of "bringing an unlovely meal to unfledged children" who seem to be in a nest). As the fox curses its fate, the eaglets somehow fall to the ground where they are gobbled up by the bereft fox.

Most commentators associate details of the legend of the broken marriage agreement with specific themes in the fable (Steiner 2010; Irwin 1998; Hawkins 2008) "Father" Lycambes, the older, loftier, figure stands for the eagle, since both turn their backs on a pre-established plan. Archilochus plays the part of the fox (which he does in other poems), who is jilted but ultimately finds a path to revenge. And the whole animal narrative hinges on the role of children, the expected goal and outcome of any marriage in ancient Greek culture. By going back on his promise to marry his daughter to Archilochus and thereby depriving the poet of future offspring, Lycambes acts like the eagle.

Within this framework, we find two moments when the fox speaks. First, in fr. 176 West, most readers agree that the fox, already mourning the loss of its kits, says to itself:

ϳΕκΖ ϣΑ' πΗΘϠ ΎΉϧΑΓΖ ЀΜΏϲΖ ΔΣ·ΓΖ, ΘΕΛϾΖ ΘΉ Ύ΅Ϡ Δ΅Ώϟ·ΎΓΘΓΖ; πΑ ΘЗ ΎΣΌΘ΅, ΗχΑ πΏ΅ΚΕϟΊΝΑ ΐΣΛΑ

Do you see where that high crag is, sheer and unapproachable? There it [presumably the eagle] sits making fun of your assaults.

Nothing that the fox can do—accusing, cursing, grieving, pleading—influences the eagle, safe at its inaccessible elevation, just as Lycambes remains safe from the complaints of Archilochus. It may be that as the fox recognizes the ineffectiveness of such approaches, she comes up with a more powerful strategy. Fr. 177 West (again, assumed to be spoken by the fox) is a prayer to Zeus:

И ̉ΉІ, ΔΣΘΉΕ ̉ΉІ, ΗϲΑ ΐξΑ ΓЁΕ΅ΑΓІ ΎΕΣΘΓΖ, ΗϿ Έ' σΕ·' πΔ' ΦΑΌΕЏΔΝΑ ϳΕκΖ ΏΉΝΕ·Τ Ύ΅Ϡ ΌΉΐΗΘΣ, ΗΓϠ Έξ ΌΕϟΝΑ ЂΆΕΖ ΘΉ Ύ΅Ϡ ΈϟΎ ΐνΏΉ.

O Zeus, father Zeus, you who wield heaven's power, You look upon the affairs of humans, Both reckless and lawful, and the beasts' Transgressions and justice are your concern.

These lines stake three claims, when we focus on the role of the speaking animal. First, Archilochus here reverses a point made by Hesiod in *Works and Days*, which claims that Zeus gave justice (*dikê*) to humans but not to "fish, beasts and winged birds" (276–80), who eat one another as part of the natural order.<sup>16</sup> Earlier in that same poem, Hesiod had told a fable about a hawk and a nightingale, and that inset tale, directed specifically to "kings who understand" (202), suggested that might makes right both among animals and humans. With his later comment about the uniquely human relevance of justice, however, he shows the limitations of thinking of animals as models for people. As a symbol, the hawk appears in the poem as a representative of human rapacity, but as a bird, its domination of the nightingale has no ethical valence whatsoever, since matters of justice are absent from the animal realm. Animals are incorporated into a human ethical discourse only to be excluded *as animals* from ethical concerns or included only inasmuch as they offer a taxonomy of human types.

Second, by reversing Hesiod's separation of humans and animals in terms of justice, Archilochus makes a strikingly different move—one that encourages fantasies about how animals might have been conceptualized differently had Archilochus, rather than Hesiod, emerged as the canonical poet. Archilochus' (fox's) presentation of a Zeus concerned for animal justice allows us to return to the relationship between his poem's framing narrative (about Lycambes and, presumably, the ruptured marriage pact) and the inset fable. As Payne has already noted, the fox's claim establishes a sympathetic continuity between human and animal (Payne 2010, p. 35). Archilochus' anger at Lycambes exists on the same spectrum as the fox's anger at the treacherous eagle, and this encourages us to evaluate the human and animal scenarios on similar terms. If it is natural and unobjectionable for the fox to eat the eagle's offspring, then such a response should be acceptable in Archilochus' reaction to Lycambes. The story that Lycambes and his family committed suicide thus balances the conclusion of the fable. Whereas Hesiod's denial of justice to animals makes the hawk's treatment of the nightingale ethically different from an unequal power dynamic among humans, Archilochus creates a scenario in which human justice can be informed by non-human behavior. The fox's eating of the eaglets becomes both ethically justified and driven by an impassioned need for revenge.

If Archilochus' fable elides the differences between him and the fox, we find two apt comparisons in Trojan War mythology. Near the end of the *Iliad*, as Achilles and Hector face off, the latter suggests a plan that the eventual victor should respect the corpse of the defeated enemy. To this Achilles responds that there can be no such agreements between lions and humans or between wolves and sheep (22.261–67). Moments later Hector lies dying, and he begs Achilles to grant him proper burial. Achilles wishes that "my fury (*menos*) and spirit (*thumos*) could prompt me to chop you up and eat your flesh raw" (346–47), and he predicts that Hector's corpse will be devoured by dogs and birds (335–36 and 348). We hear no speaking animals in this scene, but we find the limits of Achilles' rage, since he cannot quite become animal to actually ingest his enemy, a job he leaves to scavenging birds and dogs who will eat Hector's flesh but without Achilles' animus. Later, in an episode not preserved in Homer but related in Euripides' *Hecuba*, Hector's mother, Hecuba, reaches her breaking point after the fall of Troy as she is forced to face horror upon horror enacted upon her children. When she hears that her youngest son Polydorus has been killed by a former ally, she takes vengeance on her enemy's children. In the outcome, the ghost of her son tells her that she will be transformed into a dog (1265) and her final resting place will be known as "Bitch's Tomb" (1271–73). Franco has shown how this fate represents a fitting emblem of Hecuba's relentless focus on defending her children, a trait closely associated with a maternal canine instinct in early Greek literature (Franco 2014, pp. 108–18).<sup>17</sup>

<sup>16</sup> As noted by Corrêa (Da Cunha Corrêa 2007, pp. 112–13). For the fullest treatment of animals in Archilochus, see (Da Cunha Corrêa 2010).

<sup>17</sup> Gregory emphasizes the darker side of this association when she notes that "Hecuba has become morally indistinguishable from the dog whose shape she is destined to assume" (Gregory 1999, p. xxxiii). For an excellent treatment of Hecuba's revenge narrative, as well as a succinct overview of the history of scholarship on this topic dating back to the Renaissance, see (Mossman 1995, pp. 164–203).

Whereas Achilles cannot quite cross into an animal savagery, Hecuba behaves like "a bitch protecting her pups" (Semonides, fr. 7.34–36 West), and this brings her to the point of being something other than human, what Kovacs has described as an "extraordinary force, at once sub-human and super-human, bestial and divine" (Kovacs 1987, p. 109).<sup>18</sup> Archilochus uses his animal fable and the words of the fox to do something similar: within his poem he assimilates his lust for revenge to that of the fox and thereby normalizes his murderous intent via the just practices of animals as authorized by Zeus. At the conclusion of the fable we return to the world of human voices, but the speaking fox demonstrates that human passion is both regulated by the dictates of justice while also being extended and normalized through the example of the animals' conflict.

As a final comment on the fox's voice, we can return to the comparison between animal voices and sacrifice. Hesiod's Prometheus shows that sacrifice was established at the moment when gods and humans ceased to eat together, the moment, that is, when face-to-face communication ended. A new social order goes hand-in-hand with a new approach to food and animals, and sacrifice becomes an imperfect substitute for direct communication between humans and divinities. At a moment of crisis and despair, the Archilochean fox prays, and his prayer (another postlapsarian stop-gap) is answered. Later versions of the fable, such as *Aesopica* 1 (Perry 1952) and the Latin version of Phaedrus (1.28), say that the eagle snatched a bit of smoldering sacrificial meat from an altar and that this hot morsel set the birds' nest ablaze, causing the unfledged eaglets to fall to the ground, where the fox gobbled them up. Although the surviving Archilochean fragments are so incomplete that we cannot be certain of all the details, several words suggest that this basic pattern was to be found in his poem as well. The fox's ability to speak derives from a Golden Age past, but whereas Xanthus speaks with divine authority and inspiration, the fox serves as an idealized model of life beyond the Golden Age. The fox's prayer works, since it leads directly to a violation of sacrificial practice (food on an altar is for the gods) and divinely sanctioned retribution. The fabular animal's voice can do what human prayer intends, namely to convey mortal concerns directly to the divine realm and to prompt a direct response. Prayer does not always work that way for humans, and thus the fox's voice (like that of Achilles' horse) suggests the fantasy of a world in which contact with the divine is direct and efficacious. This pattern inside Archilochus' poem parallels the legendary efficacy of his poetry in human society as attested by the legendary suicide of the Lycambids.

#### **4. Happy as Pig in Mud**

We now jump nearly a thousand years from Archilochus' archaic milieu to a time when Rome exerts stable control over Greece and imperial trade routes foster communication across a huge swath of cultures. Earlier examples could, of course, be adduced, but by sampling cases of talking animals from the early and late extremities of the classical Greek world, we can find a broad vista of attitudes and approaches to this narrative device. As we will see, furthermore, imperial Greek authors frequently returned to material drawn from much earlier eras. One such example comes from Plutarch (c. 46–120), the prolific Boeotian biographer, essayist, civil servant and Middle Platonist philosopher. Within his collection of shorter works known as the *Moralia*, we find a brief, and probably fragmentary, dialogue typically known as *Gryllus*, also titled "On the Fact that Unreasoning Creatures Use Reason". This longer title plays on the oxymoron that animals (*ta aloga*, "the things lacking *logos*") by etymological definition lack *logos*, which means both "reason" and "voice", even though the text presents a speaking pig arguing on behalf of its own intelligence. As often with humorous texts, how we assess that pun will frame what we take away from this essay, which can be understood as anything from pure frivolity to a serious case for animal intelligence in stark contrast to Stoic thinking.

<sup>18</sup> Franco speaks of Hecuba's "uncontrollable wrath", which calls to mind Achilles' ferocious return to battle after the death of Patroclus (Franco 2014, p. 110). Hecuba's delimitation of human boundaries participates in a network of themes that Ringer studies throughout Euripides' corpus (Ringer 2016).

Plutarch sets the stage at a very particular moment in mythical history. Odysseus is speaking with Circe in a manner that suggests that he has already saved his own crew from her magic and that we are toward the end of his first and longer stay on the island or, perhaps better, during his brief visit on his return from the Land of the Dead. The latter seems to be suggested in the text's opening statement from the hero: "I think that I've learned and remembered these things" (985D), which presumably refers to the information that Circe had sent Odysseus to learn from the dead seer Tiresias. This abrupt beginning immediately transitions into Odysseus' real interest, namely whether or not Circe has any Greeks among the menagerie of "manimals" living in her yard whom he might save. He expects, reasonably enough, that he would gain even greater renown if he were to bring home anyone who has been living in thrall as a beast under her magical spell. Circe acknowledges that there are quite a few Greeks and gives Odysseus a chance to persuade them to leave with him. To facilitate this exchange, she calls forth one pig, whom she dubs Gryllus ("the grunter"), who will speak on behalf of the others.

Odysseus makes his pitch to the pig and is immediately rebuffed. Gryllus says that he and the others live a life of plenty and would hate to become once again human, that "most wretched of all animals" (986D). Odysseus responds with the observation that Gryllus seems to have lost not only his human form but also his intelligence (*dianoia*). This quip looks back to a detail in the *Odyssey* where Homer specifies that Circe transformed the outward appearance of Odysseus' crew into pigs in every detail but they retained their human minds (*noos*, 10.239–40). Konstan stresses the point that Gryllus must be considered either completely porcine or (far preferable) completely human in the appearance of a pig, because ancient Greek thinking did not include a concept of an actual hybrid nature. That is to say that even hybrid creatures, such as centaurs, do not exhibit "a split within the rational function itself, which would take the form of a double identity," on the model of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Konstan 2010–2011, p. 373). Yet this point seems to be perfectly clear already in the Homeric scene and Plutarch's rebooting of it: neither author presents a pig but, rather, a human who is living in a boarish guise and lifestyle.19 For the purposes of this volume, this might seem to disqualify Gryllus from our discussion, yet since I am beginning from the assumption that we never hear actual animal voices in these texts, we are on much the same footing as we were with Achilles' horse and Archilochus' fox: we are hearing a human or divine or Golden Age voice projected into an animal body. In contrast to our archaic examples, however, Plutarch makes this more explicit.

The question then remains, what can we make of this later example of a ventriloquized voice? The dialogue plays out like a defense of the ethical capacities of animals in contrast to human shortcomings, and Newmeyer is among those who find in these arguments a strong case in favor of the existence of animal rationality (Newmeyer 2017, pp. 66–67; Newmeyer 2006). Gryllus discusses the primary virtues in succession, working through courage (*andreia*), moderation (*sôphrosunê*) and prudence (*phronêsis*), and in each case he argues that animals fulfill these human ideals naturally and effortlessly, whereas humans require enormous amounts of effort and training even to approximate their bestial counterparts. Yet as Konstan shows, the concept of virtue within the classical and post-classical Greek philosophical vocabulary exists separately from those capacities that a being fulfills naturally, by *physis* (Konstan 2010–2011, pp. 375–76).<sup>20</sup> That is to say that if an animal naturally displays what humans would call courage, then this cannot be an example of the courageous virtue, since it is not a learned or reflective behavior but is, rather, reflexive and automatic. More modern observational studies of animal behavior complicate this picture significantly in ways that leave exceptional human capacities in serious doubt, but from the perspective of Plutarch's era, it seems unlikely that Gryllus could be read as pushing a serious proposition about animal rationality, the necessary prerequisite for the idea of animal virtue. Yet this circular system of exclusion that

<sup>19</sup> This point is picked up by Spencer, who depicts Gryllus as happy to remain a pig because of his preexisting character: "Let Grill be Grill and have his hoggish mind" (*Faerie Queene*, 2.12.87).

<sup>20</sup> Pre-classical, pre-philosophical virtue (*aretê*) by contrast, was inborn and therefore not a matter of training but of birth.

privileges human definitions at every turn does not necessarily exhaust the possibility of hearing an important message in this animal voice.<sup>21</sup>

If animals cannot be virtuous, there remain two possible reasons for thinking of them as beings worthy of moral consideration. One idea, raised by Plutarch in another text (*On the Eating of Animals*) and endorsed by various thinkers throughout the classical era (most famously by Pythagoras and most thoroughly by Porphyry, the third-century Neoplatonist) posits that animals and humans exist within the same cycle of metempsychosis. If an animal contains the soul of my dead parent, then that animal deserves serious moral consideration and should not be eaten or mistreated.<sup>22</sup> This theme is peripheral to Gryllus' arguments, but if Plutarch was angling for a serious reconsideration of attitudes toward animals, he may have taken up different aspects of this larger project in separate texts. What may, however, be implicit in Gryllus' strategy, is the idea that without any philosophical rigor animals have developed a manner of living that is superior even to a philosophically informed human existence.23 As Newmeyer puts it, "[in *Gryllus*], as in *De sollertia animalium* [*On the Intelligence of Animals*], Plutarch is suggesting that *physis* and reason, or λóγoσ (*logos*), are not incompatible, but are rather to be seen as equally responsible for guiding the actions of animals"(Newmeyer 2006, p. 37). Plutarch, often quite stark in his disdain for Stoic principals, may have used Gryllus to show that even if we find the pig's philosophy to be problematic, animals exert a different but valid kind of ethical claim upon humans.

Plutarch, then, presents animals not as rational creatures (since their seemingly virtuous behaviors are the result of instinct) but, rather, as creatures who inhabit something like a Golden Age frame of existence in the here and now, in which desires are aligned with capacities and needs in such a way that virtue itself is irrelevant. Just as Adam and Eve initially had no shame at their nakedness and Greek mythology recalls an era when humans and divinities shared easy and direct interactions, Plutarch's animals have no need for virtue to achieve a good life. Virtue and philosophy, like sacrifice and prayer, are postlapsarian means for attempting to return to an idealized (perhaps hypothetical) primitive state. We need not assume that Plutarch had any real commitment to the idea that such an era actually existed for his philosophical point to carry weight. Gryllus tells us not that animals are philosophers but, rather, that animals have no need to take up philosophy (whether they could ever do so or not). As he, a human in pig form, speaks to us, we do not hear the voice of a pig—only another voice delimiting the human experience through a pathetic fallacy that maintains a human exceptionalism in response to our inability to communicate more directly with the gods we believe to be above us or the animals we assume to be beneath us. The problem with Gryllus' voice, that is, may have less to do with animals and more to do with the shortcomings of human communication that cannot adequately account for the position of Plutarch's pig. As Gryllus says, "if you do not think it appropriate to call this rationality (*logos*) and thought, then look for a better and more fitting word for it" (991F).

#### **5. The Philosopher King of the Farmyard**

Lucian of Samosata (part of the Roman province of Syria) was born about the time that Plutarch died and he himself probably expired near the beginning of the third century, though we know extremely little about his life. Like Plutarch, Lucian left us a large body of work, but his satirical and playful style contrasts sharply with that of his predecessor.24 This difference can be seen clearly in

<sup>21</sup> This idea is paralleled in the work of Levinas, for whom a dog named Bobby played an important role in helping him develop his theory of ethics emerging from the reciprocal obligations implicit in looking into the face of another. Yet even though Bobby spurred Levinas in this direction, the philosopher never granted an important ethical subjectivity to non-human animals (Plant 2011).

<sup>22</sup> On Plutarch and vegetarianism, see (Newmeyer 2006, pp. 85–102) and (Newmeyer 1995).

<sup>23</sup> Such a position is associated with the opinions of Diogenes the Cynic. Plutarch's contemporary Dio Chrysostom makes this particularly clear (Oration 6.13–33 and 10.16). (Sorabji 1993, p. 161) likens this possibility to Greek narratives about noble barbarians, such as Anacharsis the Scythian.

<sup>24</sup> The best overarching studies of Lucian's corpus are (Bompaire 1958; Branham 1989; Ní Mheallaigh 2014).

Lucian's *Cock* (alternately titled *The Dream*, though this can cause confusion since he has another text by that name), which may respond directly to Plutarch's *Gryllus.*<sup>25</sup> If Lucian did not intentionally model *Cock* on *Gryllus*, then they at least share the same basic narrative ploy. Whereas the earlier work began with Odysseus setting up an interview with one of Circe's surprisingly opinionated pigs, Lucian's *Cock* opens with a bleary-eyed cobbler hollering at his early-crowing rooster, who turns out to have been Pythagoras in a former life. Both texts thus orient themselves in terms of early Greek lore, both feature a human discoursing with a speaking farm animal who used to be human, and in both cases the animal comes off much better in the exchange. Yet Lucian's reworking of the human–animal conceit serves a more deconstructive purpose in questioning the pristine and primitive authority that animates most ancient examples of speaking animals.

The text begins with Micyllus the cobbler cursing his rooster for awakening him so early, since he was in the midst of an amazing dream that he was as rich as Croesus. When the rooster responds in human voice, it takes the cobbler several minutes to get his head around what is going on. There ensues a discussion about the rooster's experiences living in various human and bestial guises and then a demonstration of the vanity of human wealth. The latter point accords well with Harmon's comment that this is a "Cynic sermon in praise of poverty" (Harmon 1915, p. 171), and to some extent this is surely correct. Yet we can hear a complementary theme about the Golden Age as we pay attention to the rooster's blending of animal and philosophical voices.

As the rooster speaks, Micyllus reacts with shock and terror (2, Harmon):

Micyllus: ̉ΉІ ΘΉΕΣΗΘΉ Ύ΅Ϡ ̽ΕΣΎΏΉΖ ΦΏΉΒϟΎ΅ΎΉ, Θϟ Θϲ Ύ΅ΎϲΑ ΘΓІΘϱ πΗΘΑ; ΦΑΌΕΝΔϟΑΝΖ πΏΣΏΗΉΑ ϳ ΦΏΉΎΘΕΙЏΑ. Cock: ̈ϨΘΣ ΗΓ ΘνΕ΅Ζ ΉϨΑ΅ ΈΓΎΉϧ Θϲ ΘΓΓІΘΓΑ, ΉϢ ϳΐϱΚΝΑΓΖ ЀΐϧΑ ΉϢΐ; Micyllus: ̓ЗΖ ·ΤΕ ΓЁ ΘνΕ΅Ζ; ΦΏΏ' ΦΔΓΘΕνΔΓΘΉ, И ΌΉΓϟ, Θϲ ΈΉΑϲΑ ΦΚ' ψΐЗΑ.

Micyllus: O Zeus of Portents (terastios) and Hercules the Averter! What evil is this? The rooster speaks like a human!? Cock: Why do you think it's a portent (teras) if I am homophonous to you?

Micyllus: How could it not be a portent (teras)? Please, o gods, avert this disaster from us!

The word *teras* (and the cognate adjective *terastios*) refers most directly to any sort of monster, but by this era encompasses anything marvelous that confounds expectations or, in a grander sense, the natural order. The latter seems to be appropriate in this case, and I have elsewhere analyzed a similar discussion in the picaresque *Life of Aesop* about the applicability of the word *teras* to the situation in which Aesop, born a mute slave, begins to speak (Hawkins 2016, pp. 261–63). In both texts, the possibility that the acquisition of speech might be a *teras* prompts reflection on the boundaries of personhood. If language (or at least complex grammatical language) is a unique attribute of humans, and if human society is organized in terms of a hierarchy of language mastery, then speaking animals and mute slaves who become loquacious similarly call attention to the principles around which the cosmos has been organized (whether in terms of a progressive transgression or a conservative statement of normative boundaries). The cock next chides Micyllus for not knowing his Homer well enough and points to the passage discussed above in which Xanthus, Achilles' horse, does not just speak but utters prophesies in hexameters.<sup>26</sup> The combined effect of the cobbler's reference to a *teras* and the evocation of an old tale in which a horse speaks with divine authority reiterates the impression that the voice of the rooster signals a supernatural intervention into the normal cosmic order.

Yet that order soon begins to fray as Micyllus responds by recalling a story of metamorphosis (3). Once upon a time, a man named Alectryon ("Cock") became friends with Ares and ended up working

<sup>25</sup> A point advanced by (Wälchi 2003, pp. 230–37). The best study of this text remains that of (Helm 1906, pp. 322–36).

<sup>26</sup> Aelian (2nd–3rd c. CE), who wrote the largest compendium of animal lore from antiquity, includes Xanthus as one of the few examples of talking animals. He excuses Homer on the grounds of poetic license, but in the same passage chastises the backwards Egyptians for believing in the reality of a talking (and two-headed!) lamb (*On the Nature of Animals*, 12.3).

as the god's lookout whenever he and Aphrodite had a fling behind Hephaestus' back. On one such occasion, Alectryon fell asleep at his post, the lovers were caught, and Ares turned his friend into an *alectryon* as punishment. The narrative pattern of a human becoming an animal while retaining certain traits (the rooster is still the lookout who sounds the alarm but now never oversleeps) is familiar enough, but in this case we see that the cosmic order of the gods is predicated on nothing more than soap-opera drama of lust and retribution. The cock folds himself into that divine plan when he reports that he had entered the cycle of mortal existence long ago as a punishment by Apollo for an unspecified crime (16). As he recounts his existential journey from disembodied spirit to Euphorbus (who helped Hector kill Patroclus at Troy) to Pythagoras to Aspasia (the concubine and advisor to Pericles) to Crates the Cynic and, after many intervening steps, to Mycillus' rooster, the cock does away with a host of other pretensions too. Ajax was not so impressive, Helen's beauty had faded long before the Trojan War, and Patroclus was merely an average warrior (17). Of more immediate interest to Micyllus, the famous Pythagorean prohibition against eating beans was nothing more than a publicity stunt (18). By this time, the game is up for Micyllus, who begins to laugh at the stupidity of all those who had believed the philosopher's hokum (18–19).<sup>27</sup>

Lucian's text concludes with the philosophical truism that a simple life is superior to the greed and anxieties of the rich. But that message must be evaluated in terms of the speaker. The Pythagorean cock has shown himself to be nothing more than a huckster until he finally learned through experience (rather than theory) to value an unprepossessing lifestyle. Pythagoreanism is no more believable than a talking rooster, and whatever Micyllus learns through their conversation is the product of basic but careful observation of human society. Furthermore, the gods are no nobler than the shameless philosopher or the greedy cobbler, and so the animal voice that seems to derive from a Golden Age is just the rationalizing trick of a satirist eager to debunk the lies and fictions that distract us from paying better attention to the pragmatic realities of life.28 Whereas Plutarch had used an animal voice to test the boundaries of anthropocentric philosophy, Lucian uses the same narrative pattern to call into question earlier Greek tradition at points where it admitted tales of superhuman or supernatural experience. The satirical humor of Lucian's attack on that tradition also comes to subsume his own text and its bestial narrator. His absurdist approach scours away the nonsense, leaving a realist foundation for human culture. *Do away with that fantasy and rid the world of charlatans like Pythagoras. Realize that virtue is to be framed in terms of the world as we know it. Animals don't talk, metempsychosis is silly, and the gods are as corrupt as we are!*

#### **6. Conclusions**

I have argued that many speaking animals in Greek literature emerge from a utopian system of thinking that idealizes a pristine Golden Age past in contrast to a degraded present, and I conclude by pushing this idea in three ways. First, an ancient *skolion* or drinking song taps into the same anxiety about communication but without any historical model. The song, preserved by Athenaeus, includes these lines: "If only we could see what sort of person each is, split open his chest and examine his mind (*noos*), then close him back up and know with an undeceiving mind (*phrên*) that he's your friend" (15.694d–e)<sup>29</sup> The sentiment attests to the frustration that results from expecting communication—whether among humans or between humans and non-humans—to be free from deception or misunderstanding. Most of the examples above deal with a similar issue by positing a lost world that can be accessed through special means (much like cutting open your friend's chest

<sup>27</sup> Lucian takes aim at Pythagoras on various occasions. The supernatural tales about him—from his many reincarnations to the legend that his thigh was made of gold—made him an easy target for the satirist's pen. For more on Lucian's engagement with Pythaboras, see (Marcovich 1988, pp. 174–77).

<sup>28</sup> This is part of a Lucianic pattern of destabilizing canonical figures that Andrade presents in terms of an ethnic interchange between Greece and Syria (Andrade 2013, pp. 269–70).

<sup>29</sup> Euripides has characters express this same idea at *Electra* 367–90, *Hippolytus* 925–27, and *Medea* 516–19.

in hopes of truly knowing him). This *skolion* achieves a similar effect to those speaking animals but without drawing upon contrasting time frames or emphasizing the role of language (though the failure of human language is implicit in the *skolion*'s message).

Secondly, the speaking animals need not have been animals at all, since Greek literature knows various speaking plants and, more rarely, inanimate objects that can serve the same narrative function. An apt example can be heard from the speaking prow of the Argo (Apollonius, *Argonautica* 1.526–27), Jason's ship on his quest to find the Golden Fleece. Athena outfitted the ship with this timber, which came from the sacred whispering oak of Zeus's oracular shrine at Dodona. Plutarch knows a legend that the sanctuary at Dodona had been established by Deucalion and Pyrrha, the only survivors of the Greek flood narrative (*Life of Pyrrhus*, 1). Dodona thus has a close connection with the antediluvian past, and the oracle continues to provide access to the divine world which has been lost in the flood. Beyond this, sailing is often presented as the technology that marks the end of the Golden Age, and the Argo is regularly depicted as the first ship ever to sail the seas ((Jackson 1997); (Romm 1996, pp. 129–30). On this tradition, then, the cutting of timber to build the first ship, which renders the sea a means of connecting rather than separating people, stands for the ambivalent legacy of technology, and the speaking prow of the Argo serves much the same function as Achilles' talking horse. Animals may provide the most obvious and common medium through which Greek writers ventriloquized Golden Age voices, and the Greek imaginary included a complex set of associations that made particular animals apt choices at particular moments, but other options were available.

Finally, whereas I have presented the evidence for speaking animals mostly in synchronic terms, I end with a comment about the impact of historical change. Homer, Hesiod and Archilochus all composed in a world that did not yet know much about writing or rational philosophy. Plutarch and Lucian, by contrast, worked in the highly literate and cosmopolitan stability of the Roman Empire. Obviously a host of factors shape the cultural developments between the early and later boundaries of the classical world, yet one in particular seems relevant to this topic. Whereas our earliest Greek sources depict divine forces behind everything from diseases to weather, early classical thinkers (especially the so-called pre-Socratic philosophers and Hippocratic medical writers) proposed new theories of causation that emphasized natural processes over divine interventions (Holms 2010). If the gods bring plague (*Iliad* 1) and storms (*Odyssey* 5), then animal bodies can serve as conduits for communications from the divine realm, such that a horse or the prow of a ship can suddenly become loquacious. As natural sciences began to challenge the idea of divine causation, animals increasingly came to be understood through the observation and systemization we find in Aristotle, who, for example, drew a distinction between animal voice (*phonê*) and language (*logos, Politics* 1253a).<sup>30</sup> Although this suggestion requires further analysis, it is reasonable to suspect that Plutarch and Lucian present human voices in animal bodies (in contrast to the speaking animals in Homer, Hesiod and Archilochus), because they lived in an era when updated perspectives on authoritative traditions put a new spin on the idea that animals might speak with a voice from the Golden Age. Plutarch elsewhere engaged with naturalistic examples of actual animal communication, especially among birds, but although these cases are critical to debates about the rational capacities of animals, they are wholly different from the idea of a talking pig (*On the Cleverness of Animals*, 972f–973e). Thus, Circe's animals and a reincarnated Pythagoras speak in more overtly human ways. The gods no longer choose to speak through animal bodies. Instead, authors use animals who speak as humans as literary stylizations to advance new and varied humanistic ideas.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest, though he does occasionally talk to animals.

<sup>30</sup> (Ax 1978, 1986) study these and related Aristotelian terms in detail.

#### **References**

Acosta-Hughes, Benjamin. 2002. *Polyeideia*. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Andrade, Nathaniel J. 2013. *Syrian Identity in the Greco-Roman World*. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


Branham, R. Bracht. 1989. *Unruly Eloquence: Lucian and the Comedy of Traditions*. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.


Margo DeMello, ed. 2013. *Speaking for Animals: Animal Autobiographical Writing*. New York: Routledge.


McDonell, Jennifer. 2014. Literary Studies, the Animal Turn, and the Academy. *Social Alternatives* 32: 6–14. Mossman, Judith. 1995. *Wild Justice: A Study of Euripides' Hecuba*. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Muellner, Leonard. 1996. *The Anger of Achilles: Menis in Greek epic*. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Newmeyer, Stephen T. 1995. Plutarch on the Moral Grounds for Vegetarianism. *Classical Outlook* 72: 41–43.


Wälchi, Philipp. 2003. *Studien zu den Literarischen Beziehungen Zwischen Plutarch und Lukian*. Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter. Wolfe, Tom. 2016. *The Kingdom of Speech*. New York: Little, Brown and Company.

© 2017 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

**Nonhuman Companions in Animal Narratology, or Horses, Dogs, and Apes**

## *Article* **Literary Autozoographies: Contextualizing Species Life in German Animal Autobiography**

#### **Frederike Middelhoff**

Graduate School of the Humanities, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Würzburg 97080, Germany; frederike.middelhoff@gmail.com

Academic Editor: Joela Jacobs Received: 31 January 2017; Accepted: 6 April 2017; Published: 13 April 2017

**Abstract:** What does it mean to take animal autobiography seriously and how can we account for the representation of life-narrating animals? The article investigates animal autobiographies as 'literary autozoographies', drawing attention to both the generic contexts and the epistemological premises of these texts. Adopting a double-bind approach stemming from autobiographical research as well as cultural animal studies, the article focuses on early nineteenth-century equine autozoographies from the German-speaking tradition. These texts are discussed exemplarily in relation to the parameters of fictional autobiographies, before they are contextualized with historical discourses regarding horses in natural history and so-called 'horse-science'. Due to the fact that the poetics and aesthetics of the genre are modeled on the templates of factual autobiographies, the article argues that literary autozoographies can be read as fictional autobiographies as well as meta-auto/biographical discourse undermining autobiographical conventions. Furthermore, it shows that literary autozoography and zoology share a common historical and ideological epistemology accounting for the representation of animals in both fields. Literary autozoographies thus participate in the negotiation and production of species-specific knowledge. Reading *Life of the Mecklenburg Mare Amante* (1804), *Life of a Job Horse* (1807) and *Life of a Worn-Out Hack* (1819) alongside equine-centric discourses around 1800, the article demonstrates in what ways these texts can be regarded as part of a regime of knowledge attributing emotions and cognitive capacities to horses, while simultaneously arguing for humane treatment on the basis of interspecies homologies.

**Keywords:** animal autobiography; fictional autobiography; meta-autobiography; life writing; contextualist narratology; cultural and literary animal studies; poetics of knowledge; zoology; natural history; equine autozoography; horse-science

#### **1. Introduction**

Drawing on forms and models ranging from animal1 satire, parables, epics and fables to picaresque novels and factual auto/biographies2, life-narrating animals have been part of Western literary history for at least two hundred years ([2], pp. 1–2). While critics have traditionally read these texts as social satires and parodies, recent scholarship has probed the historical and discursive contexts [3–9] as well as the theoretical, narratological and ethical implications [10–13] of how and

<sup>1</sup> Since the article focuses on texts written at a time when terms such as 'nonhuman animals' and 'human animals' were hardly ever used, I will here be using 'animals' and 'humans' respectively to underscore the historical meaning of this (anthropological and anthropocentric) differentiation.

<sup>2</sup> "*Auto/biography, or a/b.* This acronym signals the interrelatedness of autobiographical narrative and biography." It "also designates a mode of the autobiographical that inserts biography/ies within an autobiography, or the converse, a personal narrative within a biography" ([1], p. 184, emphasis in the original).

why animals have been and are still given narrative voice and authority.3 This article first discusses early nineteenth-century German equine autobiographies with a focus on their affiliations with and parallels to the aesthetics of (factual and fictional) autobiographies.<sup>4</sup> Second, it approaches these texts with a cultural-historical perspective interested in the history and "poetology of knowledge" [17],5 in this case, the history and poetics of zoological and literary discourse. Instead of a contextual reading which applies the "disappearing animal trick" ([18], p. 24) and transforms animals into stand-ins or mouthpieces for satirical ends or human (minority) concerns, the article examines the epistemological and discursive contexts framing and constructing a specific species (here: the horse) and, as a consequence, the animal-autobiographical act. In this regard, the article encourages further research into animal autobiographical writing from non-English traditions, furthering the perspective of contextualist (animal studies) narratology. Animal autobiographies, I argue, not only gain momentum and draw inspiration from the tradition of autobiography, but also reflect and engage with specific (historical) zoological discourses.<sup>6</sup> Therefore, animal autobiography actively partakes in the production of species-specific knowledge.7 Underscoring the interrelatedness of animal autobiographies, conventional autobiographies, and zoology, my research addresses the animal-autobiographical genre as 'literary autozoographies', a term denoting literary texts which (1) make use of a homodiegetic or (pseudo-)autodiegetic animal narrator (first-person point of view; animal narrator = animal protagonist; most often, these animals are domestic animals, such as dogs, cats, and horses);<sup>8</sup> (2) present an animal protagonist who, intradiegetically, neither metamorphoses nor speaks to human protagonists in human tongues (in contrast to the tradition of fables, parables and fairy tales); (3) retrospectively (and comprehensively) narrate an animal's life (up until its anticipated death); therefore, (4) adopt, assimilate, transform (and inevitably undermine) the poetics and aesthetics of conventional autobiography; and (5) interact with zoological discourses and thus participate in the construction of (popular) zoological knowledge of animal species.

Literary autozoographies are 'literary' insofar as they—to various degrees—exhibit "stylistic or narrative variations defamiliariz[ing] conventionally understood referents and prompt reinterpretive transformations of a conventional feeling or concept" ([24], p. 123). Read as fictional accounts

<sup>3</sup> For an overview of recent work on animal autobiographical writing, see ([11], pp. 2–4). Tess Cosslett provides an excellent introduction into the discursive and structural elements of British animal autobiographical writing up until 1914 ([9], pp. 63–92). Margo DeMello's volume gives insight into historical as well as contemporary means and functions of speaking for and on behalf of animals [14].

<sup>4</sup> In the following, I use 'conventional' and 'factual' autobiographies/autobiographical discourse interchangeably for (human) autobiographies which traditionally claim "to be non-fictional (factual)" [15]. This, however, is not to say that the propositions made in conventional autobiographies can be considered inherently factual. According to Philippe Lejeune's influential definition, factual autobiographies are "[r]etrospective prose narrative[s] written by a real person concerning his own existence, where the focus is his individual life, in particular the story of his personality" ([16], p. 4). Similarly, the terms 'pseudo-/quasi-autobiography' and 'fictional autobiography' are used interchangeably in this article.

<sup>5</sup> All following translations from the German (and, in part four, the French) are mine. For the sake of brevity, I only provide the translated, not the original quotes.

<sup>6</sup> In the following discussion, the term 'zoological discourse(s)' denotes general and species-specific statements in eighteenth and early nineteenth-century natural history accounts as well as in popular zoology and specialist literature ('horse-science'). While zoology was only institutionalized as a German academic discipline at the turn of the eighteenth century, the term 'zoology' was used in the fields of medicine, theology and natural history at least since the seventeenth century (in fact, Aristotle in his *Historia animalum* already paved the way for a systematic engagement with forms of (animal) life in the 4th century) with the definition "animal science" or "the study of animals" ([19], p. 506). In this article, I use several descriptions of horses from natural history and horse-science published around 1800.

<sup>7</sup> Beckoning to a Foucauldian concept of discourse analysis, the term 'discourse' here refers to a "*system of thinking and arguing* which is abstracted from a text [...] and which is characterized, first, by an *object of speech*, second, by *regularities of speech*, third, by *interdiscursive relations* to other discourses" ([20], p. 406, emphasis in the original).

<sup>8</sup> Although I am not categorically differentiating between literary autozoographies referring to 'real', extratextual domestic/ companion animals, and those without a 'real' counterpart, inquiring into the material, biographical side of autozoographical animals can give insights into a text's commemorative function and zoopoetical foundation [8,21,22]. Moreover, those texts narrating the lives of 'real' animals represent what Frank Zipfel calls narratology's "borderline cases", i.e., "texts in which actual events are narrated with the help of fictional narration" ([23], p. 168). For David Herman's distinction between "nonfictional animal autobiography" and "fictional animal autobiography", see ([11], pp. 7–14). Early nineteenth-century equine autozoographies as discussed in this article belong to the latter category.

simulating autodiegetic discourse, literary autozoographies may unsettle conventional (anthropocentric) perceptions of socio-cultural practices and world views. Insofar as these texts feature an animal narrator, literary autozoographies clearly indicate their fictional status ([25]; [26], p. 108), yet simultaneously insist on their factuality. This productive tension implicitly challenges and questions the generic ideal of an 'autobiographical truth', while it may alsoilluminate the inherent anthropocentrism (in the history) of auto/biography.

At the same time, literary autozoographies interrelate with species-specific discourses and thus play an important role in the production of zoological knowledge. The representation of life-narrating animals, I argue, is deeply entrenched in the epistemological field of Western culture and specific historical periods. A literary animal in general, an autobiographical animal in particular never stands apart from its contexts ([27], pp. 228–32). For Foucault, an "epistemological field, the *episteme* in which knowledge, envisaged apart from all criteria having reference to its rational value or to its objective forms, grounds its positivity and thereby manifests a history which is not that of its growing perfection, but rather that of its conditions of possibility" ([28], p. x, emphasis in the original). It turns out, as I will show in part four of my analysis, that natural history and literary autozoographies depart from the same epistemological premises, enabling both genres to speak about and for domestic animals in surprisingly liberal ways. Zoological and autozoographical discourses turn out to be two sides of one and the same coin. The neologism 'literary autozoography' thus emphasizes the fact that the poetics of animal autobiography and its representation of animal narrator-protagonists engage in a complex dialogue with *auto*biographical as well as *zoo*graphical genres.<sup>9</sup>

The term 'autozoography'<sup>10</sup> acknowledges the distinction between "bare life/political existence, *zoe¯*/*bios*, exclusion/inclusion" ([32], p. 8), as outlined by Giorgio Agamben, yet is more interested in how humans (as a self-declared *zoon logon echon*) speak about and try to construct animals as those without *logos* (*zoon alogon*). It proposes to focus on the epistemological grounds of ascribing lives and selves to animals in pseudo-autobiographical narrations by investigating their links to and relations with *zoo(n)*logical discourses in and beyond natural history and zoology. Thus, the neologism tries to highlight the fact that the narrated *bios*, i.e., the events and subjective experiences presented in animal life writing, is based on epistemologically and culturally contingent assessments of animals and what might be considered their selves (*autos*).11 The texts discussed as 'literary autozoographies' in this article present animal narrator-protagonists as self-aware beings able to distinguish themselves from (non)human others. However, these ascriptions of the self continuously oscillate between the poles of agency vs. submission, anthropomorphism vs. realism/naturalism, defamiliarizing vs. confirmative perspective etc. In this, as David Herman observes, they are part of "a multiplicity of discourse practices that involve speaking in behalf of another being who is assumed, inferred, or hypothesized to have a perspective on and interest in situations and events" ([11], p. 6). Like any literary text featuring animals, literary autozoographies are steeped in knowledge, socio-cultural practices and discursive currents of the time in which they have been and still are composed and published ([27]).<sup>12</sup> However, in the context of German literary autozoographies, here exemplified by early nineteenth-century narratives,<sup>13</sup>

<sup>9</sup> The term 'zoography' was less common but used interchangeably with 'zoology' or 'natural history' in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century works dedicated to the description of animal species (cp., e.g., [29,30]).

<sup>10</sup> For a philosophical and rhetorical approach to autozoographies via Derrida, see [31].

<sup>11</sup> Moreover, autobiographical research has developed a number of new genre concepts substituting *bios* for terms suitable to the authors of and subjects constructed in particular autobiographies. Domna C. Stanton, for example, discusses women's autobiographies as "autogynographies" ([33], see also ([1], pp. 185–89)).

<sup>12</sup> Since literary autozoographies have not been part of German literary canons, many of these texts have been either left unnoticed in archives, dismissed as trivial from the academic syllabus, or filed as 'mere' children's literature. My research corpus stretching from 1799 up until 2016 encompasses approximately forty texts meeting the definition criteria of literary autozoographies given above. Most of these texts are not addressed to children and offer insight into (historical) assumptions about and modes of fictional constructions of animals still awaiting critical investigation.

<sup>13</sup> Due to the spatial limitations of this article I cannot elaborate on the transformations the genre has undergone since the nineteenth century. Suffice it to say, that most German contemporary literary autozoographies still rely on factual, non-experimental autobiographies as role models. Yet the enforcement of an autobiographical illusion (and, in turn, critique)

paradigmatic patterns with regard to formal and thematic characteristics can be deduced. Drawing on Martin Löschnigg's work on British fictional autobiographies [37–40], and Ansgar Nünning's concept of meta-autobiographies ([41], see also [42]), part two and three of the article discuss German equine autozoographies [43–46], published at the beginning of the nineteenth century, with regard to the parameters of (pseudo-)autobiographies as well as to their affiliations with meta-autobiographical discourse. I argue that German literary autozoography responds to, integrates, and adapts conventional autobiographical discourse in order to frame and authenticate autozoographical accounts. In doing so, however, it simultaneously subverts generic categories of factual autobiography which "advances *claims* of referential truthfulness" ([47], emphasis in the original). Depicting animals as the narrators of their lives undermines traditional concepts, such as 'autobiographical truth', referentiality, identity, and a congruent, representational relation between life and life-writing. In this regard, literary autozoographies draw the readers' attention to the fact that autobiography "does not mean a life that is de-scribed but a life that is *scripted*" (([48], p. 17), emphasis in the original). Autobiographical selves, be they human or nonhuman, are constructed entities, the architecture of which can never be exchanged for the 'real' former self. Hence, "[t]he autobiographical act is never merely a repetition of the past; it is always a repetition with a difference" ([49], p. 73). Fact and fiction are not mutually exclusive when it comes to autobiography but rather interdependent.14 Reading literary autozoographies thus offers insights not only into per- and receptions as well as fictional transformations of factual autobiographies, but also into the poetics of a fictional genre commenting on the 'all too human' status of conventional autobiography and its generic shortcomings.

The fourth part of the article shows how a cultural animal studies approach [50] which contextualizes and historicizes ([27], pp. 229–32) literary autozoographies helps to pin these texts down into the situated, species-specific knowledge of their respective times. In this regard, autozoographical research contributes to a "context-sensitive cultural narratology" ([51], p. 363). Taking early nineteenth-century equine autozoographies, and particularly *Life of a Job Horse* (*Lebensgeschichte eines Miethpferdes*) [43] (1807), as cases in point, I analyze how natural history, 'horse-science and equine autozoographies configured, popularized and, in the case of equine autozoographies, fictionalized assumed equine emotions and minds. As a consequence, German equine autozoographies materialize as mediums participating in an 'equine epistemology' around 1800.

#### **2. Literary Autozoographies and/as Fictional Autobiographies**

Texts such as *Life of the Mecklenburg Mare Amante* (*Lebensgeschichte der Mecklenburgischen Stute Amante*) [44,45] (1804), *Life of a Job Horse* (*Lebensgeschichte eines Miethpferdes*) [43] (1807) or *Life of a Worn-Out Hack* (*Lebensgeschichte eines ausgedienten Fiacker-Pferdes*) [46] (1819) neither appear *ex nihilo* nor do they produce entirely new literary forms.15 In fact, German animal autobiographical writing did (and still does) not only emulate the aesthetics of factual autobiographies, as will be shown below, but also emerged at a time of growing demand for and popularity of life narratives. In the foreword to his *Biographies of Remarkable Beings from the Animal Kingdom* (*Biographien merkwürdiger Geschöpfe aus dem Thierreiche*), published in 1787, the author, Johann Jacob Ebert, professor of mathematics and natural philosophy in Wittenberg, notes that "it has become fashionable for quite a while [...] to print life stories, or: biographies, to use the language of the new authors, of remarkable and unremarkable persons. [...] Yet since people have delivered biographies of all kinds of human beings ad nauseam, and with the result

has been dropped for a discourse mocking the *conditio humana*, putting emphasis on the mode of defamiliarization and, first and foremost, giving (implicit) advice on proper treatment of the autozoographical species in question (cp., e.g., [34,35]). In this respect, German literary autozoographies have become part of and contributors to "the field of advice manuals" ([36], p. 110).

<sup>14</sup> In this regard, literary autozoography, as David Herman observes, "piggybacks on the hybrid generic status of autobiography itself" ([11], p. 7).

<sup>15</sup> These texts also respond and contribute to the post-Sternian tradition of imitators of *The Life and Adventures of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman* (1759–67). Due to the focus of this article, however, I will not elaborate on this or any other intertextual generic and aesthetic influence apart from that of factual autobiographies.

that authors intending to write biographies have a hard time finding any subject matter at all, I came up with the idea to foray into the wide, densely populated animal kingdom to search for new heroes of my biographical endeavors" ([52], pp. 3–4). With the choice of his "remarkable" subjects, among them the (literary) donkey Rothfuß [53], and the nameless sheep chosen to be one of the first travelers in the hot-air balloon of the brothers Montgolfier ([54], p. 461), Ebert mocks his contemporaries' craze for life narratives, but also takes a stance in the controversy between assimilationist and differentialist views ([55], pp. 1–11). While differentialists assume that mankind is different from (other) animals in all possible ways, assimilationists emphasize the (morphological, physiological, and, since the mid-nineteenth century, evolutionary) similarities observable in humans and animals. Ebert delineates his animal protagonists as emotional and rational beings and seeks to redefine knowledge of and human approaches to specific animals.<sup>16</sup> During the second half of the eighteenth century, German-speaking countries witnessed a "secularization and anthropologization" (([56], p. 55); see also [57–59]) of the autobiographical genre. Considered remarkable and instructive were spiritual and edifying confessions as well as instructive autobiographies written by (white, privileged, and influential) men. Hence, Johann Gottfried Herder could already differentiate between "devotional" and "human philosophical confessions" ([60], p. xxii) like Augustine's and Rousseau's *Confessions* respectively, and "biographies which remarkable persons [...] write about themselves for others" ([60], p. xxx). Yet autobiography did not only secularize and, at least partly, democratize its (writing) subjects, but like other popular, established factual genres, also brought forth fictional counterparts—literary autozoography, as I argue, being one of them.

Martin Löschnigg asserts that novels and fictional narratives left their mark on autobiographies and vice versa ([37], p. 317–18). The relation between factual and fictional autobiographies, Löschnigg argues, "is in fact one of mutual influence rather than of one-sided influence or mere co-existence" ([38], p. 403). Löschnigg demonstrates how texts like Daniel Defoe's *The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders* (1722) and Charles Dickens' *The Personal History of David Copperfield* (1849/50) work "on the basis of the parameters of 'realistic' autodiegetic narratives" ([37], p. 315). To be able to make readers believe that they are confronted with an autobiographical account, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century pseudo-autobiographical poetics imitate factual, 'authentic' autobiographies.

Löschnigg extracts three parameters characteristic of these fictional autobiographies or quasi-autobiographical first-person novels. First, these texts stage "the specific experientiality of quasi-autobiographical narratives" ([37], p. 4). In her concept of a "natural narratology", Monika Fludernik defines experientiality as the key element constituting narrativity. As "the quasi-mimetic evocation of 'real-life experience'" ([61], p. 98), experientiality in fictional autobiographies is suggested by explicit descriptions of the feelings, thoughts and subjective states of the experiencing character rendered by the fictive autobiographer. As Löschnigg points out, Defoe, for example, delivers a high degree of quasi-autobiographical experientiality by "a continuity of individual experience and eventful narration as well as by underscoring the specificity of experience" ([37], p. 5).

Second, fictional autobiographies enforce the "illusion of autobiographical authenticity" ([37], p. 4) and use what Löschnigg calls "'formal mimesis'" ([37], p. 4) or "'autobiographical modelling'" ([37], p. 57). Imitating the linear narrative progression characteristic of conventional autobiographies, underscoring biographical cornerstones of the protagonist's life, and justifying the origin, composition, and function of the narrative in forewords or metatextual references, nineteenth-century fictional autobiographies seek to give the impression of an authentic autobiographical account. Furthermore, fictional autobiographies use "discursive elements" suggesting autobiographical authenticity by "anthropomorphizing, or rather, 'biographically modeling' the narrator, by foregrounding the experiential limitations of the narrator, and by emphasizing the medial situation of the act of narration" ([37], p. 91).

<sup>16</sup> For Ebert's (and the Count du Buffon's) exemplary re-assessment of the donkey, see ([52], pp. 8–14).

Third, pseudo-autobiographical texts exhibit a "rhetoric of memory" ([37], p. 124). Through the interplay between narrating and experiencing self and "the emphasis on memory as the constitutive moment of the discourse", fictional autobiographies "create an illusion of reference" ([37], p. 4). Fictional autobiographies mimic how factual autobiographies relate the first-person narrator to its former, narrated self by integrating the narrator's perspective into the course of events and commenting on the process and the quality of remembering and reproducing the past.

In German-speaking equine autozoographies published in the early nineteenth century, the three parameters Löschnigg identifies for fictional autobiographies appear as constitutive elements of the narratives. Equine autozoographies published around 1800<sup>17</sup> imitate factual autobiographies by presenting in a chronological order the short but tragic lives of the horses as a retrospective first-person narrative. The chapters progress from the horses' birth, their positive childhood memories, the start of their training and (mostly negative) experiences of being schooled and (ab)used by humans, to decisive learning stages, illnesses, changes of locations and owners. These changes follow a negative teleological pattern. With the progression of the narrative, the horses descend in social rank and lose their spirit as well as their economic value. The texts close with the merging of the narrator and the protagonist; the old, weary horses anticipate and welcome death, the alleged approach of which had instigated their narration in the first place.

To be sure, the defamiliarizing perspectives of the horses are imbued by satirical concerns. Digressions on human affairs, and episodes (re)producing human dialogues in the dramatic, showing mode [65] make evident what Herman calls a speaking-for act of "butting in" in which "a speaker voices an utterance of which he or she is not only author but also the principal" ([11], p. 2). "Butting in" often means "engaging in a violation of negative politeness requirements [...] whereby one fails to respect another's desire not to be intruded upon, threatening solidarity" ([11], p. 5). In *Life of a Worn-Out Hack* (1819), for example, the (human) editor tries to invoke the character of "this horse the story of which you have in front of you" ([46], foreword), but also alludes to his concern for "really comical scenes" which the horse was able to witness and narrate, likening the story to a "*cronique scandaleuse*" ([46], foreword, emphasis in the original). As an omnipresent and ineluctable participant in everyday life around 1800, the equine point of view could be staged as a privileged perspective for varied, rare and, most importantly, secret information. This 'omniscient' point of view motivates the autobiographical fiction in *Life of a Worn-Out Hack* as it presents the equine narrator Abalärd<sup>18</sup> able to overhear and oversee confidential, piquant conversations and scenes which he addresses as "rich anecdotes [...] which would make the psychologist envious in many respects as there was hardly an hour in which I lacked food for thought" ([46], p. 84). These renditions of conversations and confidentialities, however, have no impact on the life and experiences of Abälard but rather serve as a means to "amuse" ([46], foreword) the reader, as the editor announces.

Similarly, in *Life of the Mecklenburg Mare Amante*19, the author Christian Ehrenfried von Tennecker (1770–1839), senior horse veterinarian of the Kingdom of Saxony, already strains the metadiegetic frame

<sup>17</sup> It seems worth noting that equine autozoographies concerned with speaking for horses to ensure better treatment seem not to have been written in Germany between 1819 and 1919 even though Anna Sewell's *Black Beauty* (1877) was promoted by German animal welfare associations around 1900 [62]. It might be assumed that the plight of horses became less of an issue with the establishment of societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals in mid-nineteenth century Germany. Laws against animal cruelty had been issued and discussed ever since, yet the situation for horses became increasingly troubling with the start of WWI which is when Gustav Rau published *Altgold* [63], the literary autozoography of a horse witnessing the battles of WWI, see also [64].

<sup>18</sup> It remains unclear whether Abälard's name was given to him by the human character Héloïse (!) because he was made a gelding, or due to the fact that the texts want to playfully re-enact the historical narrative of the scholastic philosopher Peter Abelard (1079–1142), reconfigured in Rousseau's *Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse* (1761).

<sup>19</sup> Much could be said about the nationalist tendencies of German equine autozoographies, implicitly arguing for the maintenance of national breeds (such as "the real Mecklenburg race" ([44], p. 5) promoted by Amante) and against the crossbreeding with English thoroughbreds. Suffice it to say at this point that around 1800 the degeneration of German horses was linked to an "anglomania" producing "bad progeny" unfit for tasks "our German horses" had to fulfill ([66], pp. 20, 21). For a similar discussion on the Finnhorse and national identity, see [67].

by casting (dead) Valentin Trichter (1685–1750), stable foreman at the University of Göttingen and author of equine medical-anatomic treatises, as the editor of Amante's story "narrated by herself" ([44], front page). Moreover, the horse's discourse is riddled with lampooning digressions on inexperienced but theoretically overambitious veterinarians and horse trainers (e.g., ([44], pp. 123–26; [45], pp. 55–57)), passages discrediting the professors of the Berlin veterinary school ([44], pp. 110–15, 121–22), and forays into the proper medical treatment of and advice literature on horses ([45], pp. 123–25). In this respect, the author of the book clearly makes himself heard as the horse's "butting-in" ventriloquist, not least when he is himself cited as an expert on horsemanship by the equine narrator ([44], p. 39; [45], p. 125), or when he makes an appearance in the story as the proprietor of an all but successful "humane horse trade" ([45], p. 83).

#### *2.1. Experientiality*

Despite these 'all-too-human' passages beckoning to the traditions of picaresque novels and it-narratives ([3], p. 739; [6]), experientiality, narrative strategies enforcing "autobiographical authenticity", and a "rhetoric of memory" serve as guidelines for the autozoographical genre. Experientiality is a key narrative feature of the texts. They present animals as feeling, reasoning (and critical) subjects whose individual experiences hardly differ from those known to and intersubjectively shared by humans.20 This is why literary autozoography "taps into readers' familiarity with experience through [...] the embodiment of cognitive faculties, the understanding of intentional action, the perception of temporality, and the emotional evaluation of experience" [68]. It appears that reading literary autozoographies as 'real' renditions of an animal's thoughts and feelings, or finding some accounts more 'realistic' than others, means finding oneself entrapped by a cognitive illusion ([13], p. 488).<sup>21</sup> There is no such thing as *knowing* animal (and, admittedly, also human) minds and feelings, nor is there any chance to evade anthropomorphizing animals, if they are made narrating (or even writing)22 subjects of their lives, be it in German, English or, in fact, any other language. Rendering animal consciousness and feelings in linguistic terms is always subject to an *epistemological* anthropocentrism ([71]; see also ([72], p. 178)). Our grasp and perception of the world (and the world of others) will remain socio-culturally and, first and foremost, anthropologically determined. Yet, beyond an *ontological* anthropocentrism which privileges humans to animals for religious, moral, or biological reasons, a number of literary autozoographies attempt to provide a means for the reader to *imagine* (no matter how inadequately) what it might be like to observe and assess the world from a "more-than-human" [73] perspective. Besides, granting animals subjective states as well as cognitive and emotional lives akin to humans serves as a foundation to enable empathyin the first place.

Experientiality in fictional autobiographies suggests autobiographical truth supposedly able to account for more than just the bare facts of life—it thus points to an autobiographical narrator capable of relating specific events as experienced 'first-hand', i.e., in all their subjectively perceived facets. As we learn from the equine narrator in *Life of the Mecklenburg Mare Amante*: "I left my childhood home sadly and, despondently, I passed the boundary stone" ([44], p. 26). In an attempt to verify the narrative as an accurate, truthful portrayal, the text makes sure to highlight the subjective state of the character in relation to the events described. As a means to underscore the relation between animal narrator and animal protagonist as 'autobiographical truth', and in order to allow for the reader's empathy with the horses, experientiality in equine autozoographies is visible especially in those

<sup>20</sup> See part four of this article for a discussion on the historical contexts in which these emotional and cognitive attributions became valid in the course of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century.

<sup>21</sup> Marco Caracciolo weighs Thomas Nagel's dictum of animal minds as inconceivable against J.M. Coetzee's Elisabeth Costello's contention of imagination as a means to transgress species boundaries, and finds Costello lacking the means of verifying her claims ([13], p. 490). However, he considers animal first-person narratives as important ways to make readers aware of humans' incapability "to grasp—to fully grasp, at least—nonhuman consciousness and its many instantiations across the animal world" ([13], pp. 500–1), resulting in a respect for animals as being different, not like us.

<sup>22</sup> Cp., for example E.T.A. Hoffmann's *Life of the Tomcat Murr* (1819/21) [69] or Emmerich Ranzoni's *Zoddel* (1879) [70].

passages describing negative formative experiences. As Suzanne Keen has pointed out "*empathetic responses to fictional characters and situations occur more readily for negative feeling states, whether or not a match in details of experience exists*" (([74], p. 71), emphasis in the original). Thus, Amante recounts the "heavy inflammation of her hooves" resulting in "an opening of the sole cutting off the entire horn capsule" ([44], p. 131). She adds that "it is indescribable to relate the pain I suffered" ([44], p. 136), referencing the 'topos of the unspeakable' while also negotiating the fact that horses indeed most often suffer in silence [75]. The text thus intertwines 'subjective' experiences with 'objective' presentations of attested equine behavior to both render the story as credible as possible and make it suitable for empathetic responses.

In a similar vein, chapter eighteen of *Life of a Worn-Out Hack*, entitled "Horrible Tortures Rejuvenate and Beautify Me" ([46], p. 154) combines the description of what is done to Abälard with an indication of how the gruesome procedures—Abalärd calls them "tortures" ([46], p. 155)—affected the horse-protagonist at the time it happened: "First, [...] my tail [...] was cut off and notched most painfully[...].—O gracious Nature! I sighed more than once during the agonizing operation [...]; then my ears were mutilated, the dental crowns were filed sharp, some were even torn off, [...] and finally the cavities above my eyes indicating my advanced age were pierced with an awl and then blown up with a quill" ([46], pp. 154–55). The telling mode [62] delineating the surgical intervention is interrupted by an exclamatory interjection of the sighing equine protagonist. This exclamation serves to render the horse's experiences as vividly as possible, while it also gives the impression of the narrator's specific knowledge of the protagonist's subjective experience represented here as 'direct speech', a beseeching sigh expressing anguish and despair. The narrator thus equates his identity with that of the protagonist and at the same time underscores 'truth' and 'reliability' of the pseudo-autobiographical discourse. A similar account of these 'equine facelifts' which were common practice throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth-century [76,77] can be found in *Life of the Mecklenburg Mare Amante* ([44], pp. 35–39).23 Historically speaking, the representation of these practices and their impact on the horses serves both as a means to disparage these procedures and present them as an offense against Nature, as well as to distribute knowledge about the various ways in which horse dealers tried to deceive potential purchasers ([44], p. 37). Finally, it also enables readers to feel *for* (sympathy) and *with* (empathy) [79] the animals as victimized individuals sharing corporeality and the capacity to suffer with human beings.

#### *2.2. Formal Mimesis and the Illusion of Autobiographical Authenticity*

As an emulation of factual autobiographical discourse which encourages "the illusion of the referentiality of a narrator's discourse to an extratextual person and his/her life" ([37], p. 89), 'formal mimesis', is a crucial characteristic of nineteenth-century literary autozoographies.24 In fact, many of these texts not only mimic life (and traditional autobiographies) by adhering to a linear-chronological order of events, but even mirror the shortness of the narrated time, i.e., the animals' life span, by compiling a rather brief text with a short narrating time.

Similar to fictional autobiographies, paratexts are decisive for the strategic illusion of an 'autozoographical authenticity'. In this respect, front covers, forewords, dedications, and epilogues are key discursive elements. Early nineteenth-century equine autozoographies label themselves analogous to fictional and factual life narratives (cp., e.g., [80,81]) and also "suggest authenticity by means of a fictive editor" ([37], p. 58). As Philippe Lejeune has noted, the basis of an "autobiographical pact" between the autobiographer and the reader, giving credence to the narrative as a truthful account,

<sup>23</sup> Cp. also *Memoirs of Dick, the Little Poney* ([78], p. 31).

<sup>24</sup> As Löschnigg points out, the suggestion of autobiographical authenticity is prevalent in fictional autobiographies until the end of the nineteenth century ([37], p. 57). I have made similar observations with regard to German literary autozoographies. In twentieth and twenty-first century texts, for example, most authors no longer use paratexts in order to apostrophize the texts as factual narratives. Rather, they openly admit to the fictional status of the texts and comment on the function of the narratives as social critique, guidebook, or a means to commemorate a dead companion animal.

is the congruency between author, narrator, and protagonist often already indicated on the cover of the book ([16], p. 12). In order to present literary autozoographies as 'real' autobiographical narratives originally told by the horses, book covers of early nineteenth-century equine autozoographies try to suggest an 'autozoographical pact'. Since "the onomastic difference between a fictive narrator and an empirical author signals fictionality" ([37], p. 90), *Life of a Job Horse*, for example, stages itself as the story of an equine life "*Re*-Narrated by Ambrosius Speckmann, Famous Horse Lender of Göttingen" ([43], front page, my emphasis). *Life of a Job Horse* and *Life of the Mecklenburg Mare Amante* even try to re-enforce an "autozoographical pact" by providing etchings of the animals' full-body portraits (cp., [43–45], front page).

In the foreword, the fictive editors of nineteenth-century literary autozoographies address at least two questions: (1) How did the editor meet the animal in question or how did he or she obtain or record the narrative? (2) Why should readers take an interest in the story of an animal's life? Thus, these forewords, dedications and introductions comment on the origin, the form and the intended function(s) of the texts. In *Life of a Job Horse*, the editor and horse lender Ambrosius Speckmann uses the peritextual dedication to "my former very much appreciated patrons and clients" ([43], dedication) to conjure up the "golden times when the dear gentlemen still came running to me, asking whether the English horse was still available" ([43], dedication). It is only later in the narrative that the reader finds out that this "English horse" is identical with the eponymous (chestnut) horse.25 Speckmann also makes sure to comment on the function of the text and to allude to the circumstances of how he got the story 'straight from the horse's mouth'. He bemoans that his clients have abandoned the English horse who used to be everybody's favorite but now "had to pay tribute to Nature"; today, Speckmann complains, "no one asks for him anymore, no one thinks of him" ([43], dedication). Speckmann thus takes the (fictive) clients of the story as warrantors for the existence of the horse whose character he finds legendary: "Since, as you know, you cannot easily find as good a horse as this" ([43], dedication).

Addressing the patrons and clients as acquaintances of the horse,26 Speckmann tries to give the text an air of authenticity and hold other (fictive) people accountable for the veracity of the horse's life. According to the editor, the "complete and true biography of the beloved horse" ([43], dedication) has two trajectories. First, the text is meant to "make up the injustice he [the horse, F.M.] had to endure, and which was afflicted on him—alas! by me as well" ([43], dedication). Speckmann claims to have realized that he might have treated the horse not "as befitted his merits" ([43], dedication). Hence, he considers his book a compensation for his misdeeds, stylizing the text as "a memorial" ([32], dedication) meant to keep the virtues of the horse alive. Second, Speckmann claims that the text represents the horse's "wishes which he had expressed in the last days" ([43], dedication). It remains unclear whether, in the logic of the story, the horse was given human language just before his death,<sup>27</sup> or whether the horse is still alive and has (in some way or other) expressed the wish to be commemorated in a first-person biography. The latter seems more likely since in the last chapter of the text, the horse declares himself to

<sup>25</sup> The English chestnut horse does not get an individual name throughout the entire story—in fact, it remains unclear whether the horse is male or female; the terms "the chestnut (horse)" (German: *der Fuchs*), "English (horse)" (German: *der Engländer*) as well as Speckmann's use of the personal pronoun "he", however, suggest the horse is male. Anonymity is rather unusual for autozoographical animals, yet here it highlights the fact that the text presents this horse, first and foremost, as a representative of its species, referring the reader to all the other horses observing similar events and experiencing similar exploitation. This tension between animal individuality and its portrayal as a representative can be considered an inherent characteristic of literary autoozoographies (see also ([9], pp. 39, 87)) but also indicates the dilemma experienced by many a human autobiographer trying to excel his or her contemporaries but ultimately unable to venture beyond anthropological premises.

<sup>26</sup> The address to the reader is a common feature of German literary autozoographies, suggesting 'autozoographical authenticity' on the one hand, and a species-specific reading audience on the other. In contrast to *Life of a Job Horse*, most autozoographical animals address a young readership belonging to the animals' own species.

<sup>27</sup> In the introduction to *Life of a Worn-Out Hack*, the editor explains that he could write down the horse's story because the dying animal became endowed with human speech, asking him "to become my biographer" ([46], p. 6). Within the diegesis, however, the horse protagonist remains mute.

be "sick", "old and stiff" ([43], p. 143) but still alive, looking forward to death as a welcoming prospect "after all those hardships" ([43], p. 143).

Moreover, the text presses for authenticity of the horse's story by separating the original narrative from the written work the author-editor Speckmann now presents to the public: The text "might be written in a bad style—because this is my fault", Speckmann explains, finding himself "an old chatty philistine who might have said more than is appropriate in printed books" ([43], dedication). Speckmann denounces his writing as amateurish and excessive and thereby differentiates between what has been reported to him by the horse and what he has actually delivered in the written account of this report. Yet Speckmann's presence is not limited to the peritext. As a character of the story, he reappears at the end of the text verifying his connection to the horse and accounting for his personal integrity. Therefore, the equine narrator affirms Speckmanns's editorial statements: "Mr. Speckmann—he should not blush when he re-narrates what I am compelled to tell as a matter of truth—was a clever man who knew how to obtain an advantage" ([43], p. 107). The narrative discursively recalls the 'conversation' between Speckmann and the horse to give narrative credence to the editorial assertions in the foreword. The text does not present itself as Sewellian "Translation from the Original Equine" ([82], front page) but as a transcript literally 'straight from the horse's mouth'.

#### *2.3. Rhetoric of Memory*

The third parameter Löschnigg identifies as characteristic of (fictional) autodiegetic discourse is the thematization and/or problematization of the process of remembering. Furthermore, these accounts typically endeavor to provide a balanced alteration between the extradiegetic narrator and the focalizer, i.e., the (internal) perspective of the experiencing character (cp., [37], pp. 128–32). In the course of the narrative, both perspectives gradually converge but the process of mediating between the two remains a structural feature of fictional autobiographies trying to suggest autobiographical authenticity. Early nineteenth-century German-speaking equine autozoographies simulate this (quasi-)autobiographical emphasis not only by making memory and remembering the subject of discussion, but also by foreshadowing future events (*prolepsis*) and foregrounding the act of narration.

The equine narrator Abälard, for example, remembers the carefree days of his childhood, explicates the act of remembering and simultaneously links the memory to a yet untold future: "[T]he years of my youth passed innocently [...]. O, ye golden days of youth! the memory of you exacerbated all the agonies which fate would be imposing on me by degrading conditions" ([46], p. 7). The text makes sure to present the chestnut as a remembering, narrating self, distinct from the youthful character of the story. As it correlates the narrating and the experiencing character, the text emulates traditional autobiographical discourse. Similarly, in *Life of a Job Horse*, the equine narrator begins his story by remarking "how pleasurable and at the same time bitter the memory of happy times [is]" ([43], p. 2). After a life of hardships, the equine narrator both relates himself to his young counterpart living a joyous and yet unburdened life and also comments on the ambivalent effects of memory in general.

*Life of a Worn-Out Hack* also anticipates potential reservations of its readers and tries to contextualize and explain what might otherwise appear as an unrealistic 'omniscient' account. Before the equine narrator relates a story which, in the logic of the narrated events, he could not have witnessed, Abälard remarks: "I had no idea about that which would happen now, didn't know anything about it at that time. What I have told my readers in the last two chapters, I have only learned a couple of months later in Vienna, as I will be mentioning in due time. I just didn't want to cut off the continuous thread of the story" ([46], p. 30). As Löschnigg notes, this "rhetoric of memory" has to be regarded as an "essential feature of (quasi-)autobiographical first-person narrations *per se*" ([37], p. 320). Literary autozoographies mimic the autobiographical alternation between narrating and experiencing self by foregrounding the process of remembering and narrating.

In terms of this rhetoric of memory as well as in matters of experientiality, formal mimesis and the illusion of autobiographical authenticity, literary autozoographies rely on structures and tropes of conventional autobiographical discourse. As a means to authenticate the narration, however, this mimetic copying of forms and contents cannot help but challenge autobiography and the pitfalls of its generic conventions.

#### **3. Literary Autozoographies and/as Meta-Autobiographical Discourse**

As the discussion above has shown, literary autozoographies can be read as and along the lines of fictional autobiographies. Insofar as it assimilates and imitates autobiographical conventions, the autozoographical genre reflects but also contests the poetics of autobiography. In this respect, literary autozoographies can be regarded as meta-auto/biographical discourse. According to Ansgar Nünning, meta-autobiographies "not only picture the problems of autobiographical form but also critically reflect its epistemological premises" (([41], p. 29), see also [83]). Reflecting and foregrounding 'autos', 'bios' and 'graphein' alike, "the literary knowledge of meta-autobiographies can be found in that they expose the conventions of traditional autobiographies, uncover their aporias, and question the referentiality-based knowledge of this allegedly non-fictional genre" ([41], p. 29). While Nünning regards the genre as a contemporary phenomenon,28 I would suggest that autozoographical discourse in its reliance on and reference to factual autobiographies can be seen as meta-auto/biographical discourse *per se*. These texts do not only replicate common (and, with regard to the nineteenth century, rarely publicly discussed and questioned) means of invoking autobiographical authenticity but, in doing so, simultaneously belittle those attempts. Insisting on the authenticity of an obviously fictive autozoographical discourse, the texts expose and dismiss conventional demands of factual auto/biographies as possible frauds and self-deceptions. When *Life of a Job Horse*, for example, promises to deliver "the complete and true biography" ([43], dedication) of the chestnut horse, it invokes conventional demands of factual auto/biographies for an objective and truthful account of a life—a demand which can hardly be fulfilled in the *auto*biographical account of a horse.29 Hence, by implication, literary autozoographies underscore that auto/biographies can never live up to their own (and their readers') idealistic expectations: the totality of autobiography is impeded by the limitations set by memory; the authenticity of the texts can be distorted by subjective, obscure self-perceptions and is also impossible to be gauged and verified by the reader. Likewise, total extensiveness of a life in biographies is unattainable due to the biographer's incomplete access to the protagonist's every moment and experience. Moreover, biographies can hardly be impartial and objective; biographers inscribe themselves aesthetically and (un)intentionally into the narrative, depending on their stance towards the protagonist and his or her accomplishments: "There is no such thing as biographical objectivity" ([84], p. 290), as Wolfgang Hildesheimer, author of the biography *Mozart* (1977), put it. Biographers, Hildesheimer acknowledges, invest themselves in the lives and the stories they tell—even if they pledge not to do so.

In their blatant fictionality and simultaneous insistence on truth and reliability, literary autozoographies question and deride claims of referentiality, factuality and authenticity in conventional auto/biographies. Even though literary autozoographies can be conceived as "unnatural narratives" [25], insofar as they give narrative voice to animals, they mimic traditional autobiographical forms and themes, and, consequently, remind us of the absurdity and unattainability of a 'truthful', un-fictional, un-inventive account of life narratives. Autobiographies and autobiographical selves are constructed, discursively conceived—sometimes in even euphemizing or contorted ways. Despite the fact that autobiographies can be classified as factual narratives [15], they can dispense neither with their debts to and the influence of fiction nor with the literary, 'world-making' elements they share with fictional

<sup>28</sup> Nonetheless, Nünning acknowledges, for example, Sterne's *Tristram Shandy* as a "pioneer of self-reflexive, metafictional and meta-autobiographical writing" ([41], p. 33).

<sup>29</sup> Even granted that the horse, in the logic of the text, is able to relate his life to editor-protagonist Speckmann, it becomes apparent that Speckmann cannot give 'first-hand' evidence concerning the horse's life before the chestnut comes into his possession. Thus, he has to rely on what he is related to him about that time by the horse. Whether this subjective account is 'true' is impossible to judge for both Speckmann and the readers.

narratives ([37], p. 317–18; [38], p. 403)—just as the autobiographical discourse of a horse, a dog, or a cat—albeit the fact that some of these animals have actually lived—remains, as a "possible world" [85], in the realm of fiction, i.e., a world which is formed and contrived (Latin: *fingere*) by language.

Furthermore, the discourse of literary autozoographies illuminates that factual can hardly be separated from fictional autobiographies or first-person novels in semantic, syntactical or pragmatic terms ([11], pp. 3–4; [37], p. 13). The same tropes and rhetorics are constitutive for both genres, yet only come to light in noticeably fictional discourses like literary autozoographies. Literary autozoography thus foregrounds the mechanics and artifice of life narratives at work when recreating and verifying a 'real' life. From a historical perspective then, nineteenth-century literary autozoographies appropriate and reflect conventional autobiographical forms and rhetorics but also expose its factual counterpart's confidence in and reliance on 'autobiographical truth' as rather presumptuous and naïve. In this respect, they may be seen as "memory and critique of the autobiographical genre" ([41], p. 32).

#### **4. Literary Autozoographies and/as Zoology**

As a response to the "cultural turn" in literary studies, scholars have come to examine the discursive and epistemological role of literature in socio-cultural systems, sharing the assumption that "literary texts can articulate a collectively experienced reality, restructure this reality paradigmatically and exert a significant influence on a culture's symbolic meanings" ([86], p. 80). Interested in the cultural and epistemological dimensions of literary poetics, and literature more generally, some of these approaches explore not only "in what ways literary texts pick up, reflect, modify and re-conceptualize scientific and cultural knowledge" ([87], p. 2), but also how literature and science regulate, produce, and poeticize systems of knowledge [17,88,89]. Drawing on a broad set of theoretical–methodical tools ranging from discourse analysis and 'the history of epistemology' to deconstruction, and actor-network-theory, cultural and literary animal studies investigate 'what animals mean' in literature by historically contextualizing animal representations with the *episteme* and the (species-specific) discourse at the time of their textual emergence [27,50,90,91]. Literature can represent, negotiate, and (re)define knowledge on animals. An analysis of the epistemological, discursive co(n)texts of literary animals thus means consulting writings ranging from philosophy and zoology to popular science, encyclopedias and weeklies ([27], p. 229; [92], p. 94; [93], p. 41).

In the following, I link the aforementioned equine autozoographies, *Life of a Job Horse* (1807) in particular, to the epistemological discourse on horses in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Germany. It will become apparent that the literary representation of the horse as both a narrating as well as an experiencing agent can only be grasped in its entire historical complexity when considering how natural history and the emergent 'horse-science' spoke about and imagined horses. In this respect, *Life of a Job Horse* becomes palpable as an endorsement and extension of zoology's discursive framing and construction of horses as feeling, reasoning, articulate subjects, who therefore require human compassion and empathy. At the same time, the text presents itself as a medium not only unsettling anthropological difference, but also foregrounding the limits of human knowledge.

#### *4.1. A Kingdom for a Horse. Representing Horses in Zoology and Equine Autozoographies*

As Lubomír Doležel notes "fiction has been extremely liberal in the way it has constructed animals" with the result that "in the worlds of animal stories, fairytales, fables, and so on, they become full-fledged agents, on their own or alongside persons" ([94], pp. 58–59). Did the emergence of equine autozoographies at the beginning of the nineteenth century then only boil down to a new fictional genre simply more liberal than others insofar as it granted voice, identity and (e)quality of life to animals?

Pascal Eitler maintains that life-narrating animal stories which present "animals as persons" ([36], p. 107) were part of a "physiologization and psychologization" ([92], p. 113) of animals, resulting in an "emotionalization and moralization of human-animal relationships" ([36], p. 103), a process which began at the end of the eighteenth and gained momentum in the course of the nineteenth century. Amidst growing suspicion towards Cartesian dogmas of animals as automatons, not at least in

the light of findings in physiological research and comparative anatomy, it became increasingly difficult, at times impossible to differentiate between human *feelings* on the one hand, and animal *sentiments* on the other. While reason was still considered humankind's ultimate dominion, feelings seemed to be prevalent and observable in both humans and animals. Supported by animal protection movements,<sup>30</sup> (literary) animals were propagated not only as narrators and defenders of their lives but also as feeling, suffering, and willful subjects. As such, literary autozoographies were part of what Eitler describes as a "regime of feelings" ([96], p. 212) enforced during the second half of the nineteenth century; a regime attributing not merely sentiments but distinct emotional lives to animals, while, in turn, demanding humans to treat animals in acknowledgment of and with respect toward these feelings. With their realistic accounts of cruelty towards animals, these narratives could "develop and deepen empathy and compassion for an animal as a person and the feelings it was supposed to have" ([36], p. 109). In early nineteenth-century equine autozoographies, however, the animals do not only possess a broad scope of emotional capacities, but also exhibit different sorts of cognitive capabilities. They remember their lives dating back to their births; they are astonished ([44], p. 44), they believe ([44], p. 47), think ([45], p. 53), extrapolate ([44], p. 20), learn ([43], p. 110), are convinced ([43], p. 4) demonstrate insight ([46], p. 75), make a point ([46], p. 85) etc.

In her article on animal autobiography in general, and on Charlotte Tucker's *Rambles of a Rat* (1857) in particular, Julie A. Smith argues that "[a]nimal autobiography sought to represent animal minds as established at least in part by scientific fact" ([3], p. 729) in order to demand humane treatment. Looking at how nineteenth-century natural history constructed animal minds, Smith discovers that "literary authors transformed the animals of natural history into fictional characters, adopt[ing] its foundational assumption that animals had cognitive capacities as well as lives, that is, coherent existence through time" ([3], p. 740). Popularization of natural history, Smith claims, enabled authors to find out about and be influenced by 'scientific' representations of animal consciousness ([3], p. 725–7). Nonetheless, it has to be kept in mind, as Simon Flynn rightfully concedes, "that natural history itself does not present the 'truth' of a particular animal, but is merely another discursive framework with its own force, history and regulations" ([97], p. 430). In fact, I would argue that the discursive parallels in literary autozoographies and natural history are indeed so striking *because* they have emanated from and simultaneously catered to a commonly shared epistemological field which made possible and regulated the unfolding of a web of interdependencies and dialogues between what was being promoted as 'fact' (historical writing and 'science') and what was considered as 'fiction' (literature). Smith focuses on general discourses on animal minds in natural history and animal autobiography respectively, and regards the anecdote (e.g., of animal 'sagacity') as most pertinent to animal representation in and the aesthetics of animal autobiographies ([3], pp. 738–41). While it is true that anecdotal form and knowledge is not uncommon in German nineteenth-century literary autozoographies (compare, e.g., ([43], pp. 63–64) to ([98], pp. 278–79, 281)), I would argue that these texts predominantly rely on and share natural history's mode of description and characterization with regard to a particular species (not of animalsor rather "the animal", as Derrida reminds us ([99], pp. 415–16), in general).

If one considers the emotional and cognitive attributes of horses in equine autozoographies around 1800, it might be tempting to dismiss these representations as mere anthropomorphism for satirical ends. When compared to historical zoological discourses, however, equine representations in literary autozoographies become tangible as figurations conceived analogous to zoological theses about the capabilities of horses. In natural history and so called 'horse-science' around 1800, horses are presented as special in various sorts of ways. They feel, think, remember, 'speak', and thus deserve proper treatment and respect (see also [100]). By creating possible worlds of equine perceptions,

<sup>30</sup> The first German society for the prevention of cruelty to animals was founded in Stuttgart in 1837. Dresden followed suit in 1839, Hamburg in 1841, Berlin in 1841, Munich in 1842, Vienna in 1846 [95].

emotions and minds, equine autozoographies thus contributed to discourses on horses as discussed in natural history and horse-science and therefore partook in the construction of an 'equine epistemology'.

#### 4.1.1. Feeling Like a Horse. De-/Ascribing Equine Emotions in Zoology and Literary Autozoographies

In late eighteenth-century Germany, the horse had become essential to and omnipresent in everyday (working) life [101,102]. As the anonymous author of the book *Horse Pleasure* (*Die Pferdelust*) wrote in 1792: "How suitable, useful and necessary is this wonderful animal for all classes and estates of mankind" ([103], p. 13). Realizing the need for well-behaved, efficient 'horse power', writers flooded the German book-market with guidelines and manuals on how to best deal with and train horses, giving shape to what they called "horse-science" (*Pferdewissenschaft*) (cp., [104–108]). This so-called 'science' comprised "a bundle of literary and practical knowledge" ([102], p. 210) which catered to and was also popularized by vets, stud managers, riding instructors and self-declared horse-lovers (cp., [109–111]). In his *Handbook of Horse-Science* (*Handbuch der Pferdewissenschaft*) (1775), stable and stud farm master Johann Gottfried Prizelius proclaimed that horse-science consists of "an exact knowledge of horses, the necessary information on breeding as well as the acquaintance with the means of determining and training the aged foals for work befitting their proportions and strength" ([104], p. 13). To sum up, Prizelius writes, a good horse scientist knows "how to do everything that is necessary to sustain and accommodate a horse up until its death" ([104], p. 13). Similar to equine autozoographies around 1800 then, a number of writings in horse-science followed the life of a (representative, fictive) horse from birth to death, commenting on how to provide the best care and training according to the horse's specific use in human societies. Yet while equine autozoographies exemplified how mistreatment, inexperience and abuse of the horse result in the untimely demise of the animals, writers of horse-science gave advice on ideal treatment horses in order to gain most profit from them. Therefore, literary autozoographies, I suggest, can themselves be regarded as guidebooks *ex negativo*, describing how *not* to treat and work with horses in order to sustain them. In this regard, the texts complement the overall ideological agenda of horse-science.

Yet it was not only the economic value of the horse which led the influential *Krünitz Encyclopedia* to publish an 800-page volume on the horse, but also its superlative status as "one of the most distinguished domestic animals" ([112], p. 1). The superior rank of the horse was an undisputed fact in eighteenthand early nineteenth-century natural history, horse-science and encyclopedic literature. Hence, in the chronology of natural history accounts delivered by the anti-classifiying "describers" ([3], p. 234; [113]), the report on 'the horse' usually came first in the order of domestic animals to be portrayed. The horse, George-Louis Leclerc de Buffon says in the translation of his widely read *Histoire naturelle*, is "[t]he noblest conquest ever made by man over the brute creation" ([114], p. 93)31. According to Buffon, the horse distinguishes itself, first and foremost, by its courage and spiritedness which he considered not inferior, but similar to that of the human warrior: "Equally intrepid as his master, the horse sees danger, and encounters death with bravery; inspired at the clash of arms, he loves it, and pursues the enemy with the same ardour and resolution" ([114], pp. 93–94). Apart from the fact that Buffon naturalizes the use of the horse in warfare as the horse's 'inherent' proclivity to combat, he is far from hesitant to describe horses as having and exhibiting positive emotions: The horse *loves* the sounds of warfare, and it "feels pleasure also in the chace [*sic*], and in tournaments" ([114], p. 94).

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's naturalist friend, the philosopher Eduard d'Alton, was convinced that horses can feel both love and hatred. In his *Natural History of the Horse* (*Naturgeschichte des Pferdes*) (1810), he remarks: "Horses remain true to themselves in their love and in their hatred" ([117], p. 28). This is why, according to d'Alton, humans should take care not to offend a horse. To those who treat

<sup>31</sup> The German translation of the first volume was published in 1750 by Albrecht von Haller. A second (critical) translation was issued in 1785. For Buffon's influence and popularization see ([115], pp. 139–41; [116], pp. 63–65).

them well—be it humans or conspecifics—horses are "gentle and compliant" ([117], p. 29), yet they "are capable of bloody vengeance" ([117], p. 28) directed towards those who mistreat them. In a similar vein, the *Dictionary for Horse-Lovers, Horse Dealers, Horse Trainers and Farriers* (*Dikzionnär für Pferdeliebhaber, Pferdehändler, Bereiter, Kur- und Hufschmiede*) (1806) argues that "there are various characters among these animals with some of them prone to virtues and some to vices, just like humans" ([118], p. 114)32. The observation of horses and their interactions with humans and conspecifics led natural historians to grasp 'equine semiotics' analogous to human conduct and emotionality. The behavior of horses could be construed and interpreted along the lines of what was observable in humans and human societies, calling for a comparative vocabulary. Friedrich Georg Sebald, senior horse veterinarian of the Bavarian army, thus considered the horse as individual as any human being. Every horse, Sebald maintains in his *Complete Natural History of the Horse* (*Vollständige Naturgeschichte des Pferdes*) (1815), has "something idiosyncratic about it and distinguishes itself from other horses; this is a horse's individual character" ([98], p. 272). Those willing to pay attention to these characters, Sebald suggests, can find out that horses feel as diverse and subjectively as humans. He writes: "Observing horses, one finds they have joy, sadness, fear, happiness, glumness, wrath, love and so on and so forth" ([98], 254).

As should have become apparent, natural historians around 1800 were convinced that horses possessed a complex emotional life which was similar to, rather than different from human experiences. Knowing about the emotional states, the vices and the virtues of horses, how to be able to discern them, and how to deal with them in accordance with their individual character, was considered key to an efficient upbringing and training. As Sebald proclaims: "It is certain that upbringing exerts a great influence on the characters of horses. A loving education, kindness, leniency and patience will make them affectionate, gentle, docile and obedient. Rigor, violence and maltreatment will make them stubborn, insidious, wicked" ([98], p. 294). Thus, ascribing (human) emotions to horses went hand in hand with the production of (readers') feelings of sympathy and compassion as well as the request for a considerate, caring upbringing and training of horses.

Comparing these findings in zoology to *Life of a Job Horse*, exemplary of emotionality in equine autozoographies around 1800, the text presents itself as an epistemological echo of zoological assumptions. The equine protagonist feels "love for" but also "fear of" ([43], p. 13) his second master, Lord Tormington, and as a result intervenes as soon as he finds Tormington in danger. When Tormington, a little later in the narrative, forces the horse to gallop so hard that he stumbles and crashes into a ditch, it is again "fear for" his master but also "fear of punishment" ([43], p. 24) which guides his experiences. Yet instead of taking revenge for the thrashing he receives after the fall, as might be presumed with regard to d'Alton's conviction quoted above, the chestnut horse "counters the rage [...] and the relentless beatings" of his master "with patience" ([43], p. 24). The submission and selfless obedience of the horse to human demands was common sense in natural history. Buffon considered the horse "a creature which renounces his very being for the service of man [...]: he [the horse, F.M.] gives himself up without reserve, refuses nothing, exerts himself beyond his strength, and often dies sooner than disobey" ([114], p. 94). Since he conceives horses as a self-less species, able to relinquish themselves to a (non)human other, Buffon implicitly admits to the self-awareness of horses. Active self-renunciation is only feasible if an individual can be considered conscious and aware of his or her self to start with. Simultaneously, according to natural history, horses cannot help but obey; they are forced to do as told no matter what the task. That this is nothing but a form of slavery is commonly acknowledged: "The slavery of the horse", Buffon writes, "is [...] universal" ([114], p. 94).

In sum, natural history and equine autozoographies delineated horses as feeling, self-aware agents of a life and simultaneously tried to evoke empathy with and better treatment of horses. As the animals never seriously oppose human force, it is up to human consideration (and reason) to take

<sup>32</sup> The four volumes of the book were translated into German between 1797 and 1806. They had originally been published in French as *Dictionnaire raisonné d'hippiatrique, cavalerie, manège, et maréchallerie* (1775) by the veterinarian and anatomist Philippe-Etienne Lafosse.

responsibility for a horse and its well-being. To take good care of and not overwork horses was seen as crucial to this responsibility. Equine autozoographies presented the animal protagonists as suffering characters, but also articulated these sufferings as experiences very much alike those of humans. In this respect, the texts tried to make readers aware of the implications of handling horses incorrectly and inflicting violence on them. Commenting on the crash due to Tormington's relentless gallop, the English chestnut declares: "I suffered badly from the crash—since a horse, dear reading gentlemen, has feelings, too" ([43], pp. 23–34). The chestnut addresses readers (and riders) as potential (ab)users of horses, and thus affirms his sensibility but also implicitly asks for a consideration of these equine experiences more generally.33 Equine autozoographies thus participated in the epistemological construction of horses by fictionalizing and promoting supposed equine feelings and demands in analogy to the characterization of horses in zoological discourses. Apparently, the classical episteme in early nineteenth-century German-speaking countries allowed for horses, as a considerably sensible species, to emerge as feeling individuals with dynamic emotional lives. Compared to the accounts of natural history, however, equine autozoographies used their 'licence' to fictionalize as a means to expand and enrich zoological discourses on horses, transforming equine objects of knowledge into subjective protagonists, plots and life narratives (cp., [3], pp. 739–41). *Life of a Job Horse*, for example, reflects and rephrases the notion of horses as patient, obedient servants by representing a horse which is subservient (and thus exploited) but also more compassionate, indeed, more *humane* than his owners and (ab)users. When the English chestnut is lent to a drunken student trying to make his way home, the horse presents itself as naturally endowed with a compassionate character "feeling pity for the poor person" ([43], p. 116) swaying on his back. Therefore, the horse "proceeded as carefully and cautiously as possible so that he [the student, F.M.] would not fall down" (ibid.). The horse's feeling even goes beyond mere pity for his intoxicated rider. When the young man eventually falls down despite the horse's efforts and remains stuck in the stirrup, the horse reconfirms his loyalty and sympathy: "If I had been insidious or only less compassionate, I could have walked away, dragging him behind me. Yet I was too considerate for that. I stayed put and waited for someone to come by to help us out even though it was very late. My drunken rider fell asleep and I, out of pure boredom, chewed on some grass which I could reach from where I was standing. We remained in this position until the break of dawn" ([43], pp. 116–17).34 Despite the ill-treatment he already had to endure from humans, the horse does not abandon its benign, patient disposition but rather lavishes its kindness even on those who are strangers to him or treat him as a mere means of transport. *Life of a Job Horse* thus potentiates the analogy between human and equine feelings discussed in natural history by representing the horse as an exemplary feeling and sympathetic character and thus invites human sympathy with the equine protagonist. Furthermore, the unrebellious and indulgent composure of the horse is also contextualized with his benign upbringing and training. Referring to his youth and education, the chestnut portrays his keeper Wilson "under whose care I grew up and welcomed the saddle" ([43], p. 2) as an exemplary horse- and stableman. Wilson provided "the best food", "cleaned and adorned" (ibid.) the horse, and, according to the equine narrator, can also be considered a role model for a humane' training of horses: "To let powers and abilities develop themselves on their own terms; to only give

<sup>33</sup> The high degree of sensibility in horses was acknowledged in both natural history and horse-science, demanding, for example, the rider to handle the bridle and the spurs accordingly (cp., e.g., ([114], p. 105; [119], p. 151)).

<sup>34</sup> A similar anecdote referenced as "The Horse Which Took Care of His Drunken Master" (*Das für seinen betrunkenen Herrn besorgte Pferd*) was published in *Touching Stories from the Animal Kingdom* (*Rührende Erzählungen aus der Thierwelt*) in 1796 ([120], pp. 103–4). The heterodiegetically narrated anecdote, however, features a drunken farmer who—stuck in the stirrup—is rescued by his horse grabbing, after several unsuccessful trials, the farmer's coat and pulling him up so high that he can free himself. The farmer then cherishes and keeps the horse up until his/her death. Hence, not only the rescue operation but also the end of the story differs when compared to the chestnut's life narrative (not to speak of the narrative point of view). *Life of a Job Horse* seems to be interested in rendering the story more plausible with the horse waiting for help to arrive instead of helping out himself. Moreover, it demonstrates what happens to a horse whose service is not appreciated by the lessees feeling irresponsible for the well-being and fate of the animal. While the anecdote, similar to horse-science and "animal psychology" (*Thierseelenkunde*), spells out how horses should be treated in acknowledgement of their deeds and feats, *Life of a Job Horse* gives advice *ex negativo*, foregrounding the unjustified suffering the horse has to endure.

a little help if needed, to encourage here, tame the wild fire there—that was his art which he applied and the principle he followed and which I recommend to any educator as good and useful" ([43], p. 7). The horse's advice here mirrors Sebald's statement concerning the implications of a benign upbringing assuring that the horse turns out "affectionate, gentle, docile and obedient" ([98], p. 294). The fact that the chestnut, even in his late years and after all his bad experiences is not "insidious" but truly "compassionate" ([43], pp. 116) is thus rendered plausible by his beneficent upbringing. Analogous to the instructions in horse-science, the text thus argues for a reasonable, benevolent nurturing and training of horses, and, again, exhibits its shared epistemological base with zoological discourses.

That the representation of equine feelings in *Life of a Job Horse* is part of a "regime of feelings" also becomes evident at the end of the narrative. Looking ahead to its death "calmly and with serenity", ([43], p. 143), the equine narrator turns to the reader one last time: "Farewell, dear reader! Extend your compassion to me at least when leafing through this story" ([43], p. 143). The exit of the narrator is combined with a specific appeal for the readers' emotional investment. As both a subservient and useful, a feeling and compassionate being, the horse in turn asks for an empathetic reading of, or rather post-reading reflection on, his life narrative and the sufferings he had to endure. By implication, the story thus makes a case for a kinder and more benevolent treatment. As is well known, Kant had warned of a form of human brutalization (*Verrohung*) in the process of inflicting violence on animals. Harming animals would thus "weaken a natural endowment which is very useful for the morality in relation to other human beings" ([121], p. 443). *Life of a Job Horse* rather seems to argue for a reasonable treatment of horses not least for the sake of the horses themselves. It represents the horse as an exemplary servant and emotional being feeling and, first and foremost, working even better, if treated with consideration and compassion. Ultimately, and historically speaking, the representation of equine emotions in natural history and equine autozoographies thus sought to revise and ameliorate but also to substantiate and optimize human access to and use of horses. In early nineteenth-century equine autozoographies and natural history then, feelings allegedly located in horses and those to be evoked in humans were firmly intertwined. By means of observation and analogy, natural history was certain that horses and humans feel in similar ways and therefore deserve similar treatment. Equine autozoographies popularized and enforced this paradigm by developing emboldened forms of equine emotionality. In addition, as will be shown in the following, the texts also catered to natural history's stance on the cognitive capacities of the species.

#### 4.1.2. Thinking Like a Horse. De-/Ascribing Equine Minds in Zoology and Literary Autozoographies

How come horses always find their way back home? Why do they seem to 'know' when something bad is about to happen? Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century natural history usually had two answers for these questions. While a number of authors believed that God had endowed animals with mental hindsight, others, as Julie A. Smith writes, argued "that mental states apparently identical in animals and humans were really very different. One was the operation of instinct, the other of reason" ([3], p. 735). The horse, however, posed problems to these simple distinctions and matter-of-fact explanations. Given its behavior and impressive capabilities, some of its conduct appeared too clever to be merely instinct-driven—it seemed intelligent. In his *Dictionnaire raisonné d'équitation* (1833) the influential stable master François Baucher declared: "The horse has perceptions as well as sensations; it can compare and remember—it, therefore, has *intelligence*" (([122], p. 178), emphasis in the original), emphasis in the original).<sup>35</sup> Based on this assessment, Baucher developed a training method seeking to avoid aversive stimuli obstructing the learning process of the horse, while endorsing positive experiences in training ([124], pp. x–xi).

Georg Friedrich Sebald, aforementioned horse veterinarian, prefigured Baucher's views. In his *Complete Natural History of the Horse*, he praises the species as evincing "imagination, attention, memory,

<sup>35</sup> For Baucher's influence on contemporary horsemanship, see [123].

willpower and judgement" ([98], p. 241). Giving a number of anecdotal proofs for his hypotheses, Sebald concludes that "horses, and animals in general, cannot be mere machines, as Descartes would have it"; rather, "one can often find equine behavior that is very much like the conduct of clever human beings" ([98], p. 268). Buffon considered the horse a conscious being insofar as it "*knows* how to check his natural fiery temper" ([114], p. 94, my emphasis). He also regarded the neighing of horses as a communicative act, since he could differentiate "five kinds of neighing relative to different passions" ([114], p. 164) in horses. Christian Ehrenfried von Tennecker agreed since he believed the facial expressions, body posture, and conduct of horses to be "a language which is very well comprehensible for horse experts and vets" ([125], p. 297). The *Dictionary for Horse-Lovers, Horse Dealers, Horse Trainers and Farriers* describes horses as "very clever and easy to teach in comparison to other domestic animals" but admits that "among the various individuals of this species, there are so many differences in mental capacities because some horses are as stupid among their own kind as some humans among other humans" ([119], p. 77). Similar to the emotions ascribed to horses discussed in the former section of this article, human beings and their mental capacities served as templates of and points of reference for the discursive construction of equine minds in zoological discourse. As the behavior of some horses could be interpreted along the lines of an intelligent human being and in analogy to a form of language, it logically followed that the horse had to be endowed with similar cognitive and communicative abilities.

In its statement, the *Dictionary*, however, dwells on and reaffirms the differentialist conception of animals and humans, helping many a natural historian to resurrect the dividing line between equine and human intelligence. While some horses were seen as clever and could even be called rational, e.g., insofar as they seemed to be able to subdue their instincts when influenced and improved upon by human training,<sup>36</sup> humans, it seemed, could act not only *rationally* (allegedly without exterior influence) but also *reasonably*. Reason, yet again, represented the crossroads of equine and human homologies. Horses could be clever and 'teachable'; they might even show behavior which could be called rational. Reason, however, was reserved for mankind. Still, rationality, was apparently no longer considered an anthropological prerogative. This is why Sebald can assert that "due to their capacity to judge, horses can observe all conditions of an object, compare them and draw certain conclusions from it" ([98], p. 254). Sebald calls this sense of judgement "rationality which haughty humankind usually denies to animals" and is convinced that "horses, to a certain extent, have this rationality, too" ([98], p. 254). Even though some natural historians thus acknowledged the mental faculties of horses and were even willing to concede a degree of rationality to them, the line got drawn with the knockout argument of reason. It comes as no surprise that even Sebald adheres to this dogma, confirming that "instinct in animals is what is called reason in man" ([98], p. 269).

Yet the line between rationality and reason, between what was considered animal instinct on the one hand and human reason on the other hand could become obscure at times. As Julie A. Smith has shown, British nineteenth-century accounts in natural history tried to keep the categories of animal instincts and human rationality apart, but often "entail[ed] slippage" with literary autozoographies "blur[ring] the difference" ([3], p. 736) even further. Similarly, natural history's accounts of equine mental capacities found it hard to make a distinction. In its entry on "Horse", the *Dictionary for Horse-Lovers, Horse Dealers, Horse Trainers and Farriers* concedes that "[t]he analogue of human reason, instinct, generally seems to work here in accordance with more limited principles, but the line can hardly ever be determined" ([118], p. 114). Sebald confirms this and adds "that instincts in some animals seem to surpass human reason" ([98], p. 229). Again, human and equine mental capacities are weighed against each other, with Sebald trying to draw a 'reasonable' line between the two. Yet, ultimately, the comparison exposes a lack of sufficient evidence for making a clear distinction by means of observation. German equine autozoographies undermine the supposed gulf between

<sup>36</sup> Buffon, for example, believed that human "art" has improved the "talents and natural qualities" ([114], p. 94) of domestic horses.

human and animal cognition even more considerably. They represent horses as a species not only with extraordinary memories but also with the capacity to communicate, reflect, judge and act according to these judgments.

Memory in equine autozoographies even tends to encompass the animals' own births. The English chestnut knows how much his keeper was annoyed by the fact that the horse's mother did not give birth at the assumed hour, making the keeper wait until "finally, on the day after the third night I was born at noon" ([43], pp. 4–5). Of course, this information could have been conveyed to the horse by someone else; however, the narrative suggests that the horse has no difficulties in conjuring up those long-ago events from direct memory. Mecklenburg Mare Amante also finds it easy to recall her birth: "My birth happened without any veterinary help [...] My mother licked me, my ward ushered me to the udder, rich with milk [...] Do I have to say more to prove I was happy?" ([44], pp. 3–4). Not only does Amante remember the event of her birth, but also the sensations she experienced during the following minutes and hours. This extraordinary memory is echoed by horse-science admiring "the memory, and, first and foremost, the spatial memory" ([126], p. 13) of horses. Old, dulled job horses, the *Dictionary for Horse-Lovers, Horse Dealers, Horse Trainers and Farriers* advises, should be handled with precision so that "the horse might remember his youth when he was treated much better" ([118], p. 21). Maltreatment of the horse, in turn, would "leave deep impressions in his memory" ([127], p. 68). The emphasis put on processes of memory in equine autozoographies is clearly reminiscent of the texts' attempt to render the "illusion of autobiographical authenticity" ([37], p. 4), as indicated in part two of this article; yet at the same time it serves to promote the belief in what was considered horses' astonishing power to remember.

Mulling over certain observations and even themselves is a common activity for horses in equine autozoographies. Amante, for example, is forced to think about her appearance after she had been given a negative assessment first, a positive one shortly after: "I started doubting myself and wanted to investigate and be acquainted with myself in order to be convinced of what there was to be found about me" ([44], p. 28). This introspection, this "reflecting upon" ([44], p. 29) herself, leads her to the conclusion that her vices might result in her being "misjudged and despised" ([44], p. 33). As aforementioned, natural history was equally liberal in granting horses the ability to judge and draw conclusions.

The fact that literary autozoographies represent horses as self-conscious, proud, and, at times, even vain creatures falls in line with the accounts of natural history as well. Buffon had already described the horse as a "spirited and haughty animal" ([114], p. 93). Sebald went even further: "Horses love cleanliness, ornaments, finery and such things. The horse is certainly one of the neatest animals. It stays put and finds itself agreeable when being washed and cleaned; it even invites his keeper to do it" ([98], p. 289). Horses, according to Sebald, can judge, reflect on, and compare themselves to others as well as to their former selves; they also examine and cherish themselves. It comes as no surprise then that the chestnut horse indulges in "self-praise" ([43], p. 6) or that Amante thinks her hooves "outstanding", her propositions "agreeable", while she rejects being called unduly "vain" ([44], p. 21). Equine autozoographies and natural history articulated and disseminated the alleged mental abilities of horses and, hence, at times, undermined the dividing line between human superiority justified by reason and a higher degree of rationality on the one hand, as opposed to animal instincts and their inferior rationality or cleverness on the other hand. As an example for this, the following passage in *Life of a Job Horse* not only unsettles and subverts the distinctiveness of these categories but also represents equine agency in opposition to human (in)disposition. The passage presents the horse and Lord Tormington on their way from London to Tormington's country estate, when they are ambushed by robbers trying to force Tormington to hand over his purse. Tormington finds himself "so shocked" ([43], p. 12) that the horse can feel the rider shake on his back; Tormington then instantly draws his purse. Meanwhile, the chestnut conceives of "the best means" to intervene and rescue Tormington "with [...] cleverness" ([43], p. 13): "During the preparations for the handover, I moved a little towards one of the robbers, although the other had got hold of my reins. [...] And now, calculating the space and the distance precisely, I kicked out and hit the second robber so hard

against the right leg that he cried out loud and fell from the horse on the left-hand side [...]. Now it was time to finish what I had started by making an escape. I was already preparing for this when I felt the whip and the spurs of my master which he applied either by instinct or by virtue of returning consideration" ([43], p. 13).

Since his master seems to have "lost his head", trembling and apparently abandoning any "consideration" (read: rational faculty and reason), the horse initiates and executes a counter-attack. In this instance, the text depicts the chestnut as capable of intentionality, planning and spatial imagination; the horse appears as the prime rational agent in this humananimalconstellation. Furthermore, the horse muses whether it was the return of Tormington's rational powers or rather his "instinct" that made him set spurs to the horse. The text exposes this human-made distinction as arbitrary and aporetic by turning the conventional categories of animal instincts and human reason upside down. For the observer, it is impossible to tell whether human or animal (nonverbal) behavior is the consequence of either so-called instinct, supposedly devoid of reflection and reasoning, or of so-called rationality and reason, supposedly devoid of affects and reflexes. Equine autozoographies like *Life of a Job Horse* thus advocate equine intelligence and rationality, while simultaneously (and most likely inadvertently) foregrounding the ultimate impossibility of humans to distinguish between reason and instinct on the basis of nonverbal behavior. Ultimate access to and insights about other (nonhuman) minds is epistemologically limited, if not unavailable.

#### **5. Conclusions**

This article has investigated the affiliations between literary autozoographies, fictional autobiographies and zoological discourse. Akin to fictional (human) autobiographies, early nineteenth-century equine autozoographies rely on narrative strategies mimicking autodiegetic discourse in order to pass as authentic life narratives. Copying factual autobiographies, the fictional texts can be read as meta-auto/biographical discourse uncovering autobiography's tropes and rhetorics and exposing its claims of factuality and truthfulness as limited and questionable.

The comparison between zoology's discursive engagements with equine minds and feelings and the representations in equine autozoographies has shown that the ascription of emotional and cognitive capabilities to horses is a shared representational phenomenon linked to what the early nineteenth century regarded as interspecies homology. As a result of this comparative contextualization, life-narrating horses can be recognized as reflections and imaginative, interpretative negotiations of the epistemological field shared with zoology's descriptive, matter-of-fact discourse. While zoology tried to promote the capabilities of horses objectively from a third-person perspective, equine autozoographies made (and encouraged) an imaginative leap to present and acknowledge the perception and experiences of horses 'first-hand'. Creating equine feelings and minds 'in their own image', authors of natural history, horse-science and equine autozoographies (unintentionally) subverted the conventional lines between what were considered exclusively human spheres (reason, language) and the supposedly inferior animal kingdom (instinct, speechlessness), finding horses not different from, but very similar to human beings.

As the discussion has shown, early nineteenth-century equine autozoographies were part of an episteme around 1800 in which it had become feasible in and beyond zoology to grant individuality, agency and emotional and mental capabilities to horses. The texts reflect, negotiate and popularize epistemological (and ideological) discourses on 'the' horse, participating in a broader discussion about what horses can and cannot do, what horses should be endowed with and how they should be dealt with. Reading animal narratives and literary autozoographies alongside zoological discourses thus allows fresh perspectives not only on the poetics and aesthetics of a literary text but also on how much zoology and 'scientific' texts rely on literary devices and narrative forms ([27], pp. 231–32). In this respect, historical research on literary autozoographies is meant to encourage animal studies scholarship to think about the role of literature in the epistemology, aesthetics and poetics of zoology in general, of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century natural history in particular. Ever since

the Enlightenment, natural historians set out to follow but in fact did not practice the Aristotelian division between history and poetry, description and invention, the 'real' and the 'possible' [113,128]. Despite its rhetorical insistence on what Foucault described as a "purification" ([28], p. 131) during the classical age—an effort to get rid of what was considered the excessive, fabulous "whole of animal semantics" ([28], p. 129)—natural history relied on narrative techniques, anecdotal evidence, literary styles, and creative practices. Thus, animal descriptions in natural history cannot be severed from literary animals in general, literary autozoographies in particular, and vice versa. The narration and creation of 'The Lives (and Characters) of Animals' was part of both natural history *and* literary autozoographies.<sup>37</sup> As I hope this article has shown, a comparative approach to literary autozoographies from the perspective afforded both by scholarship on autobiography and by cultural animal studies may open innovative ways of (re)discovering and (re)examining life-narrating animals, literary and natural history alike.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.

#### **References**


<sup>37</sup> It is no co-incidence that some nineteenth-century natural history books and articles entitled themselves analogous to literary autozoographies (cp., for the German-speaking tradition, e.g., [129–133]). Natural history and literary autozoographies were both interested in a "holistic approach to animal lives" ([3], p. 734), insofar as they—albeit in different ways—tried to describe the habits, needs, and supposed capabilities of a species in a most comprehensive way. Both genres thus acknowledged that animals were experiencing and appreciating their lives; lives which could best be understood if carefully observed and portrayed.


© 2017 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

## *Article* **Narrating Animal Trauma in Bulgakov and Tolstoy**

#### **Anastassiya Andrianova**

Department of English, North Dakota State University, Department 2320, P.O. Box 6050, Fargo, ND 58108-6050, USA; anastassiya.andriano@ndsu.edu

Academic Editor: Joela Jacobs Received: 5 October 2016; Accepted: 8 November 2016; Published: 15 November 2016

**Abstract:** Following the recent "animal turn" in literary studies, which has inspired scholars to revisit traditional human-centered interpretations of texts narrated by animals, this article focuses on the convergence of animal studies and trauma theory. It offers new animal-centered close readings of Tolstoy's *Strider* and Bulgakov's *Heart of a Dog*, paying attention to animal pain rather than seeing it, and the text as a whole, as an allegory of human society. Like many other authors of literary fiction featuring animal narrators, Tolstoy and Bulgakov employ a kind of empathic ventriloquism to narrate animal pain, an important project which, however, given the status of both the animal and trauma outside human language, and thus susceptible to being distorted by it, produces inauthentic discourse (animal-like, rather than animal narration); therefore, these authors get closest to animal pain, not through sophisticated narration, but through the use of ellipses and onomatopoeia. Ultimately, any narratological difficulty with animal focalization is minor compared to the ethical imperative of anti-speciesist animal-standpoint criticism, and the goal is to reconceive the status of animals in literature so as to change their ontological place in the world, urging that this critical work and animal rights advocacy be continued in the classroom.

**Keywords:** animal narrators; animal studies; human-animal studies; speaking animals; Tolstoy; Bulgakov; trauma theory; Russian literature

But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or even a month, old. But suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they *reason*? nor Can they *talk*? but, Can they *suffer*? Jeremy Bentham ([1], p. 7).

#### **1. Introduction**

Following the recent "animal turn" in literary studies, which has inspired scholars to revisit traditional human-centered interpretations of texts narrated by animals, such as Theodore Ziolkowski's catalogue of "talking dogs" [2], this article focuses on nonhuman animals as "a limit case for theories of difference, otherness, and power": the convergence of animal studies and trauma theory, both of which "raise questions about how one can give testimony to an experience that cannot be spoken or that may be distorted by speaking it" ([3], pp. 3–4). More specifically, it offers new animal-centered close readings of Leo Tolstoy's *Strider: The Story of a Horse* and Mikhail Bulgakov's *Heart of a Dog*, paying particular attention to animal pain rather than seeing it, and the text as a whole, as an allegory of human society. The present purpose is to reorient ostensibly animal-centered but actually human-centric interpretations so as to demonstrate what texts such as *Strider* and *The Heart of a Dog* reveal about animal narrators and animals in general, ultimately urging that this critical work and animal rights advocacy be continued in the classroom.

Tolstoy's *Strider* and Bulgakov's *Heart of a Dog* have been read as social and political commentaries, and even critics who have focused on the first-person animal narrators in these short novels, through

philological, historical, political, and narratological lenses, have seen the animal experience as representative of human concerns [4–8]. With a few exceptions [9,10], critical readings tend to be human-centric even as the texts themselves center on the animal in pain. In *Strider*, the point of view shifts from omniscient narration to first-person testimony once the titular gelding begins to speak, revealing how his traumatic experiences (separation from his mother and castration) made him both self-aware and capable of narrating his life. In *The Heart of a Dog*, where a mongrel named Sharik is surgically transformed into a human being, the first-person canine perspective shifts to omniscient narration once Sharik becomes Comrade Sharikov (through the implantation of human testes and pituitary gland), but ultimately returns to Sharik once again, after this surgery has been reversed. Like many other authors of literary fiction featuring animal narrators, Tolstoy and Bulgakov employ a kind of empathic ventriloquism to narrate animal pain, an important project which, however, given the status of both the animal and trauma outside human language, and thus susceptible to being distorted by it, produces discourse that may not be authentic (animal-like, rather than animal narration) but is, nonetheless, our best shot at addressing the animal in pain.

If a lion could talk, and if we had the means to understand him, to paraphrase Ludwig Wittgenstein's famous proposition, is a much debated question in animal studies [11].<sup>1</sup> Kari Weil has written on the ways primate research, conducted by Sue Savage-Rumbaugh at the Great Ape Trust in Iowa, brings us closer to interspecies communication, but she also warns against attempts "to teach apes to sign in order to have them tell humans what they want" ([3], pp. 3, 5–6). Added to animals' historically inferior ontological status and perceived voicelessness is the narratological problem associated with focalizing an animal's perspective. As William Nelles points out, "first-person or homodiegetic examples ... pose the problem of assigning human language to animals, who by definition cannot speak" [12]. Gerard Genette does, however, suggest the possibility of animal focalization by leaving the term 'personnages' somewhat ambiguous in a footnote to the definition of the "homodiegetic" type of narrative, where "the narrator is present as a character in the story he tells": "This term [personnages] is used here for lack of a more neutral or more extensive term which would not unduly connote, as this one does, the 'humanness' of the narrative agent, even though in fiction nothing prevents us from entrusting that role to an animal ... or indeed to an 'inanimate' object" ([13], pp. 244–45, note 74). While many narratologists have understood this as a dismissal of animal narration, the large number of fictional texts with animal focalizers justifies their study [12]. Such objections to animal narration and the difficulties involved are, furthermore, minor compared to the ethical imperative of forging anti-speciesist approaches to reading and treating animals.

While heeding the animal in pain, my goal is not merely to reinforce the violence already inflicted by the critics' scalpels. Arguing against aestheticizing violence and cruelty to animals, Josephine Donovan criticizes interpretations in which the "circumstantial realities of the animals themselves are largely ignored so that the perceived pathos of their condition may be used to illustrate the mental state or moral condition of the humans. "In short," she claims, "the moral reality of the animals' suffering is overridden in the interest of creating an aesthetic effect" ([14], p. 206). This is especially evident in analyses of metaphors and other figurative language, which "may thus be seen as a form of parasitical exploitation or metaphysical cannibalism of one entity (the vehicle) for the benefit of the other (the tenor)" ([14], p. 207). In the following pages, I will explore, in more depth, "the unrepresentable" ([15], p. 573) discourse of animal trauma and the empathic ventriloquism invented by human authors to vocalize, and focalize, nonhuman animal perspectives. To demonstrate that it is, indeed, possible to avoid aestheticizing animal violence and cannibalizing their experience for

<sup>1</sup> Constantine Sandis sets out to criticize (mis)readings from the animal perspective which ignore the philosophical context of Wittgenstein's remark, "Wenn ein Löwe sprechen könnte, wir könnten ihn nicht verstehn" ("If a lion could talk, we could not understand him"); however, he also notes that along with "Elizabeth Anscombe's commonly accepted translation of 'könnten...nicht' as 'could not', which implies it is impossible, ... there are actually three different [interpretive] translations" that leave the possibility of animal communication open ([11], pp. 1–3).

human gain, I engage in what Donovan calls "animal-standpoint criticism." This approach is grounded in the view that "animals are seats of consciousness–subjects, not objects; that they are individuals with stories/biographies of their own, not undifferentiated masses; that they dislike pain, enjoy pleasure; that they want to live and thrive; that in short they have identifiable desires and needs, many of which we human animals share with them" ([14], p. 204).

#### **2. The Elephant in the Room**

By interpreting animal pain allegorically, literary scholars may not have actively promoted animal suffering, but they have not helped to alleviate it either. Buttressed by documented findings in ethology and animal science, animal narratology can make a doubly powerful claim for empathy. That animals experience pain has, indeed, been proven empirically. One such experiment is Francis C. Colpaert's study on animals and pain medication in the 1980s. Colpaert injected rats with bacteria that induce arthritis and offered them a choice of bad-tasting analgesic and sweet, sugary-tasting liquid; these arthritic rats, the experiment indicated, were choosing the painkiller not for its taste [16]. The structures of their neurological systems provide more evidence for animal pain as well as consciousness. The brains of mammals have "a neocortex, the cauliflower-like portion of the brain that features ridges and in-foldings," which makes them capable of consciously experiencing pain ([17], pp. 74–75). In *Animal Liberation*, Peter Singer argues that other species have "[n]early all the external signs that lead us to infer pain in other humans," including such behaviors as "writhing, facial contortions, moaning, yelping or other forms of calling, attempts to avoid the source of pain, [and] appearance of fear at the prospect of its repetition" ([1], p. 11). Similarities in nervous systems along with physiological responses (variations in blood pressure, perspiration, and heart rate) yield further evidence that animals can feel pain, and although humans possess a more developed cerebral cortex, animals' diencephalon, significantly developed in mammals and birds, enables them to experience impulses, emotions, and feelings. Animals' capacity for pain serves, moreover, the same evolutionary function as humans': to prevent injury thereby also enhancing a species' chances at survival, all of which leads Singer to conclude that animals must also have a similar subjective experience of pain ([1], p. 11).

Additionally, recent research has shown that contrary to "corticocentrism," or the speciesist claim that an organism must have a neocortex to "possess a humanlike capacity for pain," even fish can exhibit the presence of consciousness due to the medial pallium, which performs a similar function to that of the human amygdala and helps drive memory, decision making, and emotions, including responses to various stimuli from stress to joy ([17], pp. 74–75, 89). Studies of largemouth bass populations show they become hook-shy after being hooked and released, indicating that repeat-hooking is motivated by hunger and should not be taken as evidence of an absence of pain ([17], p. 76). Studies of rainbow trout show, similarly, that they "are equipped to respond to different types of potentially painful events: mechanical injury (like cutting or stabbing), burning, and chemical damage (from acid)," and that their negative reactions were reduced by the use of morphine ([17], pp. 78–79).

Prior to considering whether the animal's suffering is posited merely for "an aesthetic effect" ([14], p. 206), or as a vehicle for speciesist, human-centric critique, we must acknowledge the presence of not one but two elephants in the room: that animals are capable of consciously experiencing pain, and that pain is utterly subjective, notoriously impossible to locate, and ultimately unnarratable and unrepresentable. Whereas in the case of human trauma, as Cathy Caruth argues, what is initially incomprehensible can potentially be narrated belatedly, with the delay allowing "*history* to arise where *immediate understanding* may not" ([18], p. 11, original emphasis), in the case of animals, there may not be a belated history, at least not one we can understand given the limitations of human language. As Weil has shown, both animal studies and trauma studies draw attention to "the violence done to animals and their habitats" and to "the difficulty of assessing how animals experience that violence," and hence "raise questions about how one can give testimony to an experience that cannot be spoken or that may be distorted by speaking it" ([3], p. 4). In the case of prey animals especially, expressing

suffering may be precarious. Prey animals, such as horses, mask their pain more than predators and can be "incredibly uncomplaining"; those that do show pain, through "contorted positions" and moaning, "do this only when they're alone" ([19], p. 181).2 As we will see shortly, this makes Strider's autobiographical account—given to several other horses and indirectly to many more human readers—at once less plausible and more poignant.

#### **3. What Tolstoy's Gelding Can Tell Us about Animal Trauma**

Perhaps the most striking representation of "the unrepresentable" is the ellipsis in the middle of Leo Tolstoy's short novel *Strider: The Story of a Horse* (*Kholstomer*, 1886), at the moment when the eponymous stallion is transformed into a "piebald gelding" ([20], pp. 79, 83). Over the course of five nights, the aging Strider tells the other horses in the moonlit paddock about his unfortunate coloration, abandonment by his mother, unrequited first love, and subsequent castration:

Then the general threatened to thrash everyone and said that I must be castrated. The head keeper promised to carry out his orders. Then they all quieted down and left. I didn't understand a thing, but I could see that they were planning to do something to me.

...

'The day after that I stopped neighing for ever and I became what I am now. In my eyes the whole world had changed. Nothing held any joy for me, I withdrew into myself and abandoned myself to reflection. At first everything revolted me. I even stopped drinking, eating and walking, and playing with my companions was out of the question. Sometimes I had the urge to jib, canter and neigh, but immediately I would ask myself the terrifying questions: why? for *what*? And my last ounce of strength drained away ([20], p. 84, original emphasis).

In the original Russian, the ellipsis is even more pronounced, receiving two full lines of dots ([21], p. 111):

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Signaling a moment of emotional intensity, a double-line ellipsis occurs only one other time, at the start of Chapter X, which switches perspectives (from first-person to omniscient) to narrate the visit of Strider's old owner, Serpukhovskoi, whom the gelding recognizes immediately, but who, having abandoned him in the past, now also tragically fails to reciprocate ([21], p. 123). This use of punctuation seems deliberate; a single-line ellipsis is used three times in two earlier chapters to demarcate animal speech, or a different section within animal speech: right before the chapter in which Strider begins to speak, right before the actual moment of his speaking, and right before he begins his autobiography proper after introducing himself ([21], pp. 106–7).

This unnarrated, and arguably unnarratable, violence makes Strider both inquisitive (he "abandoned [him]self to reflection") and remarkably astute, as he starts to question the notion of private property, especially when applied by humans to (their) animals: "I understood full well what he said about flogging and Christianity, but I didn't have the least idea what the words *mine*, *my foal* meant ... I found it impossible to understand how and why I could be called a man's property. The words *my horse*, referring to me, a living creature, struck me as strange, just as if someone had said *my* earth, *my* air, *my* water" ([20], p. 86, original emphasis). The Russian formalist Viktor

<sup>2</sup> At one point Grandin describes the castration of bulls by a veterinarian using "a rubber band procedure, wrapping a tight band around the bull's testicles and leaving it there for several days," a procedure considered "less traumatic than surgery, although there are individual differences in how cattle react to it": "Some bulls are perfectly normal, while others repeatedly stamp their feet. I interpret foot stamping as a sign of discomfort but not overwhelming pain. A few bulls, though, act as if they're in agony. They lie down on the ground in strange, contorted positions and they moan—but they do this only when they're alone" ([19], p. 181).

Shklovsky gave Tolstoy's story as an example of defamiliarization (*ostranenie*) in his seminal essay "Art as Technique" (1917), noting that "it is the horse's point of view (rather than a person's) that makes the content of the story seem unfamiliar" ([6], p. 21); this technique, moreover, in the words of Hugh McLean, "became a favourite, almost patented [one] of Tolstoy's art" and so "compels the reader to see human beings and their behaviour in new ways" ([20], p. xviii). Yet by focusing on the use of defamiliarization, critics of *Strider* have inevitably downplayed the literality of the animal's pain. A telling example of Soviet-era criticism can be found in E. Zhezlova's note on *Kholstomer* in the 1958 collected works edition, where there is not a single reference to the narrator's being a horse; rather, he is a "creature [*sushchestvo*] close to nature" (which could apply to humans and nonhumans alike), and "the story is about his 'fate' and 'thoughts'" (placed in quotation marks presumably to indicate their uncertain status), which also exposes "the mercenary world of property owners" and poses "the most important social questions" ([21], pp. 489–90, my translation).3 The brief description humanizes the gelding by erasing his animal difference.

By reading Tolstoy's story from the perspective of animal studies, on the other hand, we notice that there is more here than "a horse's perspective on human life", or a satire on "all the folly, decay, moral emptiness, and socioeconomic parasitism of the representatives of the ruling class in imperial Russia," as *Strider*'s Soviet critics insisted ([8], p. 546). The ellipsis in the text marks the point of intersection of animal studies and a theory of trauma as both "problematize representation and attempt to define its limits—discourses of the sublime, the sacred, the apocalyptic, and the other in all its guises" ([15], p. 573). We come to see more than the somewhat arbitrary problem that animal focalization poses for narratology, being, in Genette's typology, a type of first-person or homodiegetic focalization, which thus "assign[s] human language to animals, who by definition cannot speak" [12]. We arrive, in effect, at the animal's inability to narrate her pain, as animal discourse, like that of trauma, is also the "discourse of the unrepresentable, of the event or object that destabilizes language and demands a vocabulary and syntax in some sense incommensurable with what went before" ([15], p. 573).

Shifting the conversation toward "the themes of sex, love, and motherhood in this story about a castrated horse," along with the implications of thwarted sexual desire, Ronald D. LeBlanc offers an insightful and much needed analysis of that which is elided in the text and has been ignored by critics who read the story as an allegory about the landed gentry [8,22]; he sees in the gelding's selfless service to others following his castration "the expression of an ascetic desire on the part of the author to be unburdened of what he saw as the affliction of sexual lust and thus to be freed to pursue a more spiritual, less carnal existence on earth, a position that Tolstoi would later promulgate as part of his championing of a noncarnal, Christian brand of love" ([8], pp. 546–47). LeBlanc's treatment of "the piebald gelding" is more sympathetic than that of Aleksandr Etkind, for example, who sees the castration as ultimately beneficial for the horse and "an appropriate cure" for the "ailment" that is lust, because "if Kholstomer had not been castrated, it is unlikely he would have come to the moral insight that he does" ([8], pp. 556–57). LeBlanc's reading is still largely human-centered, positing that *Strider* be seen, at least in part, as Tolstoy's own (human) autobiography.

Andrea Rossing McDowell takes an animal studies approach which similarly draws on Tolstoy's biography, linking the author's vegetarianism and pacifism with his other, more frequently explored principles, including "his opposition to serfdom, the role of women in society, the devolution of sexual mores, and the destruction of rural life through modernization" ([9], p. 1). She insists that "The First Step" (1891), Tolstoy's famous essay which "aligns the consumption of meat with moral vices," is especially revealing of his attitude toward animals, contrary to other Tolstoy scholars who continue to "minimize the connection between his vegetarianism and his compassion for the animal world" ([9], p. 2). By foregrounding the animal's trauma, both the physical pain of castration and the

<sup>3</sup> Quotations from Russian are transliterated according to a simplified version of the Library of Congress' ALA-LC Romanization Tables, omitting ligatures.

accompanying emotions of abandonment and alienation due to his piebald coloration and gelding status, McDowell turns the conversation toward the animal: "This extreme *personalization* of the animal tragedy makes Tolstoy's tale doubly successful as an allegory of human society and a literal injunction to treat non-human species with greater consideration" ([9], p. 10). She concludes, however, not unlike Etkind, by recognizing the paradox of Strider's castration, or "'ideal' celibacy": "The initial trauma represents an act of power and abomination that ravages the victim's sense of self and precludes immortality through progeny; conversely, it frees the sufferer from 'animal' desires of the flesh, thereby encouraging more virtuous contemplations" ([9], p. 11). In this respect, the story supports Tolstoy's own grappling with celibacy and Christianity ([8], p. 557) and perhaps explains why, having started the story in the 1860s, he would not finish it for another 20 years.

There is, admittedly, some value to biographical criticism. In an often-quoted anecdote reported by Tolstoy's fellow writer Ivan Turgenev, the latter recalls seeing Tolstoy "by a bony, mangy old nag, stroking its back and whispering gently into its ear, while the horse listened with evident interest" ([10], pp. 45–46): "I was absolutely spellbound by what I heard," Turgenev reports. "Not only did he himself enter into the inner condition of this unfortunate creature, but he brought me into it as well. I couldn't restrain myself and said to him: 'Listen, Lev Nikolaevich, you really must have been a horse once yourself.' One could not find a better rendering of the inner condition of a horse" ([8], p. 545). Moreover, the "description of Strider's death may derive from an actual visit Tolstoy paid to a slaughterhouse at about this time" ([10], p. 44). But this also brings us to a critical impasse: animal focalization, rendered by any human, even one possibly reincarnated as a horse, is still the product of human imagination and empathy, reported through human language "giv[ing] testimony to an experience that cannot be spoken" and likely "distort[ing it] by speaking" ([3], p. 4). I would argue, however, that the creative impulse to give voice to the so-called dumb beasts, by making them narrators of their own literary fiction, is still less damaging than literary criticism's tradition of allegorizing their experiences—thus, in the words of Philip Armstrong, "reduc[ing] the animal to a blank screen for the projection of human meaning" ([14], p. 203).

#### **4. Rescuing Bulgakov's Mongrel from Under the Critic's Scalpel**

Mikhail Bulgakov's *Heart of a Dog* (*Sobach*'*e Serdtse*, 1925) is the story of a radical transplant, Professor Preobrazhensky's unprecedented rejuvenation experiment which transforms a sympathetic mongrel into a despicable "new Soviet man," who drinks, spits, curses, and plays the balalaika. This "wonderfully angry novel," in the words of Andrey Kurkov, makes us wonder about the relationship between Bulgakov and Stalin ([23], p. ix). Employing "comic absurdity" to allegorize the Bolshevik Revolution, the story's "fantastic realism" gave it appeal as political satire while also allowing Bulgakov to avoid prosecution, though not censorship, by the ruling Proletariat it criticized. Although initially accepted for publication, the manuscript was confiscated in 1926 and published in Germany only in 1968; in the Soviet Union, it did not appear in print until 1987 ([24], p. 491, note 1).

Since the novel's publication, Bulgakov's dog has received wide critical attention, linking the Professor's scalpel with larger social transformation movements of the 1920s, and rejuvenation with revolution. Brett A. Berliner, whose essay catalogs relevant literature on rejuvenation, claims the surgery is "a symbolic means to address the central issue in the Soviet Union: the wholesale transformation of society and people," about which Bulgakov "was distinctly pessimistic" ([4], p. 109). According to Michael Glenny, "The 'dog' of the story is the Russian people, brutalized and exploited for centuries—treated, in fact, like animals instead of human beings," and the message is that "the Russian intelligentsia, which made the Revolution, is henceforth doomed to live with—and eventually to be ruled by—the crude, unstable and potentially brutal race of hominids—*homo sovieticus*—which it has called into being" ([23], pp. xiii–xiv). In her 1984 biography of Bulgakov, Ellendea Proffer similarly sees the story as an allegory of the revolutionary transformation of society and a cautionary tale about

science meddling with nature ([5], pp. 123–33).<sup>4</sup> LeBlanc analyzes the use of food imagery and eating metaphors in Bulgakov's satire to make a larger claim about the author's political project: "What the people of Russia need is a moral, spiritual, and cultural leadership that, in addition to providing them literally with their daily bread, is capable of feeding them spiritual food as well, thus nurturing and preserving within them lasting cultural values" ([25], p. 67). The value of political readings cannot be overstated, nor can that of animal focalizers who serve as powerful spokespersons for otherwise unpublishable critique. Yet, such readings tend to be concerned less with the wellbeing of the individual mongrel than with that of the suffering, disenfranchised "people of Russia" whom he comes to represent.

Some have criticized political interpretations for being reductive and turning multifaceted characters into allegorical symbols. The Professor, Diana L. Burgin maintains, is one such "complex literary character—a potentially tragic hero ... who serves as an autobiographical spokesman for [Bulgakov's] political and social satire and as a tragic, Romantic hero in the Frankenstein tradition" ([26], p. 494). The subtitle, not included in Glenny's translation, is "A Monstrous Story" (*Chudovishchnaia istoriia*), which clearly alludes to *Frankenstein*, as does the Professor's surname, Preobrazhensky, which connotes transformative, mystical power. Others have offered valuable analyses of Bulgakov's use of language. Building on Katerina Clark's "promethean linguistics," Eric Laursen reads *The Heart of a Dog* in the context of the 1920s belief in the power of language as "the ultimate vehicle for the kind of transformation sought by revolution"; as such, the novel represents the post-revolutionary "struggle for cultured speech" through pure, "civilizing" language, "an integral component of Bolshevik campaigns to promote 'culturedness' in 1923–1924" ([24], pp. 492–93). Susanne Fusso similarly homes in on Bulgakov's "skeptic[ism] about the possibility of instant, irreversible metamorphosis through the magical power of language" and argues that in the novel's materialistic universe, "verbal transformations remain figures of speech and physical transformations are difficult, slow, and incomplete" ([7], pp. 387, 393). Interestingly, Sharik's transformation into a "new Soviet man" evokes a series of Russian figurative expressions involving the word dog (*sobaka*), such as "a dog's happiness" (*sobach*'*e schast*'*e*, the original title of the work), "a dog's life" (*sobach*'*ia zhizn*'), and an idiom attested by Vladimir Dal', the great Russian lexicographer: "Don't beat the dog, for even she used to be human, having been transformed into a dog due to gluttony" (*Ne bei sobaki, i ona byla chelovekom, obrashchena v psa za prozhorlivost*') ([7], p. 391, my translation). The preponderance of canine figures, not to mention the Aesopian idiom which straddles the human/animal divide, sheds light onto why Bulgakov may have chosen a dog as his narrator as well as the subject of the experiment. Even in these alternative approaches, however, stressing that Sharik is more human than the human Comrade Sharikov whose organs he inherits, the focus is on humanity at the expense of the animal.

"Imagine your dog walking by the mirror in the hallway and screeching to a halt the way we do when something unusual catches our eye," primatologist Frans de Waal muses in *The Inner Ape*. "We would be shocked! The dog cocks his head and checks out his image in the mirror, shaking his head to unfold a folded ear or removing a twig stuck in his fur. Dogs never do this, but it's exactly the sort of attention apes pay to themselves" ([27], p. 184). Waal's point here is to dispel myths about apes and bridge the divide between humans and other primates; it is not (expressly) to dismiss dogs' reflections or, for that matter, their power to reflect. Curiously, we find the mongrel in Bulgakov's short novel doing just that, reflecting on his dogness while checking out his reflection in the mirror:

I am handsome. Perhaps I'm really a dog prince, living incognito, mused the dog as he watched the shaggy, coffee-coloured dog with the smug expression strolling about in the

<sup>4</sup> It is worth noting that Bulgakov was trained as a doctor and had practiced medicine before turning to literature. While from his portrayal of Sharik, the pet, we might infer the novelist's benevolent and empathetic attitude, in the chapter describing the operation, informed no doubt by his own practical experience, Bulgakov, in Susanne Fusso's words, "spares no detail of spurting blood or oozing tissue" as he "emphasizes the intense physicality of surgery" ([7], p. 391). The latter, arguably, tells us more about his attitude toward the brutality of science—and the Bolshevik revolution—than toward animals.

mirrored distance. I wouldn't be surprised if my grandmother didn't have an affair with a labrador. Now that I look at my muzzle, I see there's a white patch on it. I wonder how it got there. Philip Philipovich is a man of great taste—he wouldn't just pick up any stray mongrel ([23], p. 41).

The dog's sophisticated narration, one of the novel's satirical (and absurd?) elements, places him in the company of other "talking dogs" in Ziolkowski's famous "literary cynology," alongside Miguel de Cervantes' "The Colloquy of the Dogs" and Nikolai Gogol's "The Diary of a Madman" ([2], pp. 95, 115). But is Waal right, is this not "the sort of attention" dogs pay to themselves but, rather, behavior more suitable to Sharik's primate counterpart?

Helena Goscilo argues that the first-person dog narration is used to produce a comic effect, make the reader like the dog, and elevate Preobrazhensky ([28], p. 286). Yvonne Howell, who reads *The Heart of a Dog* in the context of the Russian eugenics movement, suggests that comic absurdity is created by mixing nonhuman narration with human knowledge: "When Bulgakov adopts the dog's perspective for extended passages of the narration, he does not limit himself to what the dog might know. Instead, for comic effect, he endows his canine character with rather sophisticated medical knowledge ... , sharp class consciousness ... , and surprising worldliness" ([29], p. 551). Another critic charges that the dog's "seemingly first-person narrative" is, in fact, "contaminated by the voice of an omniscient third-person narrator" ([7], p. 389). Although embedded in Glenny's English translation without any distinguishing punctuation, this mirror passage is enclosed in quotation marks in the original Russian, thereby marking off the dog's interiority ([23], p. 539). Glenny's choice to omit quotations, on the other hand, effectively extends the canine perspective beyond that which Sharik narrates and into the surrounding third-person omniscient narration, as in the description of the radiator preceding this passage, which is given from the dog's perspective (the dog's eyes being level with the radiator), even if the dog is not the homodiegetic focalizer: "Clearly the country was not yet in a total state of ruin. In spite of it the great accordion-shaped radiators under the windows filled with heat twice a day and warmth flowed in waves through the whole apartment. The dog had obviously drawn the winning ticket in the dogs' lottery" ([23], p. 41). It is this contamination of narrative discourse that leads Fusso to conclude that Bulgakov's is "a kind of ventriloquism" and "a dog-like narration," rather than "a dog's narration":

Even S[h]arik's first-person narration, however, is invaded by bits of information that could be known only to the omniscient narrator, thus disturbing the illusion that the dog is speaking. S[h]arik lets fall certain facts that he could not possibly know at this point ... The inevitable conclusion is that the opening narration is actually in one voice, but a voice that shifts between an objective presentation and an imitation of a dog's-eye view—a kind of ventriloquism. Bulgakov lays bare the convention of representing a character's inner life. The narrator indeed transforms himself into a dog, but it is an imperfect transformation. Gaps and incongruities are left in order to signal that this transformation too remains on the level of figurative language. This is not a dog's narration but a dog-like narration ([7], pp. 389–90).

Another example of this mixed or "contaminated" voice is found just as the dog crosses the threshold into Preobrazhensky's apartment, which serves also as the Professor's clinic and operating room. This threshold is marked by a plaque that bears the Professor's title, including the letter Φ the street-smart Russian dog, who taught himself to read, cannot decipher, as this letter is used predominantly in non-Slavic words: "P-R-O- 'Pro ... ', but after that there was a funny tall thing with a cross bar which he did not know. Surely he's not a proletarian? Thought Sharik with amazement ... He can't be. He lifted up his nose, sniffed the fur coat, and said firmly to himself: No, this doesn't smell proletarian" ([23], p. 13). The question is set off by quotation marks in the original Russian, which, again, emphasizes the dog's direct speech, yet in both cases the point of view is clearly canine even though it is not focalized through the first person ([30], p. 524). This point of

view is, at the same time, "contaminated" insofar as Sharik is able to demonstrate a more-than-canine awareness of class difference between *pro*fessors and *pro*letarians, despite their similarly sounding names; through his physiological transformation, as Sharikov, he also loses his alleged ties to aristocracy (the aforementioned labrador romance) and joins the very class he despises. Along with class consciousness, Laursen notes that the dog's control over the written word and his ability to analyze the world are strong outside the Professor's apartment, but get leashed as soon as he is collared: inside the apartment, the dog's "control of narration is completely relinquished. He is not only given the new name Sharik but is also permanently renamed at the narrative level, as the 'I' becomes a 'he'" ([24], p. 497). "With his collar, the dog gains status but forfeits a true understanding of the world around him ... He is sedated, his point of view vanishes, and we learn that the dog has been chosen not as a noble pet but as a disposable scientific subject" ([24], p. 498).

The kind of empathic ventriloquism that is more valuable to animal-standpoint criticism is to be found, therefore, not in the "contaminated" or "dog-like narration," and not even in the sophisticated "I" narrative, but in the opening line of the text: the onomatopoeia which approximates sounds actually made by a dog: "Ooow-ow-ooow-owow!"— "U-u-u-u-u-u-gu-gu-gugu-uu!" in the original ([23], p. 3; [30], p. 519). This is followed by a verbal expression of pain:

Oh, look at me, I'm dying. There's a snowstorm moaning a requiem for me in this doorway and I'm howling with it. I'm finished. Some bastard in a dirty white cap—the cook in the office canteen at the National Economic Council—spilled some boiling water and scalded my left side. Filthy swine—and a proletarian, too. Christ, it hurts! That boiling water scalded me right through to the bone. I can howl and howl, but what's the use? ([23], p. 3).

Shorter instances of onomatopoeia meant to phonetically imitate howling—technically also an onomatopoeic word (the verb is *vyt*' in Russian, and the noun form, *voi*)—can be found in the subsequent narration, as well, often preceded or followed by ellipses in both the original and the translation: " ... Oow-owowow ... "; " ... grrr ... bow-wow ... "; "Oowow, owow ... " ([23], pp. 3, 7; [30], pp. 519, 521). Arguably, these strings of syllables which resemble dog noises get us closer to Sharik's interiority than the accompanying sophisticated homodiegetic focalization. Whether dogs, or animals in general, know death is debatable, though the ethical treatment of animals evolves precisely from our shared mortality as well as bodily vulnerability, a view supported by Weil, Jacques Derrida, Donna Haraway, and Cora Diamond [31]. That animals feel pain is harder to deny, which takes us back to the 'unrepresentability' of trauma.

Animal sounds are among the most familiar onomatopoeic words.5 Of all the diverse sounds made by dogs, it is barking that "come[s] closest to speech sounds," as it is produced analogously "by vibrations in the vocal folds and air flowing along folds and through the mouth cavity." This structural similarity may be responsible for the multiple onomatopoeic renditions of dog barking using (human) phonemes: woofs, rufs, arfs, and bow-wows ([33], pp. 105–6). Recent research into dog barking has helped scientists distinguish between different barks, with lower sounds communicating a threat and higher-frequency sounds—an entreaty, request, or submissive gesture ([33], pp. 107–8). Added to this is the dog's body language (rumps, heads, ears, legs, and tails), which is equally communicative, including, for example, urination used for marking ([33], pp. 112, 116). There seems to be little consensus in discussions of onomatopoeia on what to call the second term in the relation between the sound of a word and what it signifies, these being "variously referred to as sounds, sense, referent, and what is denoted"; the function of the first term, too, is variously described as "imitates, echoes, reflects, resembles, corresponds to, sounds like, expresses, reinforces, and has a natural or direct relation with" ([34], p. 555). In such definitions, the etymological meaning of the term, from the Greek νoμα for "name" and πoιȑω for "I make," seems to be lost to a more imitative sense,

<sup>5</sup> For more on the onomatopoeic origins of language, such as Max Müller's now discredited "bow-wow" theory which traces the origins of language to the imitation of natural sounds, see ([32], p. 117).

contrary to what we find, for instance, in Quintilian's *Institutio Oratoria*, "namely, the creation of a word *ex novo*" ([34], p. 556). When rendering animal noises, both meanings of onomatopoeia appear to be correct, for we are creating new or rearranging existent phonemes to resemble and sound like the animal, though whether, how, and to what exactly these correspond may never be ascertained. Still, as with ellipses in Tolstoy's *Strider*, the phonetic echoes and fragmentary verbalizations, not the humanizing social critique of the National Economic Council, bring us closer to the experience of animal pain qua animal.

One might argue that relegating animal "speech" to onomatopoeia is an essentially logocentric move, one which privileges human-centric semiotics and reinforces the hierarchy between human language and animal vocalization. Yet, it is also a reasonably anthropomorphic gesture that recognizes the capacity of nonhuman animals to communicate while respecting their difference. In his discussion of the use of onomatopoeia in Lucretius' *De rerum natura*, Benjamin E. Stevens notes that "[a]nimal vocalizations are indeed not words because animals are physiologically inarticulate, but also ... because, semiotically, animals cannot denote or name"; in other words, animals have neither the proper physiological equipment to form words, nor the semiotic ability to use symbols, necessary for voluntary signification using arbitrary signs ([35], p. 544, note 40). Whereas animal vocalizations of emotions, "in direct response to an immediate stimulus," are "indexical and symptomatic" (based on contiguity and proximity), human responses are intentional, symbolic, capable of denoting things. Despite these differences, "the two kinds of signification ... are nonetheless equally 'natural,' in an Epicurean sense, to the inherent semiotic abilities of their respective groups: humans signify symbolically, animals only indexically or symptomatically" ([35], p. 530). Haraway has convincingly argued that the traditional line between human and nonhuman worlds has now been "thoroughly breached" given our discovery of similarities in "language, tool use, social behaviour, [and] mental events" ([36], pp. 151–52). To acknowledge that both have semiotic abilities, but that these abilities are different, is a way to bring animal difference into semiotics. Sharik's onomatopoeia can be considered seriously, as an expression of a painful emotion, even if automatic and immediate. To judge the talking dog on its human speech, on the contrary, is to erase this animal difference. The technique of empathic ventriloquism (etymologically, from the Latin 'venter', belly and 'loqui', speak) seems at its best, then, when the narrator does not speak but bow-wows, releases the animal sounds straight from his belly, his physical being. If animal focalization is inauthentic, and animal trauma ultimately unnarratable, onomatopoeia is, perhaps, the next best thing.

#### **5. Conclusions: Teaching Animals, a Pedagogical Imperative**

In her book on decoding animal behavior, Temple Grandin relates a famous story told by New Zealand animal psychologist and ethologist Ron Kilgour about transporting a pet lion on an airplane. "Someone thought the lion might like to have a pillow for the trip, the same way people do, so they gave him one, and the lion ate it and died. The point was: don't be anthropomorphic. It's dangerous to the animal. But when I read this story," Grandin writes, "I said to myself, 'Well, no, he doesn't want a pillow, he wants something soft of lie on, like leaves and grass.' I wasn't looking at the lion as a person, but as a lion" ([19], p. 15). Animal narration in *Strider* and *The Heart of a Dog* is not anthropocentric in any objectionable way, but their empathic ventriloquism is anthropomorphic because these authors' human worldviews inadvertently condition their understanding and representation of the animal's *Umwelt* (the sensory world as it is experienced by a particular animal, as ethologist Jakob von Uexküll has called it) ([3], p. 8; [17], p. 25; [37], p. 7).

Even if Tolstoy's and Bulgakov's animal narrators are empirically unprovable feats of ventriloquism, and animal consciousness is inaccessible given the limitations of human language and imagination, we should not take that as an excuse not to care. In a recent book provocatively titled *Being a Beast*, Charles Foster writes: "The universe I occupy is a creature of my head ... But we need to keep trying. If we give up with humans, we're wretched misanthropes. If we give up with the natural world we're wretched bypass builders or badger baiters or self-referential urbanites" ([38], pp. 14–15).

After recounting his attempts to see and feel like an animal, Foster adds, "our [human] capacity for vicariousness is infinite. Empathize enough with a swift and you'll either become one or (which may be the same thing) you'll be able to rejoice so much with the screeching race around the church tower that you won't mind not being one yourself" ([38], p. 216). Similarly, when talking about dogs, Alexandra Horowitz suggests that it is not enough for humans to imagine or think about being "excellent smellers," smell being a canine specialty; this exercise must be "paired with an understanding of how profound the difference in umwelt is between us and another animal." We can achieve this "by 'acting into' the umwelt of another animal, trying to embody the animal—mindful of the constraints our sensory system places on our ability to truly do so" ([33], p. 23). Whether Tolstoy really was a horse in a former life, he and Bulgakov bring their readers one step closer to the animal's 'unrepresentable' *Umwelt*.

By way of conclusion, I urge that we include animals, such as Tolstoy's Strider and Bulgakov's Sharik, in university curricula in order to raise questions of inequality and social justice associated with animal welfare and also to help students develop empathy for animals, both human and nonhuman. The "animal question," as Weil has argued, is, after all, "an extension of those debates over identity and difference that have embroiled academic theory over the past quarter century," and by attempting to bring into theory nonhuman animals, whose voices cannot be (readily) integrated and who cannot—without much more theoretical work and a fundamental reconfiguration of poststructuralism's insistence on language—be transformed from objects into subjects, we can see that they are, in fact, "a limit case for theories of difference, otherness, and power" ([3], p. 3). "Like trauma studies," Weil explains, "animal studies thus stretches to the limit questions of language, of epistemology, and of ethics that have been raised in various ways by women's studies or postcolonial studies: how to understand and give voice to others or to experiences that seem impervious to our means of understanding; how to attend to difference without appropriating or distorting it; how to hear and acknowledge what it may not be possible to say" ([3], p. 4). When questioned as to the whereabouts of Comrade Sharikov, and facing accusations of murdering Sharik's human incarnation, the Professor broaches the difficult ontological distinction which drives the novel's plot: "'Because he talked?' asked Philip Philipovich. 'That doesn't mean he was a man'" ([23], p. 125). Ironically, it is precisely through speech, his effective use of homodiegetic focalization, that Bulgakov's dog is humanized, though the canine perspective is simulated better through onomatopoeic animal vocalization than sophisticated human language. The ellipsis that marks Strider's transition from a stallion to a gelding serves a similar function: it gives a voice to that which is 'unrepresentable.'

At the end of the day, "The question is not, Can [a full-grown horse and dog] *reason*? nor Can they *talk*? but, Can they *suffer*?" as Jeremy Bentham reminds us in the passage which opens with a hope that has yet to be realized: "The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny" ([1], pp. 7, 203–4). It is their status as the ultimate other that makes teaching animals a pedagogical imperative, one meant to challenge readers to exercise their analytical skills more rigorously than when deciphering the motives of human characters which may be only partially elucidated in literary fiction, the reading of which has recently been linked with developing empathy [39]. This is also what Elizabeth Costello, the titular character of J. M. Coetzee's 2003 novel, calls "sympathy," our ability to "think ourselves into the being of another," a faculty that is mastered by novelists, who have to think themselves into the existence of fictional characters, but can be practiced by anyone and extended to "any being with whom [we] share the substrate of life" ([40], p. 80). Teaching animals can invite literary scholars and students to interrogate the human/nonhuman boundary and to recognize the animal traits in themselves as well as the human traits in the animals they read (about), so as to reconsider what may already be deeply entrenched but not ineradicable notions of human exceptionalism. My overall goal, as is Donovan's ([14], p. 214), is to encourage scholars to reconceive the status of animals in literature so as to change their ontological place in the world. This can be done by recalibrating ethical decision-making to treat animals not as Immanuel Kant suggested in his *Lecture on Ethics* (1779),

"merely as means to an end" ([41], p. 56), and not as "helpers" or "property of man," views as old as *Genesis* which are frequently claimed as "natural rights" but are, in Singer's words, "ideological camouflages for [our] self-serving practices" ([1], p. 186)—but as sentient beings worthy of love, respect, and equal protection before the law.

**Acknowledgments:** I wish to thank Joela Jacobs, the Guest Editor of this special issue of Humanities, for her encouragement and the journal's editorial staff for their assistance. I wish also to thank Peter Singer, Kari Weil, and Josephine Donovan whose work on animals continues to inspire my research and teaching.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflicts of interest.

#### **References**


© 2016 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

## *Article* **Unreliability and the Animal Narrator in Richard Adams's** *The Plague Dogs*

#### **Anja Höing**

Institute of English and American Studies, University of Osnabrück, 49074 Osnabrück, Germany; ahoeing@uos.de

Academic Editor: Joela Jacobs Received: 20 December 2016; Accepted: 6 March 2017; Published: 8 March 2017

**Abstract:** Richard Adams's talking animal story *The Plague Dogs* (1978), with its deeply genre-atypical mode of narration, offers a multiplicity of avenues to explore the literary animal as animal. The story draws much of its power from the psychological complexity and related unreliability of both canine narrators, two research lab escapees gone feral. Both the terrier Snitter and the black mongrel Rowf are mentally ill and experience a highly subjective, part-fantastic world. In episodes of zero focalization, a sarcastic voice comments on the plot from the off, aggressively attacking a thoroughly anthropocentric superstructure the protagonists themselves are oblivious of, and presenting all that is normally constructed as "rational" in the implied reader's world as a carnivalesque farce. Combining these equally unreliable narratives, *The Plague Dogs* creates a unique mixture of what Phelan (2007) calls "estranging" and "bonding" unreliability and brings to light the devastating consequences of anthropocentrism. *The Plague Dogs* not only defamiliarizes a genre usually committed to conventional means of storytelling, but the dominant Western conception of the status of animals in the world, showing that once we start to read the animal as animal, this sets into motion an avalanche of other concepts in need of re-reading, among them the very ones making up the fundamental pillars of Western societies' anthropocentric self-conception.

**Keywords:** *The Plague Dogs*; Richard Adams; narratology; anthropocentrism; unreliability; talking animal stories; discourse analysis; non-human focalizer; *Pincher Martin*

#### **1. Introduction**

In 1972, British author Richard Adams made top of the bestseller lists with his talking animal story *Watership Down* (1972), a light-hearted rabbit Odyssey that has since become a classic. His second talking animal story, *The Plague Dogs* (1978) [1], in contrast, attracted little public notice and even less scholarly attention1—despite the fact that Adams himself considers it his best novel [6]. This lack of interest might be due to the novel's far-reaching aspirations and weighty ideological agenda:

<sup>1</sup> As yet, there are hardly any academic studies specifically dealing with Adams's dog novel. To my knowledge, David Collado Rodriguez's review "Beyond Satire: Richard Adams's *The Plague Dogs*" (1988) provides the only existing overview of all major topics and motifs of the story. *The Plague Dogs* also finds mention in articles primarily dealing with resistance to animal experimentation, especially ones published shortly after Adams's book. In a briefing on the topic "A New Militancy in England," for example, Nicholas Wade lists *The Plague Dogs* as a major example of support to the animal rights movement by "public figures" ([2], p. 279), while a brief in *The Hastings Center Report* remarks on the way novels such as *The Plague Dogs* alienate proponents of animal research ([3], p. 3). *The Plague Dogs* also tends to be mentioned in passing in works on animals in literature, such as Theodore Ziolkowski's *Varieties of Literary Problematics* ([4], p. 95), or in works on fantasy, e.g., in Colin Manlove's *The Fantasy Literature of England* ([5], p. 61). Manlove, however, discusses *The Plague Dogs* under the premise that "two [bubonic plague] infected dogs escape a research station and become a danger to human society" ([5], p. 61), while, in fact, the entire point of Adams's tale is that the dogs are not infected at all, cannot be infected, because the lab was properly secured and additionally instinct warned them to keep off ([1], p. 30). Human society and its media hysteria becomes a danger to the dogs, not the other way round.

*The Plague Dogs* is a stylistically complex and deeply disturbing story addressing animal rights and animal subjectivity—an openly political text that, unlike most other talking animal stories, does not invite the reader into a suspenseful yet beautiful secondary world of talking animals, but lays open the injustices and cruelties animals have to face in a thoroughly anthropocentric world.

The main plotline of *The Plague Dogs* can be told in a few words. Two dogs, the terrier Snitter and the black mongrel Rowf, escape an animal research lab and aimlessly wander the inhospitable wilderness of the English Lake District national park. A media hype blossoms around a newspaper's fabricated allegation that the research station escapees are infected with bubonic plague. This triggers a snowball effect of scientists fighting to shift the blame, politicians struggling to keep face, and newspapers trying to raise circulation by further blowing up the story, which finally ends in a witch hunt for the innocent dogs. At the very second of their imminent deaths, however, the two dogs are miraculously saved by caring humans.

The story makes use of complex symbolism, combining elements from Carl Gustav Jung's archetypes of the collective unconscious [7] and Joseph Campbell's stages of a hero's quest as proposed in *The Hero with a Thousand Faces* [8]. In addition to this, much of the complexity and intensity of *The Plague Dogs* derives from the novel's unusual narrative mode. *The Plague Dogs* is, in Theodore Ziolkowski's words, a "cynomorphic" ([4], p. 95) novel, as in parts it is narrated "from the dog's point of view" ([4], p. 95). The story is told from a multiplicity of perspectives, most notably Snitter's, but also Rowf's, the scientists', the newspaper journalist's, etc. Yet every single one in this cacophony of focalizers is unreliable—the unreliability even extends to the voice of the heterodiegetic narrator, who keeps together all strands of narration. As a result, *The Plague Dogs* creates a unique mixture of what James Phelan (2007) calls "estranging" ([9], p. 223) and "bonding" ([9], p. 223) unreliability. This article aims to show how the unreliable narration of *The Plague Dogs* defamiliarizes a writing tradition usually committed to conventional means of storytelling, and in doing so calls into question the dominant Western conception of the status of animals in the world. Once we start to read the animal protagonist as animal, as *The Plague Dogs* forces its readers to do, this sets into motion an avalanche of other concepts in need of re-reading, among them the very ones that justify Western societies' anthropocentric self-conception and the according subjugation and exploitation of other species.

#### **2. Adapting a Non-Human Perspective toward Unreliability**

As yet, unreliability was hardly, if ever, discussed with respect to animal stories, yet it is an immensely useful tool to deconstruct stereotypical portrayals of literary animals and to force the reader to take animal narrators seriously. Originally proposed by Wayne C. Booth in his 1961 publication *The Rhetoric of Fiction* as a form of narration in which the narrator's "judgement is suspect" ([10], p. 174), unreliability was approached by a number of scholars who brought different conceptual backgrounds and perspectives to the discussion. This is no place to rehearse this complex theoretical discussion: for an up-to-date summary of the different positions and their contestants the reader may refer to Shen (2014) [11]. I will only briefly sketch the theoretical dimensions of unreliability that are most central to my line of argument.

Unreliability can roughly be defined as a feature of narratorial discourse in which the narrator "offers an account of some event, person, thought, thing, or other object in the narrative world that deviates from the account the implied author would offer" ([12], p. 49). Phelan (2005) identifies six kinds of unreliability: "misreporting, misreading, misevaluating—or what I will call misregarding—and underreporting, underreading, and underregarding" ([12], p. 51). As Shen points out, unreliability can occur either as a "clash between story and discourse" ([11], p. 898)—if the narrator misreports story elements—or as a clash "between the narrator's explicit discourse and the author's implicit discourse" ([11], p. 898)—if the narrator misreads, i.e., misinterprets, or misregards story elements. Phelan introduces a typology to analyze narratorial unreliability with a focus on its effect on the implied reader or "authorial audience" ([9], p. 223). Starting from the observation that different types of unreliable narration have distinctly different effects on the implied reader, Phelan differentiates unreliability

into two groups. Unreliable narration can either "[underline] or [increase] the distance between the narrator and the authorial audience" ([9], p. 223), or, to the contrary, "[reduce] the distance between the narrator and the authorial audience" ([9], pp. 223–24). Phelan calls the former type of unreliability "estranging unreliability" ([9], p. 223), and the latter one "bonding unreliability" ([9], p. 223). Focussing on the latter, Phelan uses an exemplary discussion of Vladimir Nabokov's *Lolita* to identify and discuss six subtypes of bonding unreliability: (1) "literally unreliable but metaphorically reliable" ([9], p. 226); (2) "playful comparison between implied author and narrator" ([9], p. 228); (3) "naive defamiliarization" ([9], p. 229); (4) "sincere but misguided self-deprecation" ([9], p. 229); (5) "partial progress toward the norm" ([9], p. 231); and (6) "bonding through optimistic comparison" ([9], p. 232).

Unfortunately, unreliable narration has as yet predominantly been discussed in context with what Phelan calls "character narration" ([12], p. 1), i.e., the narration of what Gérard Genette calls a "homodiegeti[c]" ([13], p. 159) narrator, i.e., a narrator who is part of the world of the story's protagonists ([13], p. 159). *The Plague Dogs*, however, is a story predominantly told by a narrator that Genette would describe as "heterodiegeti[c]" ([13], p. 159), one that is hovering outside the protagonists' world ([13], p. 159). What is more, to unravel unreliability in *The Plague Dogs* one needs to look beyond the unreliability of the primary narrator to the unreliability of the focalizers and the canine protagonists who tell stories-inside-the-story. This creates a multi-layered net of unreliabilites that build and depend upon one another, while simultaneously being contradictive to the point of undermining even another narrative strand's allegedly reliable elements. I will move through this net in a rough bottom-up approach, starting at the dogs' unreliable perception of the world, before scrutinizing the heterodiegetic narrator. Finally, I will turn my attention to the controversial ending of *The Plague Dogs*, which leaves the reader a stranded victim of competing unreliabilities.

The story draws much of its power from the psychological complexity of the canine main protagonists and central focalizers, two research lab escapees gone feral. In consequence of the exceedingly cruel and completely pointless experiments conducted on them in the lab, both Snitter and Rowf are mentally ill and deeply traumatized.2 Snitter has undergone brain surgery that aimed at "bring[ing] about a confusion of the subjective and objective in the animal's mind" ([1], p. 227), and can no longer clearly distinguish between outside phenomena and his imagination. Rowf was subjected to survival conditioning experiments and repeatedly immersed into a tank of water until near-drowning, in order to, in the language of the scientists, identify "a point where the additional endurance induced by the dog's expectation of removal [from the tank] is counterbalanced by the limits of its physical capacity" ([1], p. 4). He shows typical symptoms of what in human psychology would be referred to as a post-traumatic stress disorder, is distrustful, unpredictably aggressive, and—for obvious reasons—mortally afraid of water. But not only their psychological disorders make the characters experience the world in a different way than the implied reader would—their animality does, too. Unlike the protagonists of many other talking animal stories, the animal heroes of *The Plague Dogs* are not metaphorical placeholders substituted for a human experience, although it is of course possible to read them in this way too, e.g., when endorsing the story's Jungian discourse.3 Yet, for the reading of the story I propose in this article, it is central to read the canine protagonists as, indeed, dogs, and as such as distinctively non-human focalizers. Snitter, for example, experiences "something out of the ordinary" as "some small alteration to the familiar as slight but disturbing as the discovery

<sup>2</sup> This article cannot and will not contribute to the general debate on animal consciousness and the complex and ongoing discussion in how far other species are able to experience mental as well as physical suffering, and develop psychological trauma. Nonetheless I use (human) psychological vocabulary for a reason here. The implied author of *The Plague Dogs* clearly indicates that, in his eyes, dogs are conscious beings who are capable of suffering mental disorders just as humans do, and he creates his canine characters accordingly. Just as he renders the dogs' communication as direct speech in a human language, he translates their mental sufferings into dimensions the human reader can relate to, i.e., into human psychological disorders.

<sup>3</sup> See for example, Collado Rodriguez's discussion of the psychological dimension of *The Plague Dogs* ([14], p. 53).

of a stranger's urine against one's own garden fence" ([1], p. 21), and his world—as is typical for canines ([15], p. 80)—is primarily an olfactory and auditory, not a visual one.

The two dogs, baffled by human technologies and biased by an inherited sense of inferiority ([16], p. 70), frequently misinterpret and misregard natural phenomena or human behaviour. Snitter, chasing sheep, interprets an infuriated shepherd as "apparently yelling encouragement" ([1], p. 65), and his action as an act of "help" ([1], p. 96) that the human, for reasons the terrier cannot fathom, emphatically rejects. In this example, one can see that Phelan's terminology might be in need of adjustment when applied to animal focalizers. In the character-character-interaction between Snitter and the shepherd, Snitter's misinterpretation is not so much a consequence of narratorial unreliability as of narratorial otherness. His narration is based on a canine, not a human norm—and, with regard to the canine norm, he might not be misinterpreting the situation at all. Here, a species-related difference in stimulus interpretation creates a narratorial gap that in turn causes the (human) reader to classify Snitter's account as unreliable.

At another point Snitter, now as intradiegetic narrator of a story-inside-the-story, nostalgically reminiscences about his past blissful time as a bachelor's pet:

A long time ago, when there were towns—when there was a real world—I used to live with my master in his house. . . . in the morning a boy used to come and stuff a lot of folded paper through a hole in the middle of the street-door downstairs. ...I used to go down and pick the paper up in my mouth and carry it upstairs and wake my master. . . . and then we always played a kind of game with this wodge of paper. He used to open it up very wide. . . and spread it out in front of him while he sat up in bed, and I used to creep up the bed and poke my nose underneath. Then he used to pretend to be cross and pat it and I used to take it away and wait a bit and then poke it under somewhere else. I know it sounds silly, but I always thought how nice it was of him to get that boy to bring a fresh lot of paper every day, just so that we could play this game. ([1], pp. 177–78)

At a first glance, Snitter's autodiegetic account looks like the form of unreliable narration most characteristic to talking animal stories, an exclusively bonding form of "naive defamiliarization" ([9], p. 229), endearing the innocently mistaken dog to the implied reader. Yet there is also a much darker note to this story-inside-the-story. The beginning of Snitter's narrative, a common variation of "once upon a time," clearly denotes his story as a fairy tale, and thus calls into question the authenticity of all that comes after. The canine narrator does not only displace the idea of an intact inter-species friendship into the past, but into myth, into an idealized world that has dissolved into nothingness at the moment scientific rationalism severed the animal-human bond.

What remains for Snitter and Rowf is a belief in human omnipotence coupled with deep feelings of canine inferiority. They believe that humans terra-form the landscape ([1], p. 47), control the weather ([1], p. 312), put the sun in the sky and lightened it like a light bulb ([1], p. 48), and regularly mine the moon to turn its brightness into car headlights ([1], p. 257). Again, the dogs' naive defamiliarization is a bonding form of unreliability. More so, their observations are also metaphorically reliable. "[Humans] run the world for themselves" ([1], p. 284), Rowf concludes bleakly, "they don't care what they do to us; they just make use of us for their own convenience" ([1], p. 257). And, being omnipotent, they "could alter this [world] if they wanted" ([1], p. 257), yet they do not bother to. Although not as powerful as the dogs hold humans to be, there is certainly more than a grain of truth to Rowf's final conclusion. Animals, in turn, are there "to have things done to them by men" ([1], p. 47), in Rowf's assessment. Accordingly, he considers his escape from the lab as mutiny from his duty ([1], p. 97; see also [16], p. 71). Tellingly, Rowf even sees his canine god as inferior to mortal humans. In another story-inside-the-story, Rowf tells the legend of the canine deity, the "Star Dog" ([1], p. 136). The deity may have created the world, but he can neither boast the humans' fingers and opposable thumbs ([1], p. 137) nor is his simple and trusting canine mind a match for his two-legged creations' blatant arrogance and disobedience ([1], p. 140). Instead of a typical talking animal world with a happy ending guaranteed—the world of Snitter's innocent newspaper fairy

tale—Rowf-as-narrator sketches a bleak world in which animals do not stand a chance against human preeminence. Rowf's Star Dog, in fact, inadvertently created not a fantastic, but a realistic space.

In both Snitter's newspaper story and Rowf's Star Dog story, the unreliability of the canine narrators is unambiguously of the bonding type. "The story-teller wishes us to identify with Snitter and Rowf and their sufferings" ([14], p. 51), as Collado Rodriguez remarks, and accordingly "uses a device which had already proved very successful in *Watership Down*: the narrator shows the external world from a dog's point of view" ([14], p. 51). This device is far from being unique to Adams's writings. Instead, one can claim similar instances of bonding unreliability to be a stock element of talking animal stories. *The Plague Dogs*, however, goes far beyond this type of narratorial unreliability. Typical talking animal story narration interplays with both the madness of the central focalizer Snitter and the erratic behaviour of the heterodiegetic narrator.

#### **3. Narrating without a Safety Net: A Canine Pincher Martin**

Most often, the narrator guides the reader's perception through the eyes of the terrier Snitter. Snitter is incapable of coping with the guilt of having caused the death of his master, and, additionally, has undergone experimental brain surgery that causes him to blur sensual perception with images conjured by his mind's eye. As an effect, his perception continually jumps between flashbacks of past—or imagined?—happiness, a nightmarish reality, and a surreal world constructed by his own imagination. Snitter has vivid hallucinations of his former master, who appears to him in reflections, or in dreams ([1], pp. 81, 165, 295, 356). Although Snitter is aware that these appearances are illusions, he cannot help but run after the familiar figure, hoping against hope that his master might really have miraculously reappeared.

Snitter starts to unconsciously reflect on these hallucinations in an encounter with a mysterious ghost dog. Awakened by a dog's bark and heading out into the night to search for its source, Snitter finds a "terrier bitch. . . whose appearance recalled others from the days of his old life with his master" ([1], p. 288). She turns out to be watching over the long-decayed corpse of her master, oblivious of his death. Although he is sure that she is another individual, he also immediately grasps her metaphorical dimension. In a Snitter-typical fit of madness he imagines a conversation with Rowf:

"Hullo, Snitter, are you all right?"

"Oh, yes, only there's two of me now! I split my head in two and made another dog! Here she is! Wuff wuff! Ho ho!" ([1], p. 289)

For Snitter, there is no contradiction in the ghost terrier being both a different individual and a part of himself—and, metaphorically, there is not. As Collado Rodriguez notes, "Adams is deeply influenced by Carl [Gustav] Jung" ([14], p. 52). His theory of the collective unconscious frequently provides a symbolic red thread the plot follows. This is reflected, for example, in Adams's frequent use of water, Jung's central symbol for the unconscious ([7], p. 28), as the story's guiding trope, or in the character of the tod, a messenger from an archetypal "ancestral force" ([14], p. 52). Yet Jung's theory makes its possibly strongest appearance in Snitter's encounter with the ghost bitch. The female terrier is, in fact, his *anima*. She is an archetypal force, a reflection of his soul ([7], p. 35), both frightening and attracting him, part-demonic ([7], p. 36) and, crucially, of the opposite gender. Jung describes the anima as "numinos" ([7], p. 37), i.e., numinous, and as such as both magical and dangerous, concerned with the taboos the consciousness tries to avoid dealing with ([7], p. 37). On his nightly excursion Snitter confronts his own unconscious: a loyal dog stubbornly guarding a human corpse, incapable of letting go of the illusion that her master will return. Snitter sees her predicament, deeply pities her, and finally even calls in her face, "Your master—your master is dead! He's dead!" ([1], p. 295). But the moment he starts to glimpse the truth—that it is *his* master he is talking about—Snitter panics. He draws back, suddenly seeing the ghost bitch as "a phantom, a nothing, a dried, empty husk of old grief suffered long ago" ([1], p. 295). When, seconds later, an apparition of his master appears, Snitter, none the wiser from his encounter with his anima, still denying reality, runs after him. In this

scene, there is a deeply tragic twist to Snitter's unreliability. When Snitter appears to be unreliable, i.e., hallucinates, he is actually reliable—his hallucination is "literally unreliable but metaphorically reliable" ([9], p. 226), one of Phelan's criteria of bonding unreliability. Yet, when Snitter dismisses the hallucination and undergoes, in Phelan's terminology, a "partial progress toward the norm" ([9], p. 231), this does not establish a further bonding link, but estranges the reader, as in this moment Snitter bars his own progress towards realisation of his psychosis. In this scene, the two dimensions of bonding unreliability, Snitter's being "literally unreliable but metaphorically reliable" ([9], p. 226) and undergoing "partial progress towards the norm" ([9], p. 231), are incompatible. When Snitter's unrealiability is bonding in one of these categories, this automatically violates the other one and has an estranging effect with regard to this category, thus facing the implied reader with an unresolved conflict of competing unreliabilities.

The implied reader's awareness of Snitter's unreliability develops gradually. Although Snitter's mental illness never is in doubt, at first only his direct speech is unreliable, while he does not misreport to the reader or misinterpret story elements. When Snitter's reliable accounts start to become interspersed with hallucinations, the heterodiegetic narrator explicitly warns the reader ([1], p. 123) and Snitter himself, too, immediately classifies several of his experiences as unreliable. However, Snitter finally starts to call into question, and accordingly renders the implied reader suspicious of, accounts not only he himself previously perceived as reliable, but which the heterodiegetic narrator classifies as reliable through other focalizers as well, such as a fox hunt in which Snitter witnesses the tod's brutal death ([1], p. 390). At such moments, *The Plague Dogs* plays on an intertextual connection that runs through the story like a disturbing undercurrent, casting doubt onto the very nature of the dog focalizer's unreliability. Scientist Stephen Powell compares Snitter's mental condition to the one of William Golding's Pincher Martin, protagonist of the eponymous novel:

Er—well, did you ever read a book called *Pincher Martin*, by a man named Golding? You know, the *Lord of the Flies* bloke? ...Well, the chap in it's supposed to be dead. . . and in the next world, which is a sort of hellish limbo. . . He thinks he's still alive and that he's been washed up on a rock in the Atlantic, but actually it's an illusion and the rock is only a mental projection—it's the shape of a back tooth in his own head. The dog. . . might have illusions something like that. ([1], p. 227)

While Pincher Martin builds his perception of the imaginary island upon the image of a "tooth" ([17], p. 30), Snitter is preoccupied with the scar left by his brain operation. Repeatedly confusing his body with his environments, he perceives his surroundings as "both a product and the equivalent of his own mutilated mind" ([1], p. 123). When one of his companions tells him that they are crossing "Walna Scar" ([1], p. 124), a landmark in the Lake District, for Snitter this means that they are "walking across his own head" ([1], p. 124). Snitter's misinterpretations of his environment reach their apex when he finds himself locked in a barn:

After the first shock of surprise it was plain enough to Snitter where he was, for after all he had known the place all his life, every feature of it. Once it had been brighter, tidier, cleaner, brisker-smelling. All the same he was, in fact, nowhere but where he had always been; only now he was actually seeing it for the first time. He was inside his own head. ([1], p. 211)

Snitter's conviction again originates from an association of his scar and his environment—there is a "concave cleft running down the middle of the [barn] floor" ([1], p. 212). Analyzing his state of mind by an inspection of the barn, he finds plenty of equivalents between the dismal state of the place and the one of his mind, such as "cobwebs" in his "eyes", ([1], p. 212), and "maggots and flies" ([1], p. 212) in his brain. The overall emptiness of the place convinces Snitter that "the whitecoats must have taken some of the inside of my head out" ([1], p. 213), and provides him with ample evidence to confirm his madness. He even starts some feeble efforts to clean up his mind by brushing off some

cobwebs ([1], p. 212). Although Snitter misreads his environment and thus bases his assumptions on false premises, every single one of his conclusions is correct. He may misinterpret his surroundings, but he does not misregard their implications. Snitter cannot explain what happened to him in the lab, but the surgery did indeed remove functions of his brain and muddle his senses. Snitter, thus, again proves to be metaphorically reliable, a central one of Phelan's categories of bonding unreliability.

Yet, there is an estranging element to Snitter's overall bonding unreliability. As an effect of his confusion between his mind and the outside world, Snitter holds himself responsible for the dismal state of the world as such, and is soon convinced that "everything bad comes out of [his] head" ([1], p. 185). He even starts to believe that, as the world is a fragment of his imagination, he can control it. In consequence, he relates story elements such as him "caus[ing] [a gate] to appear" ([1], p. 202) to ease their flight from a farm. "There isn't a world at all now except this wound in my head" ([1], pp. 185–86), he tells Rowf, "if I can die and stop it all, then I'll stay here and do that. But perhaps I've died already. Perhaps dying—perhaps even dying doesn't stop it" ([1], p. 186). Snitter's fears are a one-to-one reflection of the situation Golding's Pincher Martin is in: dead and caught in a nightmare created by his own subconscious. This intertextual link casts doubt onto the very nature of Snitter's unreliability. Pincher Martin is never more unreliable than when he appears to be reliable, and his wildest hallucinations are his most reliable moments. If Snitter is indeed a canine Pincher Martin, this would render unreliable the entire physical parameters of the story, such as its setting or its character cast. Do the dogs ever leave the research station or is the entire Lake District adventure just another hallucination of Snitter's? Does Rowf really survive his near-death experience in the first scene of the story? Snitter might be merely imagining the presence of his friend. In this light, other unreliable instances of Snitter's narration—such as his frequent perception that elements of the landscape are talking to him (e.g., [1], pp. 118, 232, 430), or his sudden doubts of parts of the narration previously perceived as reliable ([1], p. 390)—can be read in entirely different dimensions. All that happens may be nothing but a complex allegory unravelling itself in the canine narrator's mind.

The reader is left with two distinct and incompatible versions of Snitter: an "obvious" Snitter driven insane by human cruelty, yet fully aware of his own madness, and characterized by bonding unreliability throughout the story, and a Pincher-Martin-Snitter whose fits of madness might be the story's only moments of sanity. Snitter's unreliable narration may thus be bonding on an overt level, but it is covertly estranging. This estrangement does not derive from any form of misreading, misinterpreting or misevaluating that can be explicitly pinpointed in Snitter's narration, but from an unreliability inherent to the very mode of unreliable narration in *The Plague Dogs*, ultimately inducing the implied reader to mistrust virtually any narrative account of Snitter's, as the comparison to Pincher Martin and his utterly distorted world view continuously haunts the borders of the implied reader's vision. While the animal protagonists thus find themselves helpless and confused on the story level, unreliability serves to reflect this impression to the reader on the level of discourse. Utterly confused by the inability to classify which accounts of Snitter's indeed are the unreliable ones, the reader can share the dogs' mounting desperation in being unable to cope with a world whose basic parameters do not make sense to them.

There is a further and even more diffuse twist to the estranging Pincher Martin trope. At the very beginning of the novel, it is not "Pincher Martin" character Snitter who finds himself drowning and miraculously surviving, just as Golding's protagonist does. It is his companion Rowf. This scene indicates Rowf, not Snitter, as the story's "canine Pincher Martin." Throughout almost the entire story Rowf appears as a reliable observer, and shows little evidence of fits of apparent madness such as the ones haunting Pincher Martin and Snitter. Yet there are some instances that also call into question his perception of his surroundings. At one point, he relates to Snitter his conversation with a mouse ([1], p. 63)—while the dogs, in general, do not appear to have the ability to communicate with other species. The mouse only ever reappears as an imaginary friend of Snitter's, talking in the terrier's mind (e.g., [1], pp. 52, 413). Rowf also dreams up his ideal master ([1], pp. 141–42), only to finally find himself rescued by a man fitting his description to the letter, even voicing the very words Rowf imagined his ideal master to speak ([1], pp. 142, 446). This third layer of unreliability adds another estranging element to the apparently bonding unreliability of the two dog characters. Both Rowf and Snitter might be far more unreliable than the implied reader can pinpoint, yet at no point in the story can the reader be sure about the nature or the extent of that unreliability. Such an entire lack of narrative stability is perhaps the most pervasive form of estranging unreliability there is. There always is a reliable element in *knowing* a narrator to be unreliable. Yet, if the implied author refuses this certainty to the reader, the only option left is speculation—and suspicion.

#### **4. Undermining Anthropocentric Normativity: The Voice of the Heterodiegetic Narrator**

An overt heterodiegetic narrator is generally a reliable voice that balances the accounts of unreliable focalizers and provides the reader with knowledge the characters do not have access to. In *The Plague Dogs*, however, episodes of zero focalization related by the voice of the overt heterodiegetic narrator do not reduce, but add to the "clash between story and discourse" ([11], p. 898) that renders Adams's dog story so unusual to its genre. Collado Rodriguez classifies the narrator as "menippean" ([14], p. 52), i.e., satirical, and attributes to him "a restlessness based on his satirical purpose" ([14], p. 52). Indeed, the implied reader most often encounters the narrator as a sarcastic voice commenting on the plot from the off, unveiling, and aggressively attacking a thoroughly anthropocentric superstructure that the protagonists themselves are oblivious of. He is fiercely protective of the dogs, sometimes to the point of underreporting or misreporting story elements in their favour.

One central aim of the narrator's satire is science, or more precisely the hypocrisy inherent to the rationalist ethos of science and to the respective discourse tradition. For example, the narrator describes an experiment on homing pigeons in the following terms:

One could draw the firm and valuable conclusions first, that birds whose faculties had been impaired were less swift and competent in getting home than birds whose faculties had not; and secondly, that in any given group, some succeeded in returning while others, who did not, presumably died. . . .Important evidence had been obtained in support of the theory that the birds possessed an instinct not really explicable in scientific terms. ([1], p. 28)

In this text passage, the narrator turns the discourse of science against itself. In its use of scientific register, the passage provides the illusion of rationality, but the final phrase unmasks the objective-descriptive enumeration of "valuable" scientific conclusions as an elaborate hoax. While scientific discourse creates sophisticated bubbles of rationalist rhetoric, it is incapable of narrating the story of the homing pigeons. The reader thus finds herself confronted with a clash of reason and instinct, of stereotypical human vs. stereotypical animal domains. Only instinct can tell the story, while reason is nothing but discourse caught in a vicious circle of continuous self-affirmation. The laughter triggered by the narrator's satire is the very same laughter of the Bakhtinian carnival.4 An "ambivalent" ([18], p. 53) laughter directed towards a recipient so powerful as to be out of reach of direct criticism, but who can be parodied and even ridiculed in "the suspension of restrictions and hierarchies" ([19], p. 16) brought about by carnival celebrations. In the medieval practices Bakhtin derives his concept of the carnivalesque from, such a powerful entity parodied in carnivalesque laughter might have been the king, or God ([18], p. 54). In *The Plague Dogs*, the laughter targets the rationalist ethos of science that, in the ideological framework of contemporary Western cultures, often reaches quasi-religious dimensions. Similar passages attack other central pillars of modern

<sup>4</sup> Bakhtin builds his concept of the carnivalesque upon the power-subverting practices of Medieval European and ancient Greek carnival festivities ([18], p. 47). As the metaphoric language of literature shares the symbolic power of carnival festivities, he sees these practices reflected in the genre of the novel ([18], p. 47). This link, arguably, is even stronger when the novel at hand is one that undermines power hierarchies in its very narrative structure, as does a novel granting a central voice and most of its narrative space to non-human protagonists. As Catherine Elick states, a Bakhtinian reading is therefore a particularly useful approach for "confronting the ideology undergirding species valuation" ([19], p. 3).

scientific ethos, such as scientific detachment ([1], p. 18), the allegedly noble nature of scientific curiosity as an end to itself ([1], p. 18) or "benefit for the human race" ([1], p. 128) as the ultimate justification for animal experimentation. With regard to all these, discourse turns into an empty shell, unable to tell the story of both human and animal protagonists, or sometimes telling a story that is not true. When the narrator exuberantly praises the lab's head scientist as a "most ingenious paradox, noble in reason, express and admirable in action, his undemonstrative heart committed with the utmost detachment to the benefit of humanity. Something too much of this" ([1], p. 18), the reader can only glimpse the story in the flippant afterthought.

Throughout the novel, the heterodiegetic narrator champions the voice of literature over the voice of science. The reader gets to know the narrator as a highly educated, at times even lyrical storyteller who is able to draw inspiration from virtually the entirety of the Western intellectual canon. He quotes Shakespeare ([1], p. 455) and Dr. Johnson ([1], p. 169), casually refers to Freud ([1], p. 16) and to the muse Urania ([1], p. 200), or imitates the writing style of James Joyce ([1], p. 421). However, he does not only make use of these pretexts to transmit his own message, as would be the standard use of intertextual reference, but shows up the shortcomings of the discourse of "literature" in a similar way to his dismantling of the discourse of science. In the first scene of the story, for example, the narrator describes a tank fouled with urine and saliva in which at that very moment Rowf is fighting for his life. The surface is "a watery harlequin's coat of tilting planes and lozenges in movement" ([1], p. 1), the "streaks of urine" are "gilded" ([1], p. 1), and bubbles of saliva are rocking "turgidly" ([1], p. 1). In this description, the implied reader realizes a gap not between narrator and implied author, but in the narrator's discourse itself: a gap between the tenor and the vehicles of metaphors. The narrator's language is the language of "literature," but, as does the empty discourse of science, the high register and metaphorical complexity of literature does not unveil reality, but glosses over the sufferings of Rowf, who, pointedly, in this scene is refused both agency and a voice. In presenting as an epitome of beauty what is in fact a hideous reality, the narration reverses Phelan's bonding unreliability category of "literally unreliable but metaphorically reliable" ([9], p. 226) narration. The narrator is literally reliable but *metaphorically* unreliable, and as intellectual convention has long taught the reader to consider the metaphorical level the apex of literary language, and to trust it above all others, this creates a substantial gap between narrator and reader.

The narrator thus places the reader in a paradoxical situation. On the one hand, the 'literariness' of the narratorial voice of *The Plague Dogs* demands the reader to be well-versed in the conventions of literary discourse, and challenges every lack of knowledge of the literary canon. When the narrator recounts the reunion between Snitter and his master, for example, it is the reader's own task to notice the moment when the narrator stops relating the events, and instead leaves this to Shakespeare: "Forgive me—I make a broken delivery of the business on the sand-dunes at Drigg. I never heard of such another encounter: a sight which was to be seen, but cannot be spoken of. They looked as they had heard of a world ransomed, or one destroyed" ([1], p. 455; see also [20], 5.2,14–15). On the other hand, the narrator constantly undermines the conventions of literature, highlighting that literature too can become an instrument of anthropocentric hegemony, and even more tragically so than the rationalist story-deprived discourse of science. Literature indeed can and does tell stories, yet these stories might trick the reader into averting the eyes from the animal. Still, the narrator's voice shows far more respect for the discourse of literature than for the one of science. The literary, so the narrator's implicit indication, is a discourse that can indeed be compatible with "instinct." In the environment of the literary, the animal might be capable not only of telling its own tale, but even of being listened to by a human audience—if the animal is granted a voice.

Collado Rodriguez describes the narrator as "a very playful and restless figure in the fashion of Tristram Shandy" ([14], p. 51). Yet while the narrator of *Tristram Shandy* is satirical, omnipresent, and "enthral[ling]" ([10], p. 8), i.e., in Phelan's terminology, has a bonding effect on the reader, the narrator of *The Plague Dogs* is virtually erratic. This unpredictability often has an estranging effect. During long parts of the text the narrator fades away to a covert voice reporting the dogs' journey, describing the landscape, or relating Snitter's thoughts to the reader. At unpredictable intervals, however, this voice suddenly turns overt, voicing sarcastic, impolite, or downright rude comments. The narrator interrupts an almost lyrical passage on Snitter howling to the moon to attack Mediterranean hunters shooting migratory birds as "hirsute swine[s]" ([1], p. 260), expresses disappointment that no one took the chance to murder a particularly unpleasant one of his characters ([1], p. 200), or directly targets the reader, threatening that there will be a "price to pay" ([1], p. 192) for the "unnatural"' way of life of modern Western civilisation. Towards the end of the story the implied reader notices that the narrator previously purposefully withheld information to manipulate the reader's perspective on animal experimentation. The narrator waits for the final pages to disclose the motivation that drove one of the scientists to work in the lab: Mr. Powell searched for a cure for his young daughter, who is dying of cancer ([1], p. 449). At the point of this disclosure the implied reader, having been given an entirely animal-focused view on animal experimentation for more than four hundred pages of dense tragedy, will find herself stupefied by the very notion that there indeed *is* a different perspective—that there might be justifications for the practice the narrator has carefully taught the reader to abhor. Notably, the reader only learns about Mr. Powell's incentive after the scientist has changed his mind, and despite his daughter's illness, has decided to not only quit his job but even to illegally free an animal from the lab. In fact, the reader is only allowed to hear Mr. Powell's voice after he switched to the discourse the narrator presents as the correct one.

Most unreliable about the heterodiegetic narrator, however, is the narrative style. Style changes constantly, from prose to poetry ([1], p. 421), or from colloquial language to biblical language and back ([1], p. 317). In consequence the reader can never know which kind of narration she is to encounter in the next line. After the dogs killed their first sheep, for example, Snitter elapses into rhyme, as he sometimes does in his mad moments, and the narrator immediately joins in:

Incrimination and heady elation, cutting capers in the misty vapours, havoc and ravage hurrah for the savage life precarious, life so various, life nefarious and temerarious, pulling faces, fierce grimaces, leaving traces in rocky places, pieces and faeces all over the fleece is that a yow's shoulder they've left there to moulder stuck up on a boulder? Much to learn, Rowf, in the fern, of great concern, for this is the point of no return. Those who kill sheep should mind where they sleep. . . ([1], p. 76)

On the content level this narration is reliable, but not on the level of discourse. The reader is left at a loss whether the narrator is just reflecting Snitter's state of mind, or might be affected by the madness himself. Episodes casting doubt onto the narrator's sanity become more frequent towards the end of the narrative, when, at times, the narrator appears to be virtually rambling:

Along the estuary we go, black-and-white oyster-catchers flashing rapid, pointed wings. . . and an old heron flapping slowly away by himself. Can that be the tod [character killed in a fox hunt] I see, with Kiff [character killed in the lab], up on a cloud? No, I beg your pardon, must have got some hairspray in my eyes [as in a lab experiment on rabbits], but let's raise a cheer all the same. Never again, hide in a drain, ride in a train, died in the rain—it's not raining yet, anyway. ([1], p. 423)

The heterodiegetic narrator's fits of apparent madness, even more unpredictable than Snitter's ones, create the impression of a voice driven insane by the sufferings of the characters whose plight it reports. This voice, crucially, is human, not animal, yet it frequently focalizes through animal eyes and grants narrative space to the non-human. Shaping its discourse around the dogs and their perception of the world, the narrator's voice—unlike the empty discourse of science—proves to be able to tell the canine heroes' story. Moreover, its erratic unreliability intensifies the story, giving powerful expression to a form of animal suffering normally happening in silence and well outside the implied reader's line of vision. This suffering, once granted a voice, is so intense as to break the structural constraints of discourse. Unreliable narration in The Plague Dogs thus dismantles an uncomfortable

truth: traditional forms of narration can only uphold their alleged reliability by means of averting the reader's attention from non-human stories. The heterodiegetic narrator's unreliability in The Plague Dogs in consequence does not seek to estrange the implied reader from the narrator, but from the set of values which render this narration unreliable. Instead of undergoing a "partial progress towards the norm" ([9], p. 231) the narrator seeks to raise the reader's awareness of the problematic dimensions of the norm. In the end, the reader is left with only a single reliable set of facts: the dogs are suffering, and by means of accepting the shared values, and especially the evasive discourse of the society causing this suffering, the implied reader, too, bears her share of the blame.

#### **5. The Reader Shipwrecked: Unravelling the Ending**

When considered from the perspective of narratorial discourse, *The Plague Dogs* appears entirely open-ended. On the face of it, the story has a typical happy ending: in a miraculous rescue, two naturalists save the dogs from drowning, and the two long-suffering canine heroes can start a new life with Snitter's former master who suddenly turns out to be alive after all. This ending was under criticism for undermining the serious political intention of the story, e.g., by reviewer Naomi Wise, who censured it as "spurious" ([21], p. 54). But the moment a reading of the ending takes into account the complex interplay of narrative unreliabilities, the final scenes of *The Plague Dogs* can also be approached as yet another twist on the *Pincher Martin* trope. Pincher Martin believes that he finds himself miraculously rescued from drowning, while he, in fact *did* drown. Therefore, he is at his most unreliable when he appears to be reliable—only his hallucinations call into question his account of his island survival. *The Plague Dogs*, in addition to starting with Rowf drowning, ends when the dogs find themselves miraculously rescued from drowning again. However, they, in contrast to Pincher Martin, believe they are dead now. If this were a homodiegetic account by Snitter, or, as the plotline of *Pincher Martin*, a heterodiegetic internally focalized account of Snitter, and Snitter only, the reader could indeed come to the conclusion that Snitter is dead and dreams up a walk through a watery purgatory that finally ends in his accepting his death, and entering dog heaven at the side of his (equally dead) master.

But the heterodiegetic narrator balances Snitter's account and continually anchors it in reality. Several of the previous plotlines come together, and the narrator's zero focalisation allows different protagonists' views to throw light on the scene, while all of these views add up to one logical narrative. Indeed, if it had not been for the previous erratic behaviour of the heterodiegetic narrator and the recurrent *Pincher Martin* allusions, a reader probably would not doubt this ending for a second. But, taking into account both of these aspects, one can read the ending as a final twist to the story, and even to the *Pincher Martin*-trope. At the end of *Pincher Martin*, the implied reader learns for sure that she has fallen victim to an entirely distorted view on the story's reality. At the end of *The Plague Dogs*, in contrast, the reader is left at a total loss whether to consider the "happy ending" scene as reliable or unreliable. There are some unreliability markers, such as the one-to-one correspondence between Rowf's ideal master and naturalist Peter Scott, and the overall too-good-to-be-true quality of both the action and the characters' dialogue. This dialogue, in an additional twist, even projects unreliability beyond the text itself, and purposefully undermines not only the narrator's reliability, but even the one of the author. Ronald Lockley, fictional counterpart of a real and renowned naturalist, dismisses Richard Adams as "hopelessly sentimental" ([1], p. 440), thus attributing to him a bias that obviously cannot but colour the tenor of the entire narrative. Yet none of these puzzles of unreliability are resolved in any way comparable to Golding solving Pincher Martin's mystery by suddenly shifting the narratorial focus from the unreliable Pincher Martin to two reliable characters ([17], p. 202).

*The Plague Dogs*, in consequence, offers two distinct readings of its ending. If the heterogetic narrator is reliable, this is a happy ending, and a very genre-typical one as well. The plot line has shown that there are indeed bad humans out there, doing terrible things to animals in their ruthless anthropocentrism and egocentrism. The ending however blends this with hope: such humans can be overcome, as long as there are some fine specimens of humanity who are willing to fight for animals. If the heterodiegetic narrator is unreliable, in contrast, the ending is a tragedy. The narrator gives up on what Rowf repeatedly classifies as "a bad world for animals" ([1], p. 23). Just like Snitter in the newspaper story, the narrator relates a fairy tale, something that in another world, once upon a time, might have taken place, but can never happen in reality. If one chooses this reading, one can even pinpoint the exact moment when the narrator gives up on the madness of the situation, and instead employs talking animal story stock elements. This is the moment Snitter drowns:

No feeling in the legs. Cold. Cold. Longing to rest, longing to stop, losing two gasps in every three for a lungful of air. The stinging, muzzle-slapping water, rocking up and down. This isn't a dream. It's real, real. We're going to die. . . . Cold. Sinking. Bitter, choking dark. ([1], p. 438)

Collado Rodriguez calls this "the logical end of the novel" ([14], p. 52), describing the following happy ending as a "metafictional element" ([14], p. 53), a claim that I would second. Perhaps, one could best describe the ending as an escapist fantasy of a narrator who tries and ultimately fails to apply patterns that make sense to a world that does not. Such patterns are ubiquitous in the novel, most prominently in form of Carl Gustav Jung's theory of the collective unconscious, and Joseph Campbell's hero's journey that leads the heroes on a "flight. . . complicated by marvels of magical obstruction and evasion" ([8], p. 197). But these patterns reach their limits once the literary animal appears as animal. What happens to Joseph Campbell's hero if his final reward is denied to him because of his species? How does the Jungian unconscious function if there is no rationalistic Western human consciousness to balance the primitive, instinctive nature of the unconscious, but a canine one? The narrator does not seek to answer these questions, but pushes them until they become deeply disconcerting for the implied reader—only to abruptly revert to an easier mode of story-telling at the very moment the reader might be seriously considering the dimensions the answers might reach. This again calls to mind Phelan's category of "partial progress towards the norm" ([9], p. 231) as a bonding category. In the final scene of *The Plague Dogs*, the heterodiegetic narrator does the opposite: he seeks to undermine and, eventually, in the double-edged happy ending, to destroy the norm itself. This is estranging and unsettling, uncanny, even, but ultimately seeks to open readers' eyes to the issue at hand: the hopeless situation of animals in the madhouse of Western civilization. The world the story presents (our own world, satirically overdrawn, but metaphorically reliable) is so ludicrous that sanity does not stand a chance, and all well-worn patterns that seek to introduce some order to the chaos appear to exclude the animals who are the heroes of the story.

Escaping reality, indeed, might be the only coping mechanism for an animal narrator caught in the world of *The Plague Dogs*. Snitter does in his hallucinations. Rowf does in finally entering the magical world of Snitter's happy-pet fairy tale when he believes himself in dog heaven ([1], p. 452). The narrator does, too, if indeed he makes up a happy ending after the dogs drowned. Is the narrator a coward, then? "Yes" might be the implied reader's simple answer—and here we suddenly find ourselves looking through the eyes of Snitter, facing his anima on the moors, shouting the truth into her face, and never realizing that it is *his* truth, not hers. The reader is finally left to make her own decision if she wants to follow the narrator's solution of playing-ostrich, or if she dares to read the animal protagonists as animals, and in doing so to face the insanity underlying Western culture's tradition of anthropocentrism and self-deception.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.

#### **References**


© 2017 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

*Article*

## **"Against the Dog Only a Dog": Talking Canines Civilizing Cynicism in Cervantes' "coloquio de los perros" (With Tentative Remarks on the Discourse and Method of Animal Studies)**

#### **DS Mayfield**

Peter Szondi Institute of Comparative Literature, Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany; ds.mayfield@fu-berlin.de

Academic Editor: Joela Jacobs

Received: 1 January 2017; Accepted: 19 April 2017; Published: 13 May 2017

**Abstract:** Deriving its designation from the Greek word for 'dog', cynicism is likely the only philosophical 'interest group' with a diachronically dependable affinity for various animals—particularly those of the canine kind. While dogs have met with differing value judgments, chiefly along a perceived human–animal divide, it is specifically discourses with cynical affinities that render problematic this transitional field. The Cervantine "coloquio de los perros" has received scholarly attention for its (caninely) picaresque themes, its "cynomorphic" (Ziolkowski) narratological technique, its socio-historically informative accounts relating to Early Modern Europe and the Iberian peninsula, including its 'zoopoetically' (Derrida) relevant portrayal of dogs (see e.g., Alves, Beusterien, Martín); nor did the dialog's mention of cynical snarling go unnoticed. The essay at hand commences with a chapter on questions of method pertaining to 'animal narration': with recourse to Montaigne, Descartes, and Derrida, this first part serves to situate the ensuing close readings with respect to the field of Animal Studies. The analysis of the Cervantine texts synergizes thematic and narratological aspects at the discourse historical level; it commences with a brief synopsis of the respective novellas in part 2; Sections 3–5 supply a description of the rhetorical modes of crafting plausibility in the framework narrative ("The Deceitful Marriage"), of pertinent (*Scriptural*) intertexts for the "Colloquy". Parts 6–7 demonstrate that the choice of canine interlocutors as narrating agencies—and specifically in their capacity as dogs—is discursively motivated: no other animal than this animal, and precisely as animal, would here serve the discursive purpose that is concurrently present with the literal plane; for this dialogic novella partakes of a (predominantly Stoicizing) tradition attempting to resocialize the Cynics, which commences already with the appearance of the Ancient arch-Cynic 'Diogenes' on the scene. At the discursive level, a diachronic contextualization evinces that the Cervantine text takes up and outperforms those rhetorical techniques of reintegration by melding Christian, Platonic, Stoicizing elements with such as are reminiscent of Diogenical ones. Reallocating Blumenberg's reading of a notorious Goethean dictum, this essay submits the formula 'against the Dog only a dog' as a concise précis of the Cervantine method at the discursive level, attained to via a decidedly pluralized rhetorical sermocination featuring, at a literal level, specifically canine narrators in a dialogic setting.

**Keywords:** Cervantes; *Novelas ejemplares*; *El coloquio de los perros*; *Novela del casamiento engañoso*; *Siglo de Oro*; Early Modern Age; cynicism; Diogenes of Sinope; Montaigne; Derrida; Animal Studies; rhetoric; animal narration

#### **1.** *Cherchez La Bête (Humaine)***: With Respect to Animal Narration**

Diogenes [ . . . ] disait [ . . . ] C'est celui qui me traite et nourrit qui me sert,

et ceux qui entretiennent [les] bêtes se doivent dire plutôt les servir qu'en être servis.

(Montaigne 2009, p. 192, II.xii); cf. (Montaigne 1989, p. 338); (D. Laertius 2005, p. 77, VI.75)<sup>1</sup>

natürlich nur tentativ

(Nolting-Hauff 1987, p. 195)

This initial subchapter addresses questions of method. In so doing, it also serves to situate the essay's ensuing close readings of the Cervantine novellas with respect to the approach and discourse of Animal Studies. The following observations are tentative, their function heuristic.

It is commonly held that beings with a potential capacity for humane comportment and taking other perspectives are to deem self-evident a respectful conduct towards other beings: "'*Tat twam asi'*, that is, 'this living [being] are you'" (Schopenhauer 1988, p. 295, III, §44; trans. dsm).<sup>2</sup> Usually, only the cynically minded might wish to display the candor (or insolence) of articulating the indirectly self-seeking nature that—from their particular point of view—is likely to be at the basis of statements such as "Do to others as you would have them do to you" (*Lk* 6:31; cf. *Mt* 7:12; *NIV*).

Quarantining the putative faculties of humanly conceivable metaphysical entities (the caring for which must, for reasons of competence, be delegated to the respective professional curators), the nominal 'human animal' may seem to manifest an exceptional (and, in this, perchance distinctive) proclivity for taking other perspectives.<sup>3</sup> In the inventory of effectual techniques that is rhetoric, such 'perspective-taking' is advocated as a capacity for 'always also arguing on the other sides of any question'.<sup>4</sup>

<sup>1</sup> "Diogenes [ ... ] said: '[ ... ] it is the man who keeps and feeds me who is my slave'. And those who keep animals should be said rather to serve them than to be served by them" (Montaigne 1989, p. 338, II.12). Such patterns of (perspectival) inversion—grounded in the apparently human potential for 'virtually taking another (including: an other's) point of view also'—have been particularly characteristic of cynically inflected discourses, from 'Diogenes' via (for instance) Machiavelli, to Nietzsche, and beyond. Since the condition of possibility for this notional process of inversion is an awareness as to contingency—that things might as well be (seen to be) otherwise—this tendency is constitutively not monodirectional; hence a perceived cynic such as Feuerbach might turn a characteristically cynical maxim into this: "The *other* is *per se* the *mediator* between me and the [ ... ] species. Homo homini Deus est" (Feuerbach 1976, p. 189, I; trans. dsm); "the *highest* and *first law* ['must'] be the *love of* [*a hu*]*man* [*being*] *for* [*hu*]*man*[*kind*] ['*des Menschen zum Menschen*']. *Homo homini deus est* – this is the supreme practical principle" (Feuerbach 1976, p. 318, II; trans. dsm). The style of the *Humanities* journal does not permit references in the abstract, hence the names of the authors were used therein; the respective references are (in order of appearance): (Ziolkowski 1983, p. 95); (Derrida 2002, p. 374); cf. (Alves 2014; Alves 2011), (Beusterien 2016, passim), (Martín 2012; Martín 2004, both passim); see (Blumenberg 2006a, p. 596). Moreover, the journal's style stipulates the repetition of author names in successive mentions, as well as the doubling of parentheses for formatting reasons; the respective changes (including errors potentially incurred in the converting process) pertain to the procedures of copy editing, and were beyond the author's influence; the reader's lenience with regard to the appearance of the layout is requested.

<sup>2</sup> Cf. Montaigne's observation: "Since animals are born, beget, feed, act, move, live, and die in a manner so close to our own" (Montaigne 1989, p. 345, II.12)—with these similarities serving (also) as a basis for, and with a view to, potentially taking other perspectives. Schopenhauer later reiterates the *Vedantic* "*Mahavakya*, i.e. the great word" (Schopenhauer 1988, p. 295, III, §44; trans. dsm) as an imperative: "'*Tat twam asi!*' ('This are you!')" (p. 483, IV, §66; trans. dsm)—while accentuating the conduct to result from this insight: "thus he will also not torture any animal" (p. 481, IV, §66; trans. dsm). Generally, see the ostentative self-evidence implied in assertions such as: "The *capacity* for moral conduct signifies an *obligation* to conduct [oneself] morally, especially also with respect to animals" (Benz-Schwarzburg 2015, p. 248; trans. dsm). Seeing that Animal Studies may seem to have a tendency to focus virtually all of their critical attention on Cartesian(izing) currents (while largely disregarding other philosophico-discursive strands, including the cynical), Schopenhauer's ethics might not have received the consideration it would appear to merit (in this particular field).

<sup>3</sup> "Der Mensch ist ein extremer Standpunktwechsler" (Blumenberg 2006b, p. 879). Cf. and contrast Benz-Schwarzburg on de Waal's views concerning the human "capacity for cognitively taking the position of another" (Benz-Schwarzburg 2015, pp. 247–48; trans. dsm). See Dopico Black's reference to "Coetzee['s]" putting the following words in "Costello['s]" mouth: "[']there is no limit to the extent to which we can think ourselves into the being of another[']" (Dopico Black 2010, p. 245); on the reception of the latter, see (Bühler-Dietrich and Weingarten 2016, pp. 8–10). In this respect, cf. Boehrer on Ruskin's notion of the "pathetic fallacy" qua "invest[ing] the natural world with the observer's own passions" (Boehrer 2010, p. 2; cf. pp. 3, 11–12).

<sup>4</sup> A corollary of taking other perspectives is their factual plurality; hence a (citational) pluralization of approaches is requisite in any descriptive form of scholarship. Blumenberg accentuates that "fast alles, was wir überhaupt wissen, die Bedingtheit

Alignable in tendency with the perspectival inversion characteristic of the Cynic's discourse (as in the above motto), Montaigne—whose *Essais* (proceeding from an awareness as to contingency) present an assorted accumulation of diverse data guided by, and gathered by way of, a poly-perspectival heuristics—muses: "When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me" (Montaigne 1989, p. 331, II.12; cf. p. 331n.; Montaigne 2009, p. 179, II.xii).5 Likely due to Derrida's affirmative citation thereof in what has come to be a seminal text of Animal Studies (Derrida 2002, pp. 375, 375n.), Montaigne's reflection continues to be reiterated in the respective paradigm, specifically as evidence of a creditable recourse to 'the animal itself and as such'.<sup>6</sup> With this

der Hypothese hat. Die Stärke der Hypothese kann nur in ihrer Konkurrenzfähigkeit mit anderen Hypothesen liegen. Sie macht jedes Wissenschaftssystem wesensmäßig pluralistisch—und das auch mit der Philosophie" (Blumenberg 2006b, p. 161). For the context at hand, cf. "No less than feminist, Marxist, post-colonial, structuralist, and formalist approaches, a literary criticism perspective on animal issues is a point of view, a form of consciousness, a way to read any work of fiction" (Shapiro and Copeland 2005, p. 343). As to the period in question, Enenkel/Smith emphasize the "variety of discourses on animals among early modern scientists, writers and artists" (Enenkel and Smith 2007, p. 12).

<sup>5</sup> For Montaigne's observations concerning animals with respect to humankind, see spec. (Montaigne 1989, pp. 330–58, II.12). For comparable instances of perspectival inversion, see spec. "This defect that hinders communication between them and us, why is it not just as much ours as theirs? It is a matter of guesswork whose fault it is that we do not understand one another; for we do not understand them any more than they do us. By this same reasoning they may consider us beasts, as we consider them. It is no great wonder if we do not understand them; neither do we understand the Basques [... ] We must notice the parity there is between us. We have some mediocre understanding of their meaning; so do they of ours, in about the same degree. They flatter us, threaten us, and implore us, and we them" (Montaigne 1989, p. 331, II.12; cf. p. 344); see also (Fudge 2006, p. 118); as to the "parity", cf. "this equality and correspondence between us and the beasts" (Montaigne 1989, p. 354, II.12). On the whole, Montaigne's *Essais* tender a dense (Early Modern) *summa*—an eclectic aggregate of (virtual, historical, proto-empirical) observations, common knowledge, judicious citations, inherited arguments, perceived facts on myriad subject matters (including animals), gathered by way of reading and (purported, personal, vicarious) experience—from a variety of sources, both Ancient and contemporary, collective and private. Cf. "Montaignes Essais sind eine Summe der Vielheit. Diversité ist das Stichwort [ ... ] durch alle Essais [ ... ] Panorama der Vielheit" (Stierle 1987, p. 424); see also (Küpper 1990, p. 272). On the changing knowledge concerning animals during "the early modern period"—triggered by "[t]he discovery of the new world", its "dissemination" considerably "reinforced by the printing press"—see (Enenkel and Smith 2007, p. 1).

<sup>6</sup> With regard to "Montaigne's [ ... ] *Apology for Raymond Sebond*" in general, Derrida states: "You will recognize that as one of the greatest pre- or anti-Cartesian texts on the animal" (Derrida 2002, p. 375; cf. spec. p. 375n.). In this respect, cf. Cummings: "Pliny left in place a countertradition on the question of animal rationality that Montaigne and others could still draw on" (Cummings 2004, p. 182); "the violence of Descartes's response, [ ... ] Descartes's denial of animal language[,] can hardly be understood outside its context in a specific refutation of Montaigne and his sympathizers. [ ... ] Sorabji surmises that Descartes went as far as he did only because of what Montaigne had said" (p. 180); cf. "'I cannot share the opinion of Montaigne and others who attribute understanding or thought to animals'. Descartes [ ... ] 1646", qtd. in (Cummings 2004, p. 185n.). In this respect, the following Cartesian assertion ties in refutatively with Montaigne (as qtd. above): "Et on ne doit pas [ ... ] penser, comme quelques anciens, que les bêtes parlent, bien que nous n'entendions pas leur langage: car s'il était vrai, puisqu'elles ont plusieurs organes qui se rapportent aux nôtres, elles pourraient aussi bien se faire entendre à nous qu'à leurs semblables" (Descartes 1969, p. 94, V.11, §59). For positions on Montaigne in the field of Animal Studies generally, see e.g., (Boehrer 2009, p. 545); (Boehrer 2010, p. 7); (Alves 2014, p. 272); (Enenkel and Smith 2007, pp. 11–12, with further references); (Fudge 2007, pp. 42–45); (Fudge 2006, pp. 78, 96, 117–122); (Perfetti 2011, pp. 148–49, 163–64); on "Pliny's elephant", "Montaigne's cat", Descartes, and Derrida, see also (Cummings 2004, pp. 179–81, here 179). For a "representative but not exhaustive" (Wolfe 2009, p. 572n.) overview of seminal publications in animal studies until 2009, see (Wolfe 2009, passim); for a succinct outline of (particularly) formative texts, cf. (Boehrer 2009, p. 543). Concerning "the degree to which an animal is presented true to himself or herself", see (Shapiro and Copeland 2005, p. 344). Generally, cf. the formulations: "the animality of the animal [ ... ] its presence as meaningful in itself" (Fudge 2004, p. 7); "die Tiere selbst, das Tier-Sein der Tiere" (Bühler-Dietrich and Weingarten 2016, p. 7; cf. pp. 12–14); "dass die Tiere nicht für sich selbst, sondern aus der menschlichen Perspektive gesehen werden" (Mussner 2015, p. 174; cf. p. 162); "Freud did not let the dog be a dog" (Beusterien 2016, p. 35). With regard to the author and texts at hand: "The animals of Cervantes remain more than metaphor" (Alves 2011, p. 56); Beusterien "turns to Animal Studies in order to argue on behalf of the elimination of the animal as figure" (Beusterien 2016, p. 36; cf. pp. 8, 109); cf. "para encontrar al animal verdadero detrás del tropo antropomórfico" (Martín 2012, p. 462; Martín 2014, p. 476); "varios animales pueden ser examinados como algo más que la abstracción que proveen las metáforas antropomórficas" (Martín 2012, p. 452); cf. (Martín 2014, p. 469); (Martín 2004, p. 1560). Contrast Boehrer's descriptive stance: "animal character is always necessarily figurative, a result of socially generated patterns of meaningful action [ ... ] despite [ ... ] Fudge's exhortation that we attend to 'the literal meaning of animals' in early modern texts [ ... ] animal character [ ... ] arises through group interaction, in the space between individuals. Whether the groups in question are intraspecies or cross-species, they generate a sense of social being that cannot be reduced [ ... ] to a literal notion of the *Tier an sich*" (Boehrer 2010, p. 22). Cf. "the cluster of attributes, often incompatible, associated with each species is historically inflected" (Perry 2004, p. 20). See also Mussner, evoking tropes as "eine auf Erfahrung mit dem Tier beruhende Wendung" (Mussner 2015, p. 174; cf. p. 173)—the selectivity of such (verbalized) experiences or observations (cf. "die versprachlichte Beobachtung", p. 175) notwithstanding; in this respect, see Cuneo's suggestive remark: "It matters that it is the horse as opposed to [ . . . ] a goat, who is chosen as a symbol for pride" (Cuneo 2014, p. 4)

accentuation, 'the real animal' is seen to come into focus, thereby counteracting a 'merely symbolic, purely figurative use' (judged to be *a priori* compromised on account of the latter's perceived semantic, notional, structural association with forms of exploitation).<sup>7</sup>

In this retrieval or liberation of 'the animal as such', the ensuing (also narratologically significant) aspects may seem to be suspended or elided: the textuality, virtuality, context, historical distance (alterity), and mediacy of the statement (including, in a scholarly environment, its stages of reception); the human being (here: the speaker of the *Essais*, usually identified with the historical author, referred to as 'Montaigne') performing the conjectural act of taking an animal's perspective based on (what is semiotically represented as) a tangible experience; the respective human recipient visualizing the textually sedimented (putatively authentic) interspecies encounter by notionally accommodating it to her own (previously immediate, now recollected) experience with animals, not necessarily of the feline kind (thereby tying in her own *Lebenswelt* with what is perceived as the speaker's lifeworld emerging suggestively from the text).

In an Animal Studies perspective, the collocation 'animal narration' might therefore seem a contradiction in terms, seeing that—rather than taking 'the animal as such'—it adds another expression with (semantic) associations and (historical) implications that the paradigm expressly rejects: mediatedness, indirection, irony, semblance, the verisimilar, virtuality, ornament, symbolism, metaphor, figuration, rhetoric; along with certain genres expected to display a particular partiality toward the former, such as fables, satires, emblems, allegories, and the like; as well as a respective hermeneutics (qua more mediacy).<sup>8</sup> In a radical view, the aspect of 'narration' might even be judged to be yet another arrantly anthropocentric mode, aiming to superstructure, earmark, instrumentalize, and ultimately veil 'the animate animal itself'.<sup>9</sup> By contrast, the language regime obtaining in the field of Animal Studies tends to privilege articulations positing immediacy, literalness, direct access, palpable life, authentic reality, truth, the body, nature, and animals.10

<sup>7</sup> See Wolfe: "Rather than treat the animal as primarily a theme, trope, metaphor, analogy, representation, or sociological datum [ ... ] scholars in animal studies" are to 'take the animal seriously' (Wolfe 2009, pp. 566–67). Cf. also the following formulations: "[in] reductive moves [ ... ] an animal or animal part is an instrument or resource for the use of humans. [ ... ] the animal is reduced radically [ ... ] [in] symbolic use, 'figurative appropriation' [ ... ] or ideational exploitation" (Shapiro and Copeland 2005, p. 344); "The dog as dog has disappeared [ ... ] animals were prompts to the abstract. [ ... ] animals were [ ... ] used [ ... ] animal behaviors were used" (Fudge 2006, pp. 106–7); "el empleo figurado del animal suele ser antropocéntrico, podría ser visto [ ... ] como pura explotación estética" (Martín 2012, p. 462); cf. "reduce al animal a un tropo" (Martín 2014, p. 472; see also p. 469). All the same, the fundamentally metaphorical 'nature' of language may lead even animal-intentioned critics into statements such as: "Will man sich auf eine ertragreiche Weise mit den Tieren in der Literatur beschäftigen" (Borgards 2015, pp. 226–27).

<sup>8</sup> Cf. e.g., "an occasional, tired, animal metaphor" (Shapiro and Copeland 2005, p. 343); "animals for Deleuze and Guattari are [ ... ] conceptual pieces in a philosophical game" (Raber 2013, p. 12). As to the bias against rhetoric on the part of Animal Studies, see (Borgards 2015, p. 226). Regarding the paradigm's rejection of a certain genre, see this catalytic statement on Derrida's part: "Above all, it would be necessary to avoid fables. We know the history of fabulation and how it remains an anthropomorphic taming, a moralizing subjection, a domestication. Always a discourse *of* man, on man, indeed on the animality of man, but for and as man" (Derrida 2002, p. 405; cf. pp. 374, 378, 403, 403n.).

<sup>9</sup> Generally, see Derrida's incisive caveat against "venturing to say almost anything at all for the cause, for whatever cause or interest" (Derrida 2002, p. 398).

<sup>10</sup> In hermeneutic terms, everything is to be read *in sensu litterali*, not *spirituali* (*allegorico*, *tropologico/morali, anagogico*). The same as biographistic or psychoanalytical criticism, such proclivities as outlined above may lead to deprioritizing the inevitably mediated state, the historical alterity, the virtuality, the (textually sedimented) rhetorico-strategic functions, of the respective material. Moreover, the reader's active participation in the production of meaning (by selective attention, by contributing associations, etc.) is sidelined along with textuality and mediacy—thereby (ultimately) spiriting away both the recipient and the medium. In discourse historical terms, the Animal Studies paradigm might (eventually) locate itself in a long tradition of cultural critique (along Lucretian, Rousseauist, Romanticist lines, for instance, and with the respective genres; as to the latter generally, cf. (Forcione 1989, p. 349)); in such a view, the field's apparent, occasionally voiced uneasiness with its disciplinary parentage, cultural studies—cf. (Wolfe 2009, passim, spec. pp. 565–66, 568); contrast (Dopico Black 2010, passim, spec. pp. 236–37)—would be the result of its *de re* affiliation to the above; consequently, certain radical positions might indeed be innocent of an awareness as to—or even feel inclined to expressly disown—their own condition of possibility: human culture. Cf. "natural and timeless because the return belongs with nature (the animal, instinct) and not with culture (the human, reason)" (Fudge 2007, p. 40). Contrast: "the concept of culture that informs cultural studies is always already inhabited by the human" (Dopico Black 2010, p. 237). Regarding the countless variants of a 'return to nature' (as tentatively listed above), see e.g., Derrida's emphasis on nudity (Derrida 2002, passim, spec. pp. 369, 373–74, 390, 418); Fudge's accentuation of 'homecoming' (Fudge 2007, passim), of recovery: "the project of this book is to

Facing this apparent aporia in terms of approach, one might have recourse precisely to Derrida's aforesaid lecture—recognized as foundational for, and widely received in, Animal Studies—for purposes of proposing a provisionally practicable path.<sup>11</sup> Two textual gestures seem to be of particular import in this respect: the essay's express and recurrent signaling of its own textuality; and Derrida's ostensive refunctionalization of a notorious Cartesian formula.

While articulating a desire to return to various manifestations of immediacy, the speaker repeatedly points both to the factual nonviability and the virtual possibility thereof: although all returns are virtual, they typically tend to be effectual only if that fact fails to register.12 The desired conflation—taking the virtual as the factual—occurs, as Derrida takes considerable care to render palpable, in the recipient (whether audience or reader), and precisely while acting in that capacity. Addressing others, language lays claim to reality:

I must make it clear from the start, the cat I am talking about is a real cat, truly, believe me, *a little cat*. It isn't the *figure* of a cat. It doesn't silently enter the room as an allegory for all the cats on the earth [...] that is *truly a little cat, this* cat I am talking about[.] (Derrida 2002, pp. 374–75)13

These protestations of verity and (deictic) emphases take place—and the cat exists—in language: "the cat said to be *real*" (p. 378) by a speaker, and potentially perceived as such by a recipient taking a semiotically mediated as an actual cat.14 In (always) other words: "It is an animal of reading and rewriting" (p. 406).

recover animals from the silence of modern scholarship" (Fudge 2006, p. 4); Raber's stress on a "belief in the primacy of the body [ ... ] the role of the body [ ... ] the significance of the body" (Raber 2013, pp. 12–13; cf. pp. 11, 19–20, 28, 30, passim), spec. as "this constant but incomplete search for actual animals with actual bodies" (p. 12); Boehrer's focus on a "return" to a "pre-Cartesian status" (Boehrer 2010, p. 12)—"to move beyond [ ... ] by moving behind [ ... ] to the issues and developments that preceded" (p. 12). In a Bataille/Kojève context, Agamben initially signals "a return to animality" (Agamben 2004, p. 5); "man, who has become animal again" (p. 6; cf. p. 7); "Kojève returns to the problem of man's becoming animal [ ... ] [']Man [ ... ] must also become purely 'natural' again['] [ ... ] [']man's return to animality[']" (pp. 9–10); this emphasis is reiterated at the end: "make its way back to [ ... ] from which it came [ ... ] to return to their original place" (Agamben 2004, p. 89); "man's regained animality" (p. 90)—returns frame Agamben's book. Having asked "¿cómo recuperamos al animal[?]" (Martín 2014, p. 472; cf. p. 476), Martín—with regard to "interrelaciones [ ... ] con otras especies" in Cervantes' *Quijote*—states: "ese mundo paralelo [ ... ] hay que recuperar y validar. Hacerlo es sólo una de las recompensas de los Estudios de Animales" (Martín 2012, p. 462); cf. (Martín 2014, p. 476). A similar tendency might be visible even in Cuneo's more cautious statement: "I would like to [ ... ] transport us out of the realm of the academic and the representational at least to the threshold of our lived lives" (Cuneo 2014, p. 13). Less warily, Wolfe asserts: "animal studies intersects with the larger problematic of posthumanism [ ... ] in the sense of returning us precisely to the thickness and finitude of human embodiment and to human evolution as itself a specific form of animality [ ... ] we are returned to a new sense of the materiality and particularity not just of the animal [ ... ] but also of that animal called the human" (Wolfe 2009, pp. 571–72); with a complimentary (re)turn inward at the end: "not just 'out there', among the birds and beasts, but 'in here' as well, at the heart of this thing we call human" (p. 572). Virtually any (ever theoretico-rhetorical) 'return to' tends to be a 'flight from'—in the case of Animal Studies: from anthropocentrism, most likely.

<sup>11</sup> As to the import of Derrida's aforesaid lecture, Wolfe states that it "is arguably the single most important event in the brief history of animal studies" (Wolfe 2009, p. 570); cf. (Bühler-Dietrich and Weingarten 2016, p. 8); see also Fudge's reading thereof (Fudge 2007, passim).

<sup>12</sup> As to a desire for immediacy in the face of constitutive indirection (given the linguistic medium), see the lecture's first line: "To begin with, I would like to entrust myself to words that, were it possible, would be naked" (Derrida 2002, p. 369)—with emphasis on the qualification; similarly, see the gradation and positing accentuated here: "posing them [sc. 'some hypotheses in view of theses'] simply, naked, frontally, as directly as possible, *pose* them" (p. 392); as well as, at the end: "the naked truth, if there is such a thing [ ... ] Nudity perhaps remains untenable" (p. 418). As to immediacy, see (pp. 369, 372, 374, 376, 378, 400, 418). For express emphasis on indirect structures, cf. e.g., "labyrinthine, even aberrant, leading us astray from lure to lure" (p. 392); "It will not be a matter of attacking frontally or antithetically" (p. 398). In Derrida's essay, returns are legion—cf. (Derrida 2002, pp. 369, 392–93, 400–1, 413, 418); meta-poetically, the text lays bare its recursive structure as such (pp. 380–381, 390, 401, 406, 412n.); cf. spec. "I must once more return to" (p. 380); "a term that will come back more than once, from different places and in different registers" (p. 381); "Yet I have been wanting to bring myself back to my nudity before the cat" (p. 390); "We will have reason to go back over these steps and tracks" (p. 401); "But since I wish ultimately to return at length to" (p. 406); "I will return to this" (p. 412n.).

<sup>13</sup> For instances of what might appear to be a conflation of the figurative with the factual (and taken as the latter) in the present context, see e.g., (Fudge 2008, pp. 188–89; cf. p. 199); (Alves 2011, p. 62); (Raber 2013, pp. 79–80); (Beusterien 2009, pp. 212, 219); (Beusterien 2016, pp. 8, 38–39). With respect to the poetics of the Cervantine *œuvre*, an (*a priori*) rejection of the *modus obliquus*, of irony, of intercalated narrative levels and diverse perspectives, would arguably be particularly problematic.

<sup>14</sup> Laying bare this linguistic factuality, Derrida refers to Carroll's "*Alice in Wonderland*" and "*Through the Looking Glass*", quoting from the latter the phrase "'really a little cat'"—and later glosses that a respective intertextuality might even obtain throughout: "In fact you can't be certain that I am not doing that" (Derrida 2002, p. 376). Cf. "It is a question of words,

A form of indirection recurs also at another level. In the face of its allusively familiar appearance, Derrida's patent gesture towards Descartes—already visible in the lecture's title "L'Animal que donc je suis (à suivre)" (Derrida 2002, p. 369n.), and reiterated in variation throughout (cf. e.g., pp. 371–72, 379–83, 386, 400–1, 403, 407, 410, 416, 418)—is not a structurally equivalent reformulation. While the Cartesian "vérité: *je pense, donc je suis*" (Descartes 1969, p. 52, IV.1, §33) tenders a quasi-non-processual formula (the 'therefore' notwithstanding), Derrida—maintaining (immediate) identifiability not least by a partial citation—alters its structure entirely.<sup>15</sup> Into the self's processing of itself, he intercalates an other: "I see it [sc. a 'cat'] as *this* irreplaceable living being [ ... ]. Nothing can ever take away from me the certainty that what we have here is an existence that refuses to be conceptualized" (Derrida 2002, pp. 378–79).<sup>16</sup> The *ego*'s unshakable foundation is external to itself: an *alter* that cannot be incorporated—"the *wholly other that they call animal, for example, a cat*" (p. 380)—and that might, for instance, "manifest to me in some way *its* experience of *my* language, of *my* words" (p. 387).17 Derrida's formula of indirection renders in expressly processual terms Descartes' virtual tautology of the self's all but immediate recourse to itself.18 Belying the surface, the perceived Cartesian and Derridean tendencies are thus fundamentally at variance (immediacy vs. indirection); in the latter case, human beings arrive at themselves by way of a detour—via an other, specifically animals.19 In

therefore. [ ... ] an exploration of language" (p. 401; see pp. 409, 416–17, passim)—language being another of humankind's detours to itself (cf. (Derrida 2002, pp. 390, 401)). Derrida also signals (semiotic, linguistic) mediatedness by dwelling on the (human) act of naming, calling, classifying animals (cf. *Gen* 2:19–20)—see (Derrida 2002, pp. 380–81, 385–86, 392, 398–99, passim), spec. "what they call the animal" (p. 380); "the gaze called animal" (p. 381); in this respect, see also the critique of an inevitable linguistic possessiveness, of animal ownership in and via language (Derrida 2002, pp. 375–76, 383, 390); "*Animal* is a word that men have given themselves the right to give" (p. 400). Fudge reiterates the pattern: "Derrida insists that this incident with his cat is a real encounter [ ... ]. He describes the scene, returning insistently to his nakedness, his *actual* nakedness" (Fudge 2007, p. 45; cf. p. 46)—with the 'scenic' quality accentuated; "Derrida's repeated return to his own nakedness *in a lecture*, in a medium in which he stands in front of his audience and speaks of his own full frontal nakedness. The philosopher—the great mind—asks his audience, who are fast becoming his spectators, to view him as a body, and worse, as a *naked* body" (Fudge 2007, p. 46)—with emphasis on (the several layers of) 'mediatedness'. The scene to be envisioned has affinities to Diogenical practice.

<sup>15</sup> On Gómez Pereira's (structural) precursorship with regard to (apparently) Cartesian notions ("We have here a 'Nosco ergo sum'"), see (Dopico Black 2010, pp. 241–45, here 243). Concerning the elision of the 'ergo', see Blumenberg: "In ihr [sc. der 'Reflexion'] wird dieses Bewußtsein sich selbst das Andere [ ... ]. Es ist das Problem, das Descartes offenlegte, als er das ausdrückliche oder heimliche 'ergo' im *Cogito sum* bestritt oder verschwinden ließ" (Blumenberg 2006b, p. 154; cf. pp. 155, 161, 169–72); cf. "der schon zu Lebzeiten des Descartes von seinen Korrespondenten geäußerte Verdacht, im *cogito ergo sum* stecke ein diskursiver Prozeß, folglich sei momentane Evidenz ohne Erinnerungseinfluß ausgeschlossen" (p. 161).

<sup>16</sup> Contrast: "cette certitude [ ... ]: *je pense, donc je suis* [ ... ] pour penser, il faut être" (Descartes 1969, p. 54, IV.3, §34). To tentatively put Derrida's move in (counter-)Cartesian terms: the desired "certainty" is externalized into the apparently irreducible being of an 'other than the self'; hence (perchance): 'I perceive (my perceiving) that the other is (other), therefore I am'. In other words: it is by insisting on the other's fundamental alterity that the self comes into (perceiving, being) its self (contrast the tendency in Schopenhauer's Vedantic reference above). Derrida seems to be insinuating which blueprint for conceptualizing 'radical alterity' he is refunctionalizing when suggesting: "I hear the cat or God ask itself, ask *me*" (Derrida 2002, p. 387).

<sup>17</sup> See Montaigne: "the animals that live with us recognize our voice" (Montaigne 1989, p. 343, II.12); "How could they [sc. 'animals'] not speak to one another? They certainly speak to us, and we to them. In how many ways do we not speak to our dogs? And they answer us. We talk to them in another language [ ... ] and we change the idiom according to the species" (Montaigne 1989, p. 335, II.12); see (Derrida 2002, p. 375n.). Cf. (spec. with the qualification in brackets): "In dieser von den Tieren ausgehenden Wirkung auf uns erfahren wir nicht nur etwas über uns selbst, sondern es ist nun sinnvoll möglich zu sagen, dass vermittelst dieser (Rück-)Wirkung wir etwas über die Tiere *selbst* (*aber nicht*: über Tiere an sich) erfahren" (Bühler-Dietrich and Weingarten 2016, pp. 13–14). Rather revealingly in this respect, Fudge claims: "In a world without animals, humans [ ... ] would lose themselves" (Fudge 2006, p. 36); "Taking animals seriously [ ... ] offers us [ ... ] another way of conceptualizing both ourselves and the world around us" (Fudge 2006, p. 4; cf. p. 109). Derrida situates his entire *œuvre* with respect to "the question of the living and of the living animal. For me that will always have been the most important and decisive question. I have addressed it [ ... ], either directly or obliquely, by means of readings of *all* the philosophers I have taken an interest in, beginning with Husserl" (Derrida 2002, p. 402).

<sup>18</sup> With the latter only temporarily delayed or deferred by the time it takes to think, say, or write: '*cogito sum*' (and but marginally accelerated by eliding the '*ergo*'). As regards the apparently human need for (self-)reflection (at least in theory), one might—in this particular context—adduce that (as per Agamben's reading) "Linnaeus [ ... ] defined *Homo* as the animal that *is* only if it recognizes that it *is not*" (Agamben 2004, p. 27); "man has no specific identity other than the *ability* to recognize himself. [ ... ] *Homo sapiens* [ ... ] is [ ... ] a machine or device for producing the recognition of the human" (pp. 25–26)—potentially, that is.

<sup>19</sup> This indirection via the animal seems particularly patent at the end: "And in the first place, me [ ... ] Is there animal narcissism? But cannot this cat also be [ ... ] my primary mirror?" (Derrida 2002, p. 418). Cf. "In [ ... ] Derrida's lecture

Cuneo's felicitously parrhesiastic wording: "We use all kinds of animals as homing 'devices', to tell ourselves and others who we are, where we are, and where we are going. We use animals to orient ourselves" (Cuneo 2014, p. 2).20 By ceaselessly returning to returning, Derrida's essay moreover and at once performs the impossibility (respectively, the virtuality) of direct access, and the ineluctability of indirection (specifically: of language).21

In light of the above, the fact that virtually all criticism in the field of Animal Studies seems to be (insistingly, tacitly) channeling its efforts through Descartes might be additionally motivated.<sup>22</sup> Naturally, certain Cartesian assertions (blatantly dis)regarding animals render 'him' an expedient antagonist.<sup>23</sup> Yet the paradigm's tendency to privilege immediacy—and not the discursive tendencies in Derrida—may seem to align it with the Cartesian pattern, suggesting another reason for why Animal Studies can apparently neither do with nor without 'Descartes'.

Arguably, the seemingly comfortable Cartesian recourse (with its negative leading sign only increasing that effect) results in a perspectival foreshortening, one outcome of which appears to be a

<sup>[... ]</sup> can be traced an admission of the centrality of animals to the assertion of human status" (Fudge 2007, p. 51). Candidly, Cuneo accentuates "the [ ... ] foundational, [ ... ] complex, [ ... ] ubiquitous ways in which humans use animals, not just for physical labor or for scientific experimentation, but for representational work and for self-definition. [... ] [the] human use of animals [ ... ] includ[es] our own scholarly use of historical animals to perform our professional identities" (Cuneo 2014, p. 3; cf. pp. 4, 14). See also Bühler's structurally comparable position in an epistemological context, stressing "dass ein bestimmtes Wissen vom Menschen alleine über den Umweg über das Tier gewonnen werden kann. So werden Tiere in Experimentalsystemen zu Objekten des Wissens und fungieren dabei als Substitute des Menschen" (Bühler 2016, p. 20; on substitution in that regard, see also pp. 20–21, 23–26, 33, 35–36, 38). For a poetico-literary context, cf. "In der langen Geschichte jenes Reflektierens der Menschen über sich fällt dem Tier [ ... ] eine besondere Rolle zu" (Kohlhauer 2002, p. 52). Generally in this respect, cf. "[']Yet they needed them [sc. 'animals'] in order to draw from their nature an experimental knowledge ['*ad experimentalem cognitionem*'][']", Aquinas qtd. in (Agamben 2004, p. 22). In terms of animal heuristics, see also Montaigne's formulations: "These are particular actions; but what everyone has seen and what everyone knows" (Montaigne 1989, p. 342, II.12); "if anyone studies closely what we see ordinarily of the animals that live among us, there is material there for him to find facts" (pp. 342–43, II.12).

<sup>20</sup> Cf. "There are many stories, told by philosophers, historians, poets, about dogs [ ... ] the stories told about dogs [... ] are never really about dogs at all, they are always about humans" (Fudge 2007, p. 37). See Beusterien, paraphrasing "Garber's position", which "argues that the critical return to the human is [... ] taking place in the study of the dog" (Beusterien 2016, p. 5n.).

<sup>21</sup> In appropriating Derrida's lecture, the paradigm of Animal Studies may seem to have isolated the instances calling for immediacy; such a reading would also have been facilitated by passing over the explicit signals of indirection as are provided in the text's various auto-referential gestures, including the ironies of apparent authorial intent, which signal its constitutive state of mediatedness, of virtuality. For such techniques tender a structural, syntactico-semantic realization of the underlying configuration (indirection over immediacy) in a quasi-permanent '*mise en abyme du discours*'—to adopt Küpper's formulation from another context (Küpper 1990, pp. 342, 370, 372, 381); this procedure is arguably characteristic of Derrida's *écriture* in general. Cf. "Derrida's tale [sc. 'its end'] ultimately [ ... ] returns us, it seems, to its beginning" (Fudge 2007, p. 48). The aforesaid pattern also appears to transfer itself into readings of his work: "I want to read Derrida as the re-teller of a key myth of modernity that brings together the dog, the home and the human. [ ... ] I will, like Lassie to her home, return to Derrida" (Fudge 2007, p. 38).

<sup>22</sup> See Fudge's findings concerning the reception of Descartes, particularly in Early Modern England (Fudge 2006, pp. 5–6, 147–74; spec. pp. 153, 156, 160, 172); as well as her incisive critique of the (tacit) presence of a Cartesian approach (including the respective notions as to animals) in contemporary scholarship, which, in part, is seen to project that discourse back on, or into, pre-Cartesian writings (Fudge 2006, pp. 175–93, especially 179–80, 185); needless to say, spec. Cartesian positions cannot apply to Cervantine texts. On Descartes in the context of Animal Studies, see also (Boehrer 2009, pp. 545–46); (Boehrer 2010, pp. 9–10; spec. pp. 12, 24); (Martín 2014, p. 475); (Bühler 2013, p. 191); likewise Raber, who (while stating that "[b]oth of these critics [sc. 'Boehrer', 'Fudge'] clearly struggle against Descartes' legacy") wishes to "fully subvert[... ] Cartesianism" by way of "look[ing] to histories and narratives about embodiment"—since, "[a]s long as we fight over reason, we are stuck on Descartes' playing field" (Raber 2013, p. 11). Cf. "As any medievalist or early modern scholar will tell you, the question of the animal assumes, if anything, even more centrality in earlier periods; [ ... ] the idea of the animal that we have inherited from the Enlightenment and thinkers such as Descartes and Kant is better seen as marking a brief period" (Wolfe 2009, p. 564). Similarly: "in most posthumanist accounts, Descartes tends to be the go-to man [ ... ], a habit we might question" (Dopico Black 2010, p. 237).

<sup>23</sup> For the Cartesian positions on animals in this respect, see (Descartes 1969, pp. 90–97, V.9–12, §§56–60); spec. "le corps de chaque animal [ ... ] comme une machine" (p. 90, V.9, §56). Cf. "Between Augustine and Rousseau, [ ... ] within the evolving history of the *ego cogito ergo sum*, stands Descartes. He waits for us with his animal-machines" (Derrida 2002, p. 391; cf. pp. 396, 400). Such (apparently unworldly) Cartesian speculations about beings other than humans would likely have made (or make) no sense to anyone in the presence of—and engaging with—animals on a daily basis: "*Cartesius certe non vidit simios*", Linnaeus qtd. in (Agamben 2004, p. 23); cf. "the orthodox philosophical debate sits at odds with what was apparently obvious to day-to-day living. Animals think" (Fudge 2006, p. 145); see also Thomas as qtd. in (Boehrer 2010, p. 26).

virtually complete pretermission of discourses with cynical affinities from the pertinent discussions within Animal Studies—and this despite Cynicism's sustained impact since its emergence in Antiquity, particularly also in terms of always already destabilizing the (now) so-called "human-animal divide" (Boehrer 2010, p. 3; Raber 2013, p. 30).<sup>24</sup> In this respect, the (historically pre-Cartesian) Cervantine texts to be described below might provide a perspectival counterpoise, seeing that they (explicitly, by implication) draw attention to the import of discourses with cynical affinities, and precisely in a context featuring (speaking) animals at a literal level; conceivably, such a nexus might tender a plausible basis (or incentive) for judiciously engaging with discourses of a cynical color also in the field whose discourse and method are under scrutiny here.

Having tentatively outlined (via Descartes, Derrida) selected discursive ground swells of Animal Studies, one might return to the above aporia, and formulate certain provisional observations in terms of method, specifically with a view to the nexus of 'animals' and 'narration'.

As a focalizing device, an Animal Studies approach might serve a heuristic function in addressing textualized aspects hitherto unacknowledged, accentuating hermeneutic lacunae, drawing attention to data on, and descriptions of, animals sedimented in material and virtual documents, in works of art.<sup>25</sup>

<sup>24</sup> Cf. Bühler, condensing theorizations on the part of (among others) Plessner, Simmel, Derrida, Luhman, and Lotman into the formula: "Grenzen sind nicht gegeben, sondern werden gemacht" (Bühler 2013, p. 13). Faced with "the border between human and animal" (Agamben 2004, p. 21; cf. pp. 22, 36)—this "hiatus" (p. 92) that, "[i]n our culture", may seem to be "the decisive political conflict" (p. 80)—Agamben posits "a mobile border within living man" (p. 15): "the caesura between the human and the animal passes first of all within man" (p. 16; cf. p. 79); in so doing, he searches for instances where the "critical threshold, at which the difference between animal and human, which is so decisive for our culture, threatens to vanish" (p. 21). Describing "the blurring of the lines between humans and animals" in the Middle Ages, Salisbury states: "The separation between animals and humans seemed to be lost even as contemporary influential thinkers like Thomas Aquinas were asserting the absolute difference between the species" (Salisbury 1994, p. 134); he stresses that, from a Medieval viewpoint, "the species were ['closely'] linked in people's minds: animals cannot live without men" (pp. 18–19)—concerning the manifold ties between dogs and humans in the Middle Ages, see spec. (pp. 45–49, 135). Cf. Raber, remarking that in "Renaissance culture, [ ... ] the boundary that divides human from animal is neither fixed nor stable" (Raber 2013, pp. 9–10). With regard to notions concerning animals in Early Modern times, Fudge notes the—discourse historically significant—impact of (Ancient) Skepticism, spec. in terms of its (effectively dissimilar) influence on Montaigne and Descartes; in particular, she accentuates "the impact on human–animal relations of the rediscovery of the skeptical writings of Sextus Empiricus in the sixteenth century" (Fudge 2006, p. 5; cf. pp. 116–22)—spec. that "Sextus constantly takes animals as evidence of the boundary of human understanding" (p. 117). As to the pretermission of Diogenes and Cynicism where mention would seem requisite (discourse historically speaking), cf. e.g., "I plan to speak endlessly of nudity and of the nude in philosophy. Starting from Genesis" (Derrida 2002, p. 369; cf. p. 374); "a properly *transgressal* if not transgressive experience of limitrophy" (p. 397; similarly: pp. 399, 408); likewise in Fudge, see (Fudge 2007, p. 45; cf. p. 46), e.g., when speaking of "this undermining of the opposition between reason and unreason" (Fudge 2006, p. 3); and especially, when citing Joubert's definition of "'untrue' [ ... ] laughter" as "'dog laughter' or the '*cynic spasm*'", since "'angry and threatening dogs have this look'", qtd. in (Fudge 2006, p. 17; cf. pp. 25, 35); similarly when Fudge later mentions the "connection between scornfulness and laughter" as "repeated by numerous early modern thinkers in England" (p. 19); likewise: "a pissing dog comes to stand for everything that a human is not, and cannot be" (Fudge 2008, p. 198); cf. Raber, referring to the latter remark, as well as to "Topsell" on "'rayling' as a characteristic of the cur: 'The voice of a Dogge [ ... ] is by the learned interpreted as rayling and angry speech', which is why dogs are sometimes used as 'emblems of vile, cursed, rayling, and filthy men'", qtd. in (Raber 2013, p. 145). In such instances, mention of cynicism would seem indispensable (discourse historically speaking). Given her topic, Mussner's omission of cynicism may seem striking (Mussner 2015, passim). *A Cultural History of Animals in the Renaissance*, cf. (Boehrer 2011, passim), mentions "Diogenes of Sinope, the Cynic philosopher" only in passing, and apparently without the critical attention requisite (Perfetti 2011, p. 163); the other references to cynicism in that ed. volume seem to be valuative, rather than discourse historically motivated: cf. "cynical overtones" (De Ornellas 2011, p. 31); "less cynical, demonstrably sincere" (p. 34); "the [ ... ] cynical use of the pelican image [ ... ] inspire[s] equal cynicism" (p. 36). By contrast, Perry—who examines instances of Early Modern English animal narration without rejecting rhetoric, cf. (Perry 2004, pp. 19, 30, 33), or certain genres (such as fables and satires)—refers to "Swetnam['s] [ ... ] following the model of Diogenes", with "several responses [ ... ] turn[ing] his self-representation as a snarling dog back on himself" (p. 24).

<sup>25</sup> Generally in this respect, Fudge emphasizes that "there is no such thing as a pure human society" considering "the number of day-to-day interactions between humans and animals in all areas of life" (Fudge 2004, p. 6). Cf. "there is no such thing as human identity, history, *culture*, without the prior cooperation, collaboration, habitation, ideological appropriation, consumption of animals, without animals as the 'always already' of both materiality and culture itself" (Raber 2013, p. 28). Boehrer speaks of a "heavy integration of animals into" numerous "aspects of early modern society"—which includes the "literary": "Montaigne's *Apology for Raymond Sebonde* [ ... ] abounds with sentient beasts" (Boehrer 2009, p. 545); cf. (Boehrer 2010, p. 7); "in early modern culture" there was a "literal and figurative proximity of nonhuman to human animals" (Boehrer 2009, p. 545); cf. (Boehrer 2010, p. 8). For the Spanish context, Alves stresses: "all ranks and estates interacted to a greater or lesser extent with nonhuman animals" (Alves 2014, p. 271). As "the three principal uses to which early modern Europeans put the beasts in their lives", Boehrer suggests: "haulage, companionship, and food" (Boehrer 2010,

Such would include (Ancient, contemporaneous) notions about a perceived flora and fauna (common knowledge, particular views) as conveyed by the respective text or object.<sup>26</sup>

Written animals speaking (narrating) in the human tongue appear in texts, whose protagonists are virtual characters; Borgards suggests the term "*diegetic animals*" qua "appearing as living beings [ ... ] within the narrated world" (Borgards 2015, p. 225; trans. dsm).27 This does not necessarily involve their standing (in) for something else (such as human beings), nor that theirs would be a 'merely symbolic' use.28 In a crafted textual environment, animals will inevitably be rhetorically rendered, strategically placed, often also with discursive implications; yet this need not entail their not also

p. 18). Cf. what Raber gives as "some of the most ordinary, unremarkable, and unremarked experiences of early modern life: using a dog to hunt or herd, petting a cat, riding a horse" (Raber 2013, p. 14); with respect to "the dog" as "[t]hat most ubiquitous of pets", she accentuates a "wide set of useful tasks for individual businesses (butchers [ ... ] still used dogs to bait bulls [ ... ])", which "brought them into the city in huge numbers" (p. 140). Alves has: "On the ground, in practical application, many Spaniards, like other early modern Europeans, predominantly saw animals as sources of labor, food, and entertainment—as objects to be used to enhance their human lives" (Alves 2014, p. 273); cf. "en la temprana época moderna los animales eran absolutamente centrales en las vidas de los humanos, como alimento, ropa, medios de transporte y trabajo, y como compañía" (Martín 2014, p. 468).

<sup>26</sup> A note on alterity—on the other that is the text—may seem requisite at this point. If the initial, producing and receiving culture considered certain views plausible, it is not for the 'modern critic' to ignore them (to say nothing of deeming them absurd). Cautioning against positivistic approaches, Enenkel/Smith highlight "*its* [sc. of 'early modern zoology'] *striking alterity and discontinuity from modern science*" (Enenkel and Smith 2007, p. 5), and call for contextualization: "Various methods of animal description may occur at the same time [ ... ]. Most important are the specific historical contexts, interests, needs and the literary, theological, philosophical and artistic discourses" (p. 5). For a seventeenth century context, Bühler stresses: "die Antike ['blieb'] als Argumentationsfolie auch weiterhin erhalten" (Bühler 2016, p. 20). Emphasizing alterity ("strikingly different from our own"), Salisbury cautions: "Our notions about animals were not uniformly acquired nor have they remained constant over time" (Salisbury 1994, p. 3)—cf. what may seem a particularly marked instance of Medieval alterity: "a saint's cult that completely eliminates the lines between humans and animals", "that of Saint Guinefort, a greyhound" (p. 175); at once, Salisbury notes certain relatively durable continuities: "dogs had been serving the same functions for millennia" (p. 18). See Callaghan, stressing "the radical alterity of nascent modernity" (Callaghan 2003, p. 58), spec. with regard to "that shady area, both literal and metaphoric, of relations between the species" (p. 64). Contrast the following claims: "para buscar al animal en *Don Quijote* a veces hay que leer a Cervantes contra Cervantes [ ... ] para encontrar al animal verdadero detrás del tropo antropomórfico hay que mirar dentro y más allá del texto en sí" (Martín 2014, p. 476); cf. (Martín 2012, p. 462); as well as the obverse: "Cervantes anticipates postures from Animal Studies" (Beusterien 2016, p. 42; cf. pp. 47, 49). Texts and material objects (such as paintings) are embedded in their (back)grounds of emergence in manifold ways, not least in carrying along sedimented assumptions, views previously held. Moreover, general and prevalent, widely held notions (also about animals) may tend to be of greater import with regard to works of art (including literature) than particularist notions not available to most recipients (in terms of prior knowledge)—unless expressly contained in the respective document or material item itself. What Cuneo describes with reference to a particular context—"a suggestive mixture of eye-witnessing and authoritative accounts (textual and verbal) with folklore, literary conventions and [ ... ] anecdotes" (Cuneo 2014, p. 12)—may apply to animals (as represented) in literature generally. Cf. Boehrer, stressing "the innumerable [ ... ] commonplaces whereby traditional language assumes a continuity between human and nonhuman animal experience" (Boehrer 2010, p. 3). Arguably, it is only as a relative remark that the following holds good even 'today': "Nahezu alles, was wir heute als alltägliches Wissen von Tieren haben, ist geprägt durch wissenschaftliches Wissen" (Bühler-Dietrich and Weingarten 2016, p. 15); contrast Mussner, stressing "dass die in der Allgemeinsprache verwendeten Tierbezeichnungen häufig nicht der wissenschaftlichen Taxonomie entsprechen" (Mussner 2015, p. 161). Cf. Blumenberg's remark concerning the relative 'inertia or remanence of language'—"daß die Sprache von hoher Trägheit ist" (Blumenberg 2009, p. 129)—in another context; also exemplified in this: "Was auch immer wir wissen, die Sonne geht über uns auf und unter, insgeheim sogar für uns auf und unter" (Blumenberg 2011, p. 311).

<sup>27</sup> In her reading of "talking animals" in Early Modern English satire—with spec. focus on their inducing "pleasure for readers" (Perry 2004, p. 20; cf. pp. 19, 27, 29, 31, 33), and emphasizing "the power of rhetoric" (p. 19; cf. pp. 30, 33)—Perry, tentatively "borrow[ing] [ ... ] Ritvo's term", speaks of "'rhetorical' animal[s]", while simultaneously signaling their having "very little in common with [ ... ] [their] 'material' counterpart" (Perry 2004, p. 20). Concerning speaking animals from a generally narratological perspective, see (Borgards 2015, p. 226)); while initially admitting that "die Tiere der Literatur zunächst aus Wörtern ['bestehen']. Literaturtiere sind Textgestalten" (Borgards 2015, p. 225)—he later censures the fact (in anthropocentric terms): "Literaturtiere sind [ ... ] Produkte von Menschen für Menschen, gelesen und interpretiert von Menschen; die Tiere, die unsere Welt bevölkern, spielen dabei kaum eine Rolle. Dieser anthropozentrischen Perspektive lässt sich eine theriozentrische Haltung entgegensetzen" (p. 227). Naturally, such a professed 'theoriocentric stance' would (supposing its viability) be taken—and valued as such—by human beings. Later, Borgards does call for the—frankly anthropocentric—modes of "contextualization, historicization" repeatedly (p. 228; trans. dsm; cf. pp. 227, 229), and vehemently: "zwingend nötige [ . . . ] Historisierung" (p. 229).

<sup>28</sup> Cf. Fudge, "asserting that the animals within these texts are to be interpreted as animals and not simply as symbols of something else" (Fudge 2006, p. 4)—with 'interpretation' qua mediacy.

being present—at a literal level—as (the portrayal of) an animal in its capacity as animal within a virtual realm.<sup>29</sup>

A textual dog, for instance, might be represented (and appresented) as barking, retrieving, biting, shepherding, etc.—with there being no need to allegorize (and moralize) such semiotized phenomena with a view to human behavior. While not passing over other planes textually present, one might stay at a literal level, provisionally: the recipient is faced with the description of a virtual canine, appearing—in the context of a world semiotically induced—as a dog. The terms 'rhetorical' and 'figure' would then signify a plausibly rendered, textual canine, significantly and strategically placed in a virtual context, crafted by recourse to a (verbal) medium—and 'realized' by a recipient.30 The latter would supply the corresponding—culturally conditioned, personally inflected—signifieds; tie the semiotically engendered virtual realm in with her (immediate, recollected) experience, translating a textual reality into her own; and, perchance, attempt to take a respective animal's perspective. Via this detour—a virtual appresentation, particular appropriation, grounded in a human being's potential for conceivably putting itself where it is not (in another's place)—such may indeed lead to an altered perception of, and appreciation for, actual animals in the respective recipient's realm of (haptic, olfactory, etc.) immediacy, in her material lifeworld.31

If these observations are held plausible, it might seem to be a viable approach to describe a work's inevitably mediated status (its virtuality, textuality), its historicity, (socio-moral) alterity, its structural (including narrative) devices, its rhetorico-strategic disposition (without reducing the art to *elocutio*)—while also accentuating the descriptions of (historically observable) animal behavior and (culturally specific) practices involving animals sedimented in a given work (of art).<sup>32</sup> In addition

<sup>29</sup> In terms of genre, it might especially be epics and novels that—in characteristically crafting (the impression of) 'entire worlds'—would all but naturally seem to include 'animals as animals'; hence (perchance) the tentative plausibility of suggestions such as: "*Don Quixote*'s animals are the animals of Spain in [a] literary microcosm" (Alves 2011, p. 58); "*Don Quijote* [ . . . ] contiene una cantidad elevadísima de animales reales" (Martín 2014, p. 470); cf. (Martín 2012, p. 452).

<sup>30</sup> If inclined to do justice to a mediated (textual, virtual) animal, one will arguably have to take seriously the media (texts, paintings, etc.) providing the semiotic stimuli for the recipient's notional 'realization' of the animal represented. Close attention to the medium, to mediatedness, is the premise of a careful reading of a given textual animal, of the descriptions and views concerning animals. The reader makes—renders, 'realizes'—the animal; consequently, contextualization (including the reception) is needful. To spirit away the reader is to do likewise unto the animal: isolating a perceived 'animal as such' will lead to its effacement. Any perceived (interpreted) 'reality'—including an otherwise textual one—will be the 'realization' of its respective recipient. Striving to work as descriptively as possible, scholarship can attempt to describe these processes, their workings, and can never be free of them. The same obtains in a related matter: for, as far as "question[ing] anthropocentrism" (Wolfe 2009, p. 572; cf. pp. 568–69) is concerned, one might have to add that, for the most part, such curiously inquisitive conduct seems to be performed by animals capable of engaging in virtuality, and spec. such as they themselves have set up by, and for, themselves. In this view, perspectival inversion ('theriocentrism', 'posthumanism', cultural critique) is human. Structurally, see Raber on "the use of the term 'nonhuman animal'", while not also "refer[ring] to a human as a 'non-canine' animal": "of all animals only *we* feel we need to signal our *lack* of distinction" (Raber 2013, p. 195n.). Generally, cf. "Doch scheint die Spezies Mensch ein großes Stück weit über das hinaus zu gehen, was andere Tiere machen, mithilfe oder aufgrund ihrer Sprache" (Mussner 2015, p. 157).

<sup>31</sup> Cf. what Wolfe calls "the mobilization in literary texts of identification and sympathetic imagination regarding animals" (Wolfe 2009, p. 569); he emphasizes "the embodied finitude that we share with nonhuman animals" (p. 570; cf. p. 571). Borgards suggests: "Literatur kann versuchsweise die Perspektive eines Tieres einnehmen" (Borgards 2015, p. 227)—a performance on the part of human beings, who conceive of, and receive, literature. Cf. "We all have some knowledge of the life of a nonhuman animal and [ ... ] some ability to empathize with the world-as-experienced by that animal" (Shapiro and Copeland 2005, p. 345). As regards the author and texts at hand, see also Beusterien, with reference to Haraway (Beusterien 2016, pp. 3, 7, 42, 47).

<sup>32</sup> Cf. "historians [ ... ] depend on documents written by humans for other humans. The animals have left no documents behind. [ ... ] We cannot hear the animals—all we hear is human chatter" (Cuneo 2014, p. 3)—hence "an acceptance of the mediated nature of historical knowledge" (p. 4) is requisite. See also the balanced formulation of Cuneo's guiding questions: "What kinds of identities (both human and animal) were generated by interactions between human and animal? How were these identities articulated, for what purposes, and for what kinds of audiences" (Cuneo 2014, p. 2); as well as her nuanced remark: "animals were used both physically and symbolically by human animals [ ... ] some interactions between humans and animals can do more than one thing simultaneously" (pp. 4–5). See Fudge: "to ignore animals is to ignore key aspects of our own culture. [ ... ] it is not only real animals that are significant to so-called human culture. It is also conceptual animals [ ... ] animals of the mind" (Fudge 2008, p. 187); "the real and the conceptual are not [... ] wholly separate spheres. In the early modern period they can become enmeshed" (p. 188)—the latter apparently modifying her earlier claim: "to ignore [ ... ] the link made between humans and *real* animals in many texts from the ['early modern'] period [ ... ] is to translate real animals into figurative ones [ ... ]. If there was a beast in man, there were also numerous

(and as the case may require), one might tender hypotheses concerning textually implicit attitudes towards animals, perhaps in conjunction with wary observations comparing multifaceted historical positions and points of view with those of a given present or paradigm.33 One might, in Blumenberg's formulation, 'mobilize implications in retrospect'.<sup>34</sup>

In anticipation of the findings to be detailed in the ensuing readings, further aspects relevant to the matter at hand might be adduced at this point, and tied in with the above reflections on method: while cultivating a dialogic form in arrangement and presentation, the novella and colloquy studied herein are—in discourse historical terms—rather proximate to the Montaignian approach of staging a pluralistic panorama of voices (including the cynical), of juxtaposing various viewpoints or positions (also with respect to animals), and permitting their textual coexistence and concomitance. In terms of design, the Cervantine *novelas*—as his *œuvre* by and large—might also be seen as paradigmatic instances of manifold forms of indirection, accentuating mediatedness (the medium, situation of reception, the reader's role in appresenting a tendered realm and its virtual residents, here specifically speaking animals), and effectually deploying diverse techniques of layering: in terms of a poetics of plot, and as regards the different notional levels textually present (relating to a possible reception)—such as a potential simultaneity of discursive, figurative, and literal planes (the latter being of particular significance in the present context).

The texts to be described in the following take and tender the perspective of an animal—specifically one that has always been particularly proximate to human beings (and vice versa).<sup>35</sup> Even so, the agent performing that 'taking' is—intratextually (in the narrative framework: Campuzano as author, Peralta as reader), extratextually (from a poetic and hermeneutic point of view:

beasts outside of man" (Fudge 2006, p. 177). Generally, cf. "die Tiere der Literatur [ . . . ] stehen mit den Tieren der Welt in einem vielfältigen und wechselseitigen Austausch" (Borgards 2015, p. 229; cf. p. 228); "the metaphor is intertwined with the realities of human animal-relations" (Alves 2011, p. 60n.; cf. p. 62)—a remark that might be infinitized. As regards sedimented historical knowledge, see Boehrer's formulation: "to concentrate on the semiotic residue of earlier social practices" (Boehrer 2010, p. 20); cf. "für eine [ ... ] Wissensgeschichte der Tiere ist die Literatur [ ... ] von konstitutiver Bedeutung" (Borgards 2015, p. 228). Fudge stresses: "animals" are "an important aspect of the cultures we interpret" (Fudge 2004, p. 7); "ignoring animals in our reconstructions of the past is also failing to fully represent those past worlds. [ ... ] If animals are absent from the histories we write, then those histories remain incomplete" (Fudge 2008, p. 186); in particular, she stresses "the relevance and significance of animals to a reading of early modern literature" (p. 187). Referring to Fudge, Dopico Black emphasizes "the value of [ ... ] the study of animals (and of human-animal relations) in order to understand the past" (Dopico Black 2010, p. 246n.).

<sup>33</sup> The latter might be induced by the contrast agent commonly referred to as 'Theory'—with its administration clearly marked; in this respect, 'critical' will mean 'descriptive' attention. Contrast Wolfe, calling for "a critical and not just descriptive practice" (Wolfe 2009, p. 567); otherwise Boehrer: "this project is descriptive rather than ameliorative in nature" (Boehrer 2010, p. 199; cf. p. 27). Wolfe's angle—asserting "the radically ahuman technicity and mechanicity of language", and speaking of "creatures" in the same sentence (Wolfe 2009, p. 571); similarly: "Kreatur" (Borgards 2015, p. 227); "creature" (Beusterien 2016, p. 47); "criatura" (Martín 2014, p. 473)—seems to proceed from an ontologico-metaphysical premise that is no matter, here.

<sup>34</sup> See his guarded wording in the German: "es gibt die nachträgliche Mobilisierbarkeit von Implikationen" (Blumenberg 1999, p. 73).

<sup>35</sup> Joining Animal Studies and historical research in his exploration of Early Modern Spain, Alves examines "what was considered good and bad behavior toward animals", the "[s]ocially approved treatment of tame animals", "popular attitudes regarding animals", "[t]he definition of acceptable human interaction with other animals in the Spanish empire"—and, in so doing, also has recourse to "classic sources like Cervantes' 'Colloquy of the Dogs'" (Alves 2011, p. 27, for his respective reading, see pp. 56–57); spec. "Cervantes' work [sc. the *coloquio*, here] does offer some indications of what might be expected in an early modern Spanish dog's life" (Alves 2011, p. 56); cf. (Alves 2014, p. 273). "Cervantes' tale reflects much about his Castilian Spanish culture, and its empirical observations regarding dogs" (Alves 2011, p. 57); cf. (Alves 2014, p. 273). Similarly, Martín seeks to "ilustrar el papel social y cultural del perro en la temprana época moderna en Europa, tal como lo representan en su coloquio los finos interlocutores Berganza y Cipión" (Martín 2004, p. 1559); for a brief overview of "qué se sabía en su época sobre esos cuadrúpedos", cf. (Martín 2004, pp. 1561–1562, passim, here 1561). With regard to the text's historical substrates, she states: "los discursos de la literatura, de la cría de animales y de la vida real convergen en la narración de Cervantes" (p. 1566); "Cervantes [ ... ] suministra un retrato exacto, detallado y realista de la España de su época" (p. 1569); hence she speaks of "una interpretación fidedigna de la vida" (p. 1567): "Digamos, entonces, que Cervantes logra crear un contrato mimético creíble" (p. 1571n.). Beusterien's chapter on the *coloquio*, cf. (Beusterien 2016, pp. 35–54; see also pp. 55, 57, 74, 77) aims to "turn[ ... ] away from interpretations of the canine in the 'Dialogue of the Dogs' as a figure or mask for the human [ ... ]. Instead, it turns to Animal Studies in order to argue on behalf of the elimination of the animal as figure" (Beusterien 2016, p. 36; cf. pp. 8, 109). For Boehrer's references to *Don Quixote* with respect to animal studies, see (Boehrer 2010, pp. 71–73, 112–13, 155–57).

'Cervantes', the respective recipient)—still and always a human being. In this respect, neither the recipient nor the medium (including various dimensions and forms of mediatedness) may be spirited away: "Our starting point lies [ ... ] in the [ ... ] works themselves and in the way they reflect upon animals" (Enenkel and Smith 2007, p. 11).

#### **2. The Novellas in Question: "The Deceitful Marriage", "The Dogs' Colloquy"**

púselo en forma de coloquio

(Cervantes 2002b, p. 295)

A brief synopsis of the Cervantine texts under scrutiny seems requisite. From a narratological perspective, the "Novela del casamiento engañoso" and "El coloquio de los perros" are closely interrelated: the former serves as a framework for the latter; via myriad echoes, they reciprocate at various levels (the structural, semantic).

After meeting the licentiate Peralta, the ensign Campuzano (having left a hospital after treatment) narrates a first (apparently autobiographical) story, then promises a curious tale concerning a conversation overheard and put to paper. While (the intratextual author) Campuzano rests, Peralta reads what is 'the colloquy of the dogs'.

Apart from a brief conclusion (closing the frame), the second narrative is in the form of a dialog between the aforesaid hospital's two hounds (Berganza, Cipión): after some reflections concerning their unexpected capacity for articulating themselves in the human tongue, Berganza proceeds to tell the story of his life *ab ovo*, along the lines of episodes experienced in the service of various masters (butcher, shepherds, merchant, students, bailiff, magistrate, soldiers, sorceress, gypsies, morisco, poet, theatrical producer, hospital worker).36 This largely chronological narrative is interspersed with remarks, replies, and reprimands on the part of Scipio, with assorted mutual digressions of an often metapoetical or moral philosophical nature.37

#### **3. The Linguistico-Textual Setting: An Age of Rhetoric Across Europe**

Así va el mundo

(Cervantes 2002a, p. 323)

In every respect, Early Modern Europe is dominated by, suffused with, the art of rhetoric.<sup>38</sup> Apart from the fact that contemporary narratology is based on this *téchne*, it is needful to approach a text emerging in early seventeenth century Spain from a rhetorical perspective.39

Briefly, the art's overarching aim is effect—typically qua persuading (dissuading) someone of a case at hand. This entails taking into consideration the addressees, specifically as regards what they are always already primed for by their background (upbringing, education, '*Lebenswelt*')—hence the *aptum*

<sup>36</sup> As regards the apparent prevalence of performing canines in Early Modern Europe, see Montaigne: "Everybody is satiated, I think, with seeing so many sorts of monkey tricks that mountebanks teach their dogs" (Montaigne 1989, p. 340, II.12); cf. (Montaigne 2009, p. 195, II.xii). On Montaigne and Cervantes generally, see also (Forcione 1989, p. 338); (Dümchen 1989, pp. 112–14); (Nerlich 1989, passim, spec. pp. 264, 266, 268–72, 280–81, 284).

<sup>37</sup> This abstract does not claim to be exhaustive; it condenses (Cervantes 2002b, pp. 279–95; Cervantes 2016a, pp. 433–46) and (Cervantes 2002a, pp. 297–359; Cervantes 2016b, pp. 451–512). The present essay focuses on two intercalated narratives: the conversation between Campuzano and Peralta qua framework for the colloquy of Berganza and Cipión, which equally frames a series of episodic tales—some of which include one or more narrative levels (quotes, forms of reported speech, implicit dialogs with intertexts via allusions, *sermocinationes*). Integrated with this rhetorico-narrative setting, discourse historical implications—re *Scripture*, Ancient philosophy, cynicism, animal narration—form the other focal points. For reasons of space, the present article cannot address all facets, nor detail each of the episodes in the *coloquio*. A comprehensive analysis of these *novelas* may be found in Forcione's seminal studies (Forcione 1984, passim); cf. (Forcione 1982, passim).

<sup>38</sup> See (Mayfield 2017a, passim); spec. (Bloemendal 2017, pp. 115–17); (Küpper 2017, pp. 151–52, 156, 163, 165); (Mayfield 2017b, passim).

<sup>39</sup> On the nexus between rhetoric and narratology, see e.g., (Mayfield 2017b, pp. 4n.–5n., 13n., 18n., 24–25).

(what is taken to be appropriate, at a given time, in a specific context).40 The latter will determine what readers or listeners deem plausible: what they can be taught (*docere*), or brought to accept, as being so, via various strategies of amusing (*delectare*), stimulating emotionally (*movere*).41 The ultimate objective remains to convince (*persuadere*) the respective addressees of the plausibility of what they are being presented with—and supposed to take in—by any means and all: the art of rhetoric tends to cumulate and integrate its techniques for maximum effect.<sup>42</sup>

#### **4. The Narrative Framework: Crafting Plausibility in "The Deceitful Marriage"**

Auffällig ist [ . . . ] die komplizierte Rahmentechnik. (Nolting-Hauff 1987, p. 190)43

para hacer memoria [ . . . ] y para desengaño

(Cervantes 2002a, p. 354)

The aspect of persuading the (intra-, extratextual) readership of the tale's plausibility is particularly pertinent to the case at hand, since it tenders animal narrators—specifically dogs, and precisely in their capacity as canines at a literal level.<sup>44</sup> Consequently, the respective Cervantine novellas suggest and assemble several reasons for what must otherwise seem out of the ordinary, arranging these on several planes. While its caption points to a town ('Valladolid') and specific locale ('hospital'), another indicator of the text's attempt at tying in with shared knowledge is given in the last clause of its full title: the canines are 'commonly called the dogs of Mahudes'.45 In other words: regardless of whether

<sup>40</sup> On the Husserlian (phenomenological) term '*Lebenswelt*' in general, see (Blumenberg 2010, passim). On the rhetorical '*aptum*', cf. (Lausberg 1990, p. 44, §102; Lausberg 2008, p. 144, §258); (Mayfield 2017b, pp. 18–19, 18n.–19n.); his perceived *parrhesía* notwithstanding, Berganza observes it in certain areas (implicitly of a risqué nature), here as regards the lifeworld of the "comediantes", to which pertain "infinitas cosas, unas para decirse al oído y otras para aclamallas en público" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 354; cf. p. 351)—with Cipión's respective comments (p. 358). Generally, see (Boyd 2010, p. 16; Hart 1979, p. 385n.); cf. "converting the raw material of life into acceptable patterns of expression" (El Saffar 1974, p. 80).

<sup>41</sup> Cf. (Lausberg 2008, pp. 181–85, §§325–334). As to plausibility ('*probabile*, *credibile*, *verisimile*'), see (Quintilian 2001, p. 234, 4.2.31; Lausberg 2008, pp. 179–80, §322; Mayfield 2017b, p. 10n.). Cf. "Ist der Grundstein für die phantasierte Welt einmal gelegt, so wirkt jeder weitere Schritt schlüssig, plausibel" (Kohlhauer 2002, p. 65).

<sup>42</sup> See (Lausberg 2008, pp. 180–81, §§322, 325).

<sup>43</sup> "The intricate [or: 'complex, complicated'] framing technique [ ... ] is striking [or: 'prominent, conspicuous']" (Nolting-Hauff 1987, p. 190; trans. dsm); later, Nolting-Hauff links this to "a layered [or: 'multiple'] delegation of the role of the narrator and a cautiously dosed increase of irreality from one narrative plane to the next" (p. 194; trans. dsm).

<sup>44</sup> See e.g., (El Saffar 1974, pp. 69–70); (Aylward 2010, pp. 256–58); cf. "flirtation with the implausible" (Gaylord 2002, p. 115). Kohlhauer, speaking of a "'cynocentric' narrative perspective" (Kohlhauer 2002, p. 55; trans. dsm), stresses: "Cervantes' Hunde sind [ ... ] alles andere als allegorische Figuren, personifizierte Abstraktionen oder gar mythisch anmutende Gestalten von märchenhaftem Typus" (p. 55); "Abgesehen davon, daß sie denken, sprechen und vor allem erzählen, verhalten sich seine [sc. of the *coloquio*] Hunde wie ... Hunde eben" (p. 63). Martín has: "Berganza discierne y actúa como un perro, y entiende el mundo de muchas maneras caninas" (Martín 2012, p. 462); if this is perceived to be thus, her earlier remark may seem problematic: "En términos de la enunciación, hay que olvidar que Berganza habla en vez de ladrar" (Martín 2004, p. 1562)—spec. since these (textual) dogs themselves, in their capacity as canines, repeatedly deal with this very problem (by speaking); similarly, Beusterien asserts that "from a narrative point of view, the dog's ontological status is irrelevant in the consideration of language" (Beusterien 2016, p. 38)—while the canines render precisely this aspect problematic throughout.

<sup>45</sup> Cf. (Cervantes 2002a, p. 299). The full title—thereto, see (Schmauser 1996, pp. 18–26)—expressly embedded (also layout-wise) into the narrative itself (by far the most protracted in the collection, with the greatest density of spatial references), reads: "Novela y coloquio que pasó entre Cipión y Berganza, perros del hospital de la resurrección, que está en la ciudad de Valladolid, fuera de la puerta del campo, a quien[es] comúnmente llaman los perros de Mahudes", cf. (Cervantes 2002a, p. 299); titular caps removed). Via explicitly obtaining Peralta's agreement to his knowledge of the dogs, the ensign had already primed also the extratextual reader to take in the above more immediately (perhaps unquestioningly): "'Your honor has probably already noticed ['habrá visto'] [ ... ] two dogs that go around at night [ ... ], lighting the way with a pair of lanterns'. 'Yes, I have seen that'" (Cervantes 2016a, p. 443); "'Your honor has probably also seen, or heard about ['habrá visto o oído'] [ ... ] what they say concerning those dogs['] [ ... ] 'I've heard tell [ ... ] that all that is true[']" (Cervantes 2016a, p. 444; 2002b, p. 293). The modes of (potentially) acceptable evidence are dominantly tied in with the aural and visual: cf. "visto [ ... ] visto [ ... ] visto o oído [ ... ] oído [ ... ] oí y casi vi con mis ojos [ ... ] oí [ ... ] oído escuchando, por ver [... ] oyó"—all within a brief space (Cervantes 2002b, p. 293); generally, cf. (Schmauser 1996, pp. 29–35). This audiovisual tendency continues also in the canine *coloquio* (without, as one might provisionally surmise, shifting the dominance also to the olfactory, in conjunction with the auditory rather than the visual); in other words: construals trying to spirit away the inevitable anthropocentricism will meet with considerable resistance.

this is taken as a historical reference by the respective recipient, the textual effort in terms of producing an effect of immediate plausibility based on the projection of a supposed common ground will be patent (at a metapoetical level).

Similarly, the colloquy initially ties in with customary assumptions: "the difference between the brute animal and man is that man is a rational animal ['animal racional'], while the brute is irrational" (Cervantes 2016b, p. 452; Cervantes 2002a, p. 299; cf. p. 309).46 Berganza and Cipión then proceed to log and exchange apparently prevalent notions concerning various canine characteristics, taken up from human conversations overheard during their lives, and evidently stored in a copious retentive faculty: "ever since I could gnaw at a bone I have wanted to be able to talk, to express things [ ... ] I had accumulated in my memory ['depositaba en la memoria']" (Cervantes 2016b, p. 453; Cervantes 2002a, p. 301).47

Teeming with rhetorical techniques aiming at rendering plausible the tendered tale featuring speaking animals, the narrative framework presents a conversation between the convalescing "ensign Campuzano" and the "Licentiate Peralta" (Cervantes 2016a, pp. 433–46, here 433–34), which leads to the latter's perusal of the former's manuscript—the *coloquio*. <sup>48</sup> Setting the scene for canine interlocution, the "Novela del casamiento engañoso" is decisive narratologically: its transition to the dialog of the dogs demands detailed analysis.

Above all, the ensign's narrative (novella-related) strategy aims at accommodating his friend's curiosity, apparent penchant for "amazement"; in this vein, he declares:

<sup>46</sup> Cf. the *locus classicus*: "man is a political animal ['politikòn ho ánthropos zoon'] in a greater measure than any bee or any gregarious animal [ ... ]. Nature [ ... ] does nothing without purpose; and man alone of the animals possesses speech ['lógon']" (Aristotle 1944, pp. 10–11, I.i.10, 1253a); "a man who is incapable of entering into partnership, or who is so self-sufficing ['autárkeian'] that he has no need to do so, is no part of a state, so that he must be either a lower animal or a god ['hè theríon hè theós']" (pp. 11–13, I.i.12, 1253a); as to cynicism in this context, stressing simultaneity, the transitional nature of such perceived limits, cf. (Mayfield 2015, pp. 25, 25n., 28, 28n., 183, 197–98, 238–39, 320n., 391–402, 437); concerning the *coloquio* (see (Forcione 1984, pp. 15–16, 83, 152–53, 215–17, 221); regarding Berganza, Schmauser remarks "that the boundary between animal and human being oscillates in both directions" (Schmauser 1996, p. 78; trans. dsm). Sextus Empiricus cites the Hellenistic common ground, then balances it skeptically: "Others [sc. 'Stoics', 'Peripatetics'] used to assert that 'Man is a rational mortal animal ['zoon logikòn thnetón'], receptive of intelligence and science'. [ ... ] no animal is irrational but all are receptive of intelligence and science" (Sextus Empiricus 1933, pp. 168–69, II.26; p. 168n.). Tying in with several (Stoic, Peripatetic, Platonic) formulae, he later ridicules the act of definition itself: "'O rational mortal animal, receptive of intelligence and science, have you met with an animal capable of laughter ['zoon gelastikòn'], with broad nails and receptive of political science, with his (posterior) hemispheres seated on a mortal animal capable of neighing, and leading a four-footed animal capable of barking ['zoon tetrápoun hylaktikón']?'" (Sextus Empiricus 1933, pp. 286–87, II.211). In the *coloquio*, perspectivism, skeptical views are put into the witch's mouth (the latter being crucial): "a nuestro parecer, mudamos forma, y convertidas en gallos, lechuzas o cuervos" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 342); cf. the perceived change of supposedly rational animals into beasts: "que convertían los hombres en bestias"; "sirviéndose dellos en todo cuanto querían, que parecían bestias"; "aquella ciencia que llaman *tropelía*, que hace parecer una cosa por otra" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 337); cf. (Boyd 2010, p. 24); generally, cf. "toda tropelía" (Gracián 2009, p. 164, I.7); such undermines, renders (potentially) permeable, an alleged animal–human divide: "sé que eres persona racional y te veo en semejanza de perro" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 337). In this respect, Alves suggests: "The tale of the witches summarizes the extent to which distinctions between the human and canine have grown difficult to make" (Alves 2011, p. 57); cf. (Alves 2014, pp. 273–74); "Berganza's story sympathetically breaks down species boundaries by cataloguing behavioral similarities" (Alves 2011, p. 57); cf. (Alves 2014, p. 274)—while supplying the decisive qualification in a footnote: "the witch, discredited as she is" (Alves 2011, p. 57n.).

<sup>47</sup> Cf. "Bien es verdad que en el discurso de mi vida diversas y muchas veces he oído hablar grandes prerrogativas nuestras; tanto, que parece que algunos han querido sentir que tenemos un natural distinto, [ ... ] que da indicios y señales de faltar poco para mostrar que tenemos un no sé qué de entendimiento capaz de discurso" (Cervantes 2002a, pp. 299–300). See these formulations (by both interlocutors): "Lo que yo he oído [ ... ] nos suelen pintar [ ... ]; y así, habrás visto (si has mirado en ello) [ ... ] donde suelen estar [ ... ] Bien sé que [ ... ]. Sé también que [ ... ] Ansí es; pero bien confesarás que ni has visto ni oído decir jamás" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 300; cf. p. 309), reaffirming a common ground in this respect). Concerning the retentive emphasis: "ocupaba la memoria en acordarme de muchas cosas" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 306; cf. pp. 308, 318, 322, 332); see (Forcione 1984, p. 159); (Schmauser 1996, pp. 40–41). On the concept of '*hypólepsis*' qua 'taking up and tying in with' an (ostensible) common ground, see (Mayfield 2017c, passim). Cf. "Statt etwa ihre eigene Meinung kundzutun, ziehen es beide Hunde geschickt vor, mit Hilfe des indirekten Standpunktes die allgemein-(un)verbindliche Sprache der opinio communis zu inszenieren" (Kohlhauer 2002, p. 59). As to current and common ken regarding what is taken to be the characteristic loyalty of dogs during Early Modern times, see also Montaigne's testimony (Montaigne 1989, p. 346, II.12).

<sup>48</sup> Cf. Johnson, suggesting that one "read the *Casamiento* narrative [ ... ] as a story artfully told, characterized by the narrator's withholding and anticipating information [ ... ] establishing a complex and dynamic rhetorical relationship with his hearer-reader" (Johnson 1991, pp. 8–9).

I still have other events ['sucesos'] to relate to you that surpass the human imagination ['exceden a toda imaginación'], seeing as how they go beyond the very limits of the natural order of things ['fuera de todos los términos de naturaleza'] (Cervantes 2016a, p. 443; Cervantes 2002b, p. 292). <sup>49</sup>

He also expressly asks Peralta to "be prepared to believe it", "se acomode a creerlo" (Cervantes 2016a, p. 444; Cervantes 2002b, p. 293), describing himself as an earwitness of an all but vivid event: "yo oí y casi vi con mis ojos"—as he admits, Campuzano never actually sees the dogs talking, inferring the fact from what he hears, "a poco rato vine a conocer, por lo que hablaban, los que hablaban" (Cervantes 2002b, p. 293).50

When Peralta reacts with predictable incredulity, the ensign agrees to the event's implausibility—"animals can't talk"—while offering a (discourse historically irrefutable) exception in the same breath: "unless it be owing to some miracle" (Cervantes 2016a, p. 444).<sup>51</sup> This (orthodox) metaphysical leeway is immediately supplemented by commonly accepted, demonstrable cases that likewise challenge an unconditional denial of speaking animals: "I know quite well that thrushes, magpies, and parrots can talk, but only in the sense that they recite words from memory that they learn by heart ['aprenden y toman de memoria']"—an empirical observation, bolstered by an epistemological hypothesis—"and because these animals' tongues are aptly shaped ['cómoda'] for pronouncing the words"; ultimately, this series of concessions is itself limited in agreement with common assumptions: "But none of that means they can actually talk and answer, or engage in coherent speech ['discurso concertado']" (Cervantes 2016a, p. 444; Cervantes 2002b, pp. 293–94).<sup>52</sup> Regarding

<sup>49</sup> The colloquy's outset echoes: "el hablar nosotros pasa de los términos de naturaleza" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 299); cf. (Teuber 2005, p. 251). Berganza's surprise at his capacity for speech mirrors the (implicit) reader's reaction to the 'notable novelty' (novella): "me causa nueva admiración y nueva maravilla" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 299); cf. "noté su vida y costumbres, que por ser notables es forzoso que te las cuente" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 346); likewise characteristic for this genre—cf. (Küpper 1990, pp. 41–44; on Cervantine *novelas*, pp. 270–72, 277, 282n., 286, 387, 387n., 395–96, 459–60); (Küpper 2005, pp. 218n.–219n.); generally, see (Krauss 1940, passim, here spec. pp. 20–23); also (Spadaccini and Talens 1989, pp. 211, 220–21)—is the above tendency of outperformance, already visible in the framework: "my experiences ['sucesos'] are the strangest and oddest ['los más nuevos y peregrinos'] your honor ever heard of in your life" (Cervantes 2016a, p. 434; Cervantes 2002b, p. 282). Before the "dogs" are first mentioned, a comment (implicitly) directed at the novella's readership speaks of "Peralta's ['inflamed'] eagerness to hear his friend's tale" (Cervantes 2016a, p. 443); "encendían el deseo" (Cervantes 2002b, p. 293); the ensign's own fervent "desire to see" ("encendió más el deseo de verla") conduced to his being deceived (Cervantes 2016a, p. 435; Cervantes 2002b, p. 283); in the *coloquio*: "les encendió el deseo de no dejar de ver todo" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 335). Calling Campuzano a "víctima del lenguaje" (Sieber 2002, p. 32), Sieber—also referring to the "eco" of the aforesaid passages—sees the ensign apply the knowledge (gained by his experience with the lady) to his poetic productions qua "arte de contar historias" (p. 34); concerning Peralta, he speaks of "una curiosidad vital" (p. 34); for "curiosidad" in the *coloquio*, see (Cervantes 2002a, p. 338). On rhetoric qua "art of accommodation" (Eden 1997, pp. 2, 14); cf. (Mayfield 2015, p. 50n.; Mayfield 2017b, pp. 18–20); re the *coloquio*, cf. (Forcione 1984, pp. 26, 158).

<sup>50</sup> Cf. (Ziolkowski 1983, p. 101). See "hace[r] algo de nonada" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 304); on *enárgeia* in Cervantes, cf. (Schmauser 1996, pp. 35–36); on rhetorical *evidentia* generally, see (Mayfield 2017b, pp. 16n.–17n.).

<sup>51</sup> The Spanish fronts the concession: "si no es por milagro no pueden hablar los animales" (Cervantes 2002b, p. 293). Cipión later echoes: "este milagro" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 299); cf. "aquel misterio o prodigio", p. 336. A Nominalist ground swell is present in the emphases on the divine '*quia voluit*': in the 'theologian' witch's tale—"porque Dios no quería" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 341), "su voluntad [sc. 'del Altísimo'] permitente" (p. 342), see (Forcione 1984, p. 80, generally); as well as in the effect of 'consummate contingency'—cf. (Blumenberg 1999, pp. 166, 170, 181, 194n., passim), (Küpper 1990, pp. 268, 269n., 283, 286), (Küpper 1998a, pp. 117–18), (Küpper 1998b, pp. 173–77), (Mayfield 2015, pp. 98–108), referring to "perspectivism", "chance", "Blumenberg", see (Forcione 1989, p. 340; cf. p. 349); in the resultant semblance of diversity—cf. (Cervantes 2002a, p. 332), see (Forcione 1984, pp. 179, 189–90), (Gaylord 2002, pp. 112–14), also intertextually (Boyd 2010, pp. 13–16); and of the variability of all things, from the perspective of the *animal rationale*—cf. (Küpper 1990, pp. 41–44, 173, 263–90, spec. 282–83), (Boyd 2010, pp. 43–44); here as mediated via another animal: "lo que el cielo tiene ordenado que suceda, no hay diligencia ni sabiduría humana que lo pueda prevenir" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 301). It is notable that the aspect of animal narration is rendered problematic at all—spec. in epistemological terms; the latter could be read as indicative of the epoch, considering that prevalent literary forms (fables, metamorphoses, folktales) otherwise take it for granted, cf. (Aylward 2010, p. 256); see the lore concerning Orpheus (Ovid 2005, pp. 75–76, X.143–44; pp. 120–21, XI.1–2); cf. Friedman on Unamuno's canine "Orfeo" in *Niebla* (Friedman 2006, pp. 264–65, 303).

<sup>52</sup> See Montaigne: "Yet the animals are not incapable of being taught also in our way. Blackbirds, ravens, magpies, and parrots we teach to speak; and that facility with which we see them rendering their voice and breath so supple and manageable for us [ ... ] testifies that they have an inward power of reason which makes them so teachable and determined to learn" (Montaigne 1989, pp. 339–40, II.12)—emphasis on "we see", and "for us". The above is precisely what Descartes would later explicitly oppose (among other aspects). Cf. "Up until the eighteenth century, language [ ... ] jumps across orders and

other animals—'elephant, dog, horse, ape', see (Cervantes 2016b, p. 453)—this acknowledged state of affairs is given as inverted within the *coloquio*: for such beings are said to be capable of (retentive and) seemingly rational acts, while lacking the capacity for articulation in the human tongue.<sup>53</sup>

In another rhetorical move to craft a common ground, Campuzano skillfully concedes his own skepticism, "yo mismo no he querido dar crédito a mí mismo, y he querido [ ... ] tener por cosa soñada" (Cervantes 2002b, p. 294)—yet only to willfully assert (and later repeat: "contra mi opinión vengo a creer que no soñaba") that he was "wide awake and in full possession of his senses ['con todos mis cinco sentidos']"; that he recorded everything verbatim ("sin faltar palabra"), to serve as a testimony "from which one may obtain sufficient evidence ['indicio bastante'] to incline and persuade a person to believe ['mueva y persuada a creer'] that truth of what I'm saying" (Cervantes 2016a, pp. 444–45; Cervantes 2002b, p. 294).54 The terminology being evidently rhetorico-forensic, it will be little

classes, for it is suspected that even birds can talk. [ ... ] even the physical demarcation between man and the other species entailed zones of indifference in which it was not possible to assign certain identities" (Agamben 2004, p. 24). See also Cummings' remarks on the issue in general: "the question of animal language [ ... ] is always a question of epistemology. For what is meant by language (and what is an animal)? [ ... ] The question of epistemology at issue is not animal language [ ... ], but human language, and the tests applied prove not whether animals speak animal language but whether animals speak human language" (Cummings 2004, pp. 178–79).

<sup>53</sup> Cipión's *hypólepsis* of Berganza's statement lists these animals—unable to articulate themselves in a human fashion—as almost or seemingly rational: "elefante, perro, caballo o mona" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 300). As to comparable (historical) presences of perceivedly 'reasonable animals' in Early Modern times—attesting to a European prevalence—see Fudge on "Morocco the Intelligent Horse" (Fudge 2006, pp. 123–46, here 123); likewise as to "Morocco, the knowledgeable horse", cf. (Perry 2004, p. 27)—spec. "The animals that could be used to explain Morocco existed in the world outside of books, outside of intellectual discussions. They could be found in a world available to all, and meaningful to all. In this context [ ... ] [a]nyone who owned a horse would know the animal's capacities; anyone who had a dog would likewise know" (Fudge 2006, pp. 144–45). On elephants in this respect, see (Cummings 2004, passim; spec. pp. 168, 173).

<sup>54</sup> Similarly Berganza: "sin añadir ni quitar de la verdad una tilde" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 330); cf. (*Mt* 5:18); what he says about *novelas pastoriles* might also be taken as an (ironic) meta-comment on the *coloquio*: "todos aquellos libros son cosas soñadas y bien escritas para entretenimiento [ ... ], y no verdad alguna" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 309). The fact that a given text explicitly censures other (apparently highly idealized) works for their distance from a perceived 'reality' (for the present context in this respect, see also (Dümchen 1989, p. 106) tends to serve as an effectual device for reinforcing its own plausibility, its claim to verisimilitude (or even to verity, authenticity, authority, etc.); relating to an effect of such a strategy *de re*, Manning—with reference to (Gittes 2006, p. 356)—states: "we frequently find Berganza's narrative more credible than Cañizares' version of events" (Manning 2007, p. 149)—which (including other intratextual levels) is Peralta's reading of Campuzano's rendering of Berganza's account of the witch's version (along with Scipio's objections; cf. (Spadaccini and Talens 1989, pp. 221–22); spec. "Berganza's text is not complete without Cipión's active intervention in its constructions", p. 229). In readings focusing primarily (or solely) on a work's literal plane, the equalization of an (inevitably crafted, arranged) text with a perceived historico-spatial (or even local) reality may seem especially problematic when centering on non-specific, basically recyclable images also otherwise employed: "El tipo de pastor merodeador que encont[r]amos en el *Coloquio* era una realidad de la vida" (Martín 2004, p. 1566)—while this may be the (historical) case or not (to say nothing of ascertaining its statistical relevance), the function of such *tópoi* is of particular effectuality in literature (*sensu lato*). On Skepticism in the Cervantine *œuvre*, see (Ihrie 1982, passim); re the *coloquio*, pp. 113–15). The oneiric hypothesis is present in both tales, see e.g., (Cervantes 2002b, p. 294; Cervantes 2002a, p. 347); cf. (Forcione 1984, p. 127); (El Saffar 1976, pp. 85–86); (El Saffar 1974, pp. 68, 75); (Teuber 2005, pp. 249–50, 257); (Gaylord 2002, pp. 113, 115); (Boyd 2010, pp. 39–40); (Kohlhauer 2002, p. 65); "the world of Cañizares is oneiric, too, [ ... ] a dream world in a world of dreams" (Nerlich 1989, p. 295). A crucial precedent in this respect—and also as to animal narration—is Lucian's "The Dream, or the Cock", featuring a speaking rooster (Lucian 1915, passim; thereto, see especially, pp. 184–90, passim); cf. spec. "The cock talked like a human being!"; "Then do you think it a miracle if I talk the same language as you men?" (p. 175, §2); "Why, this is not a dream, is it?" (p. 177, §3); "A philosopher cock!" (p. 181, §4); etc. As to Aesop, Ovid, Apuleius, Lucian, Rabelais, Des Périers ("*Cymbalum Mundi*"), Villalón ("*El Crótalon*"), see (Kohlhauer 2002, pp. 56, 60, spec. 64–68, 70, 74–75, 81, passim; here pp. 70, 70n.); as to Lucian, Villalón, cf. also (Nolting-Hauff 1987, pp. 184–90, passim; and pp. 190–195 re the colloquy); as regards the *coloquio* vis-à-vis the "*Baldus*", see (Blecua 1972, pp. 175–78, here p. 175). Beusterien's claim that "[t]he animals in important source texts of 'The Dialogue of the Dogs' are bereft of language" (Beusterien 2016, p. 37; cf. p. 38; contrast p. 51) is problematic—spec. since he briefly glances at Lucian, at des Périers (p. 38); his discarding the latter is based on the fact that "Cervantes never mentions that the dogs have consumed or incorporated a human tongue in order to speak" (Beusterien 2016, p. 38). The narrative framework and the dogs (in the *coloquio* itself) explicitly accumulate a considerable number of other possible motivations for the capacity for speech on the part of the canines: their being metamorphosed humans, the whole scene being a miracle, a dream, a feverish vision or hallucination induced by Campuzano's treatment (likely for syphilis), a poetic tour de force on the part of Campuzano, etc.; in Spadaccini's/Talens' felicitous wording: "The reader enters the world of the *Coloquio* through a series of filters" (Spadaccini and Talens 1989, p. 226). Of a similarly problematic status as a nondifferentiation of a text's various narrative planes is the conflation of the intra- with the extratextual level: "Cervantes accurately had his Berganza tell us" (Alves 2011, p. 84). It is precisely from the perspective of Animal Studies that claiming authorial intent (especially if harnessed as a warrant for a perceived authenticity) will effectively spirit away the animal in the process. A mindful, even wary correlation of the various textual planes potentially present simultaneously (e.g., literal, putatively authorial, discursive, epistemological, etc.) is requisite, in order to bring an animal into focus in its capacity as animal. When Beusterien briefly

wonder that any refinement in terms of *elocutio* (*ornatus*) is ostentatiously denied for the alleged report itself (a rhetorical denial of 'rhetoric')—which, with a view to plausibility (always a matter of degree), somewhat alleviates ("casi") the previous, absolute claim:

almost in the exact same words ['casi por las mismas palabras'] that I had heard spoken, I transcribed it the next day, refraining from trying to adorn it ['adornarlo'] with any sort of rhetorical coloring ['colores retóricas'], and neither adding nor removing anything just to improve its flavor ['para hacerle gustoso'] (Cervantes 2016a, p. 445; Cervantes 2002b, p. 294); cf. (Schmauser 1996, pp. 16–17); (Forcione 1984, p. 232).

Between these two reciprocal passages occurs the most effective rhetorical move, similarly structured along an articulated act of apparent self-persuasion via argument *in utramque partem*. <sup>55</sup> Peralta having voiced his view to the effect that Campuzano be telling tall tales, the latter immediately concedes, but only to deliberately reassert his sensorial confidence, his faith in the power of words to craft credence, his willingness to intersubjectively suspend his judgment ("mi verdad") yet again—culminating in a rhetorical question regarding his interlocutor's attested desire for a narrative's delightful function:

But supposing ['Pero puesto caso'], maybe, that I have been deceived ['engañado'], and that what seems real is actually a dream ['y que mi verdad sea sueño'] [ ... ]—even so, would not your honor [ ... ] like ['se holgará'] to see written down, in the form of a colloquy, the conversation between those two dogs, whoever or whatever they really are ['o sean quien fueren']? (Cervantes 2016a, p. 445; Cervantes 2002b, p. 294; cf. p. 359)

As with all things in nature, the strongest argument is always pleasure.<sup>56</sup> Peralta immediately falls into the rhetorical trap, believes the attempts at persuasion to be of the past, and consents:

As long as your honor [ ... ] doesn't waste any more time trying to persuade me ['persuadirme'] that you really heard two dogs talking, I will right gladly listen to ['de muy buena gana oiré'] this colloquy, which I already judge to be good ['juzgo por bueno'], seeing that it has been composed and written down as the product of his honor the ensign's notable literary talent ['buen ingenio']. (Cervantes 2016a, p. 445; Cervantes 2002b, p. 294; cf. p. 359) <sup>57</sup>

refers to "the ensign" for purposes of a construal combining "psychoanalytic interpretations" and "Animal Studies", he asserts that Campuzano actively narrates ("the oral telling of the dog dialogue itself", (Beusterien 2016, p. 42)) or 'reads' the *coloquio* 'to' Peralta ("the ensign's [ ... ] reading to his friend", p. 42n.), neither of which is supported by the text. If opting, as Beusterien does throughout, for the supposition of a perceived authorial intent as the (sole) basis for his case, and for what he takes to be the respectively authoritative reading—cf. e.g., "This intentional lack" (Beusterien 2016, p. 38); "Cervantes deliberately emphasizes" (p. 39); "Cervantes anticipates postures from Animal Studies" (p. 42); "Berganza, a creature intentionally defined" (p. 47); "Cervantes intentionally tangles" (p. 49; cf. pp. 50, 53); "'The Dialogue of the Dogs' should be read as disposing of certain foundational anthropocentric precepts" (p. 54)—maintaining the impression of having focused on 'the animal as animal', "studying the animal itself" (p. 35), on the "elimination of the animal as figure" (Beusterien 2016, p. 36; cf. pp. 8, 109) might prove difficult; and all the more so, when insisting on a biographically inflected poetics: "I have given preference to the stuttering thesis as an influence in Cervantes' creation of the talking dogs [ ... ] Cervantes' stuttering inspired him to conceive the human-animal divide in the innovative ways that he does" (Beusterien 2016, p. 39n.); cf. (Beusterien 2009, pp. 218–19). With respect to apparently oneirically induced animal speech in general, see also Fudge's reference to "Artemidorus's dream text", and "the speaking animal of the dream" (Fudge 2006, pp. 35–36); as well as Perry on "Woodhouse's Flea speak[ing] for himself [ ... ] from the shelter of a Dog's ear"—which speech act "is framed by two dreams" (Perry 2004, p. 30).

<sup>55</sup> See this arch-rhetorical (forensic) technique: "in utramque partem vel in plures" (Quintilian 2001, p. 156, 3.11.2); cf. (Mayfield 2017b, pp. 14–16).

<sup>56</sup> Cf. "What matters is not the truth, but the virtuosity of the 'engaño'" (Gossy 1989, p. 72). Rhetorically, this pertains to the function of *delectare*, chiefly produced by the *elocutio* (including the *ornatus*) and *actio*; see Scipio's metapoetical remarks (Cervantes 2016b, pp. 455–56; Cervantes 2002a, p. 304); Campuzano on his lady: "tenía un tono de habla tan suave que se entraba por los oídos en el alma" (Cervantes 2002b, p. 284; cf. p. 285). Generally: "el deleite mucho mayor es imaginado que gozado" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 343, cf. p. 342); see (Hart 1979, p. 383); (Teuber 2005, p. 257); (Boyd 2010, pp. 22, 39); *cum grano salis* (Dunn 2010, pp. 97–101). On the etymological 'sweetness' in the word 'persuasion', see (Bers 1994, p. 188); (Mayfield 2017b, p. 19n.; Mayfield 2017d, p. 210).

<sup>57</sup> See (El Saffar 1974, pp. 72, 74, 78, 81). Structurally, this attitude echoes that on the part of Campuzano's lady: "parecía que les [sc. 'demonstraciones', 'ofrecimientos', 'razones'] daba atento oído antes que crédito alguno" (Cervantes 2002b, p. 284).

All the while, the reader is fully aware that Campuzano has just left the hospital, apparently after a rather laborious treatment ("I underwent the sweatbox cure forty times"), suggesting that he had not exactly been in control of his senses at all times (Cervantes 2016a, p. 443; cf. p. 434; Cervantes 2002b, pp. 282, 282n.). The ensign's preemptive giving of (quasi-empirical, medico-nutritional) reasons for his asserted attention to detail and acoustico-textual fidelity might thus be received as (highly) ironic—pleasing the reader into persuasion, into a considerable readiness for (being) taking in (by) what follows in the *coloquio*:

since I was being so attentive, my intellect ['juicio'] was really keyed up ['delicado'], and my memory ['memoria'] was sensitive ['delicada'], subtle, and completely unencumbered (thanks to the numerous raisins and almonds that I had consumed), I got it all down by heart ['todo lo tomé de coro'] (Cervantes 2016a, p. 445; Cervantes 2002b, p. 294).

Another inverted echo—the *animal rationale* here behaves ("todo lo tomé de coro") like the 'verisimilitudinous' avians: "toman de memoria" (Cervantes 2002b, p. 294). Given all of the above, the intratextual reader plausibly takes the tale as an occasion for delight: "the licentiate [ ... ] accepted the notebook, laughing ['riyéndose'] and acting as if he were making fun ['como haciendo burla'] of everything he had heard, and everything he was about to read" (Cervantes 2016a, p. 446; Cervantes 2002b, p. 295).

This insinuated form of reception is decisive: having ostensively relinquished the explicit claim to be presenting a per se persuasive narrative (with animals conversing in the human tongue), and having thus implicitly advocated that the extratextual reader take in what has been announced as a delightful tale in the corresponding manner, the colloquy seldom seems to fulfill the expectation raised by its framework. The arrangement (*dispositio*) is analogous to giving a dog its medication embedded in some liver. At intervals, this textual technique recurs in the canine tête-à-tête itself: a pleasant sugarcoating is administered in the form of often brief, waggishly clever (*levis*), subtly ironic interludes (*delectare*), while the dialog's tart core is conveyed as a series of quasi-descriptive observations (*docere*)—its topic and tone being predominantly serious (*gravis*).58 The latter also applies to the presence and significance of a complex set of discursive implications pertinent to the selection of a particular animal—present and significant, at a literal level, precisely as animal—for the *sermocinatio* that is the "coloquio de los perros".59

#### **5. A Tale of Hounds and Humans, by Hounds, for Humans: Animal Narration in "The Dogs' Colloquy"**

man alone of the animals possesses speech.

(Aristotle 1944, p. 11, I.i.10, 1253a)

A discursive struggle inscribed into the text, and directly pertinent to the question of animal narration, is the very fact of—in what is officially a Counter-Reformation context—endowing animals with a human form of articulation in the first place. As the Christian religion has a notoriously polyvalent relation to 'speech'—in both its Jewish legacy (see the performative "fiat lux" in *Gen*

Cf. Cummings' felicitous formulation in another context: "He [sc. Browne] knows his readers will not believe him, but they will half want to, and they will play along with his game" (Cummings 2004, p. 166).

<sup>58</sup> Cf. (Forcione 1984, pp. 11, 168). For this textual strategy (with corresponding images), as précised by the *siglo de oro*'s grand maestro of rhetoric, see (Gracián 2011, p. 180, §144; pp. 217–18, §210; p. 245, §267); cf. (Mayfield 2015, pp. 206–7, 233–34); on the 'decoy' in Gracián, see (Küpper 2007, pp. 426–27). Cf. and contrast: "The tone is light and ironical throughout, but behind it is the grim assumption that speaking ill of others is one of the most damaging things in life" (Riley 1976, p. 195). Generally, cf. "Talking animals [ . . . ] sugar the instructive pill; they exist to entertain" (Perry 2004, p. 20).

<sup>59</sup> Like the comprehensive art of rhetoric, a text's discursive (sub- or super)structure is located at an (often latent) metalevel. Throughout this essay, the heuristico-hermeneutic application of discourse analysis to literary texts follows Küpper's take on the Foucauldian blueprint (Küpper 1990, pp. 30–32, spec. 31n.); cf. (Küpper 2001, passim). On *sermocinatio*, see (Rhetorica 2004, pp. 394–99, IV.lii.65); for varying terminologies, cf. (Lausberg 1990, p. 140, §425; pp. 142–143, §§432–433; Lausberg 2008).

1:3; *Vulgate*) and the *New Testament*, blending the former with (Neo-)Platonizing inheritances via the polysemous Greek word '*lógos*' (cf. spec. *Jn* 1:1)—granting animals a locutionary capacity might be problematic, could be seen to destabilize man's primacy (cf. e.g., *Gen* 1:27–28, *Mt* 10:31), likely also in Salvation Historical respects.60 At the same time, *Scripture*'s last book (*Apocalypsis*) not only 'opens the eyes', but apparently also the mouths: at the end of days, "every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them" are said to praise the Lamb of God (*Rev* 5:13); "the four beasts" also speak (*Rev* 4:6–7, 6:1); likewise, the adversary one: "there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies" (*Rev* 13:5; cf. *Dan* 7:3–8, 11, 20, 25; *KJV*).61 While the possibility of animal locution (if taken literally) is thus inscribed into the tradition—hence conceivable generally speaking—it seems to be reserved for exceptional times, to say the least.

In its discursive climate of conception (with the Counter-Reformation well underway), the *coloquio* must therefore (seem to) employ several strategies of either mitigating what is likely to have been a discursively volatile matter; or of justifying the latter in (apparently) orthodox terms—hence these words, put into Berganza's mouth: "I find myself enriched by this divine gift of speech ['deste divino don de la habla']"; also implicitly equating speech with life (in an orthodox acceptation): "this gift ['bien'] [ ... ], which I consider to be something on loan ['prestado']" (Cervantes 2016b, p. 453; Cervantes 2002a, p. 301).<sup>62</sup> Mirroring Campuzano's strategy, both dogs accentuate their (textually) factual caninity, and that they will exploit their *kairós*, while deprioritizing its causative:

there's no reason for the two of us to start arguing ['disputar'] about how or why we're talking. [ ... ] let us take advantage ['aprovecharnos'] of this happy situation, and talk all night [ ... ] I intend to enjoy myself and take advantage ['gozarle y aprovecharme']

<sup>60</sup> To say nothing of the host of passages on "dumb idols" (*Hab* 2:18, *1Cor* 12:2; *KJV*; cf. e.g., *Ps* 115: 4–7, 135:15–17); nor of these notoriously thorny lines (*Lev* 24:16; *Mt* 12:31–32; *Mk* 3:29). As everyone knows, there is also a speaking serpent in *Gen* 3:1, 4–5; naturally, this particular precedent for animal narration in *Scripture* will likely be considered rather problematic, in a Christian context. Cf. Cummings, noting (with regard to Early Modern England): "As if to provide authority, Browne cites (with disingenuous seriousness) 'the Serpent that spake unto Eve' and dogs and cats that talk to witches" (Cummings 2004, p. 165). For speaking animals (donkey, dog, lion) in *Scriptural* traditions from a dogmatic point of view, see also (Hobgood-Oster 2014, passim), with spec. reference also to Balaam's speaking donkey at *Num* 22:28–30 (pp. 217–18); the readings—including a "story of a preaching dog" from "*The Acts of Peter*" in "Christian apocrypha"—are problematic (p. 218; cf. p. 219), to the extent that they may seem to be uncritically dogmatic; as to the centrality of the *lógos* in the Christian tradition, see also (Hobgood-Oster 2014, passim, spec. pp. 211–15, *cum grano salis*). Generally—and like the Cervantine *œuvre* overall—the *coloquio* teems with (largely) oblique references to *Scripture*, see (Forcione 1984, p. 72, passim). As to the *fiat lux* with regard to the present thematic focus, see also: "Wären wir Gott gleich, so würden die Geschichten, die wir uns ausdenken, selbst zu Wirklichkeiten, in denen wir uns ausdrücken"—thus Blumenberg's paraphrase of a sentence on the part of Campanella: "*ut cum fabulas fingimus, quas realiter exprimeremus si Deo aequivalentes essemus*", qtd. in (Blumenberg 1986, pp. 83, 83n.).

<sup>61</sup> The doctrinal plane is also inscribed into the witch's tale (Cervantes 2016b, pp. 487–95), suggesting that Berganza and Scipio are human brothers in houndlike shape. She cites a prophecy, see (Cervantes 2016b, p. 490; Cervantes 2002a, p. 338), concerning their (potential) retransformation, which alludes to a suitably distorted mélange—cf. (Forcione 1984, pp. 44–46); (Gossy 1989, pp. 79, 130n.); (Boyd 2010, p. 39); (Dunn 2010, p. 100)—of various *Scriptural* passages (among others: *Dan* 4:37, with context; *Isa* 2:11–17, 40:4; *Lk* 1:51–52, 3:5, 14:11; *Mt* 23:12, 28:18) with a revelational tendency. In a rhetorical analysis of *sermocinatio* (at various levels), it must be rendered problematic what is put into the mouth of whom—e.g., a hag teaching a dog on dogmatic matters of the Faith, his account thereof being additionally mediated via the intratextual reader (Peralta) and author (Campuzano).

<sup>62</sup> Likewise, Scipio states: "si el cielo me concede tiempo, lugar y habla" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 322). See Sieber's felicitous formulation: "El don del hablar es el punto de origen de su vida" (Sieber 2002, p. 37). For the discursive implications: "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's" (*1Cor* 6:19–20; *KJV*). See an orthodox articulation of 'life on loan' in Calderón's later *El gran teatro del mundo*: "¿Cómo me quitas lo que ya me diste?"—"Porque dados no fueron, no: prestados/sí, para el tiempo que el papel hiciste" (Calderón 2009, p. 81, vv.1296–1298); see (Epictetus 1928a, pp. 490–91, §11; pp. 496–97, §17); cf. (Mayfield 2015, p. 59n.). On the Council of Trent, the Tridentine Counter-Reformation, generally and re Cervantes, cf. (Küpper 1990, pp. 21–23, 25, 287–290, 387n., 459–460, passim); with (Küpper 2000, pp. 178–79, 193n., 197–98, 199n., 201n., 203–4, 212n.–213n.; Küpper 2005, pp. 218–19); (Forcione 1984, p. 196); (Spadaccini and Talens 1989, pp. 212, 238–39); (Nolting-Hauff 1987, pp. 191–92); on the *novelas*, see (Teuber 2005, pp. 243–44); (Gossy 1989, p. 59); contrast (Atkinson 1986, p. 131)—who thus does not render sufficiently problematic the following: "investing dogs with the power of speech, a liberty for which also there was sound precedent" (p. 138); see (Aylward 2010, p. 256).

of it [sc. this gift of speech] as much as I can[.] (Cervantes 2016b, p. 453; Cervantes 2002a, p. 301); cf. (Hart 1979, p. 383)

Analogously to the ensign's aforesaid assertion of his sensory perception, Berganza declares:

I [ ... ] believe that everything we've undergone up to this point, and what we're undergoing right now, is a dream ['todo ( ... ) es sueño'], and that we are, in fact, dogs. But let us not for all that refrain from enjoying ['gozar'] this gift of speech which we have been given, and the exceeding excellence of possessing human powers of reason, for as long as we possibly can (Cervantes 2016b, p. 499; Cervantes 2002a, p. 347).

The extratextual recipient might take a structurally equivalent stance (at a metalevel): while animal narrators are not exactly likely, this need not deter the reader from deriving some benefit from the text, whether in terms of *delectare*, *movere*, *docere* (or otherwise)—with the colloquy accommodating each and all of these potential approaches (*Einstellungen*).63 In the present case, the function of *delectare* (the enjoyment promised) envelops that of *docere* (the message conveyed); while the latter is apparently not how the intratextual reader (Peralta) peruses the novella, (present-day) extratextual recipients may tend to focus particularly on the socio-moral, historico-cultural, epistemological, or zoopoetic—cf. (Derrida 2002, p. 374)—information simultaneously imparted.64

In line therewith, scrutinizing the dialog's intratextual situation of communication is needful.<sup>65</sup> In many passages, the referential and emotive functions dominate textually (Berganza narrating observations, experiences).66 Whenever Scipio is speaking, the conative function tends to be in the forefront; several (interactive) sections feature metalingual, metapoetic assessments—including those where the dogs speak about their surprise at being capable of speech (partly, this involves the

<sup>63</sup> Cf. "a set (*Einstellung*) toward" (Jakobson 1987a, p. 66). Generally, any type of text, particularly those of an expressly literary make, are polyfunctional constructs—from both a productive (poetic) and a receptive (hermeneutic) point of view. Historically, various rhetorical traditions log the functions of *docere* (*prodesse*), *delectare*, *movere*—usually all with a view to *persuadere* or *dissuadere*, cf. (Mayfield 2017b, p. 19n.). For the Horatian "aut prodesse [ ... ] aut delectare" (Horace 2005, p. 478, v.333); cf. "gusto o provecho" in the witch's tale (Cervantes 2002a, p. 341); the *ars poetica* is mentioned on (p. 355); see Berganza's aiming at taking Scipio's advice to recount events "de manera que enseñen y deleiten a un mismo punto" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 307); cf. (Boyd 2010, pp. 40–41); (Thompson 2010, pp. 265–66, passim); with the context *cum grano salis*, cf. (Atkinson 1986, pp. 138–39); re "mezclar [ ... ] lo útil con lo dulce" in connection with cynicism (Cervantes 2005, p. 20); cf. (Riley 1976, pp. 194–95). On polyfunctionality and rhetoric, cf. (Mayfield 2017b, pp. 5–8, 5n.–6n., 8n., 14n., 33n.).

<sup>64</sup> Cf. "the specific world view of Hapsburg Spain [ ... ] that reality is in *the text* and is part of its structure" (Spadaccini and Talens 1989, p. 214); "the reader plays a central role in the construction of meaning" (p. 216); "The reading of the *Casamiento/Coloquio* [ ... ] entails the discovery of the rhetorical structure of our perceptions of reality; an [ ... ] encounter with a world constructed out of a confluence of discourses through the [ ... ] tricks of language" (p. 231); "From a rhetorical standpoint, one of the techniques used by art and literature to persuade was to implicate the reader/spectator in the work itself. [ ... ] the power of interpretation is 'given' to the reader/spectator in order to make the manipulation (and the persuasion) more viable" (Spadaccini and Talens 1989, p. 240); cf. "the creative act of reading belongs to the actual reality of the text itself" (Nerlich 1989, p. 254); "Cervantes's complex fictionalization of the reading process in the *Dogs' Colloquy*. [... ] this kind of activation of the reader" (Forcione 1989, p. 336; cf. p. 345). For an ethical reading re "*tropelía* y engaño literario: *El coloquio de los perros* es una mentira que quiere ser en su propio modo una verdad" (Sieber 2002, p. 38; cf. p. 31); see (Teuber 2005, p. 258); (Hart 1979, pp. 379–80).

<sup>65</sup> Jakobson's linguistico-literary description of communicational situations suggests six functions (and corresponding factors): the emotive (addresser), conative (addressee), referential (context), metalingual (code), phatic (contact), and poetic (message); cf. (Jakobson 1987a, passim, spec. pp. 66–71)—all of which will be present in most any form of semiotic interaction, albeit to differing degrees of predominance; these may differ from an intra- or extratextual perspective. Poetic and hermeneutic emphases tend to vary (even be at variance), since any recipient all but inevitably refunctionalizes anything received—a process also influenced by how a semiotic artifact has been conceived.

<sup>66</sup> Cipión had requested: "me cuentes tu vida y los trances por donde has venido al punto en que ahora te hallas" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 301); cf. Berganza's summary remark towards the end, with Nominalist *couleur* re contingency—generally thereto, cf. (Küpper 1990, pp. 41–44, 263–90, spec. 270–72, 277; Küpper 2000, pp. 210–15)—"¿Ves mis muchos y diversos sucesos? ¿Consideras mis caminos y mis amos tantos?" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 354). These rhetorical questions are paradigmatic of polyfunctionality: the emotive and conative function are accentuated; the poetic one is present in various forms of parallelism, in the cumulative consonance based on the high density of the letter ‹s›. Regarding the "comediantes", Berganza details the focus and content of his observations ("noté, averigüé y vi") in this *percursio* (partly representative re other episodes): "su proceder, su vida, sus costumbres, sus ejercicios, su trabajo, su ociosidad, su ignorancia y su agudeza, con otras infinitas cosas" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 354).

phatic function).67 Typically a source of pleasure for the recipient, the poetic function subtly prevails throughout (to a greater degree in the highly rhetoricized original).<sup>68</sup> This is decisive, since (at a metalevel) a text's poeticity integrates with its discursive dynamics in several respects: "poeticalness is not a supplementation of discourse with rhetorical adornment but a total reevaluation of the discourse and of all its components whatsoever" (Jakobson 1987a, p. 93). In Cervantes' case, this is particularly pertinent in terms of assorted (poetically functionalized) echoes, inversions, frequent equivalences at the structural level—including (narratological) *mise en abyme*, recurring discursive latencies, forms of notional suspension with a tendency to produce various effects of irony.<sup>69</sup>

#### **6. Concerning Cynicism: 'Diogenes the Dog' and the Cervantine Canines**

no en el sentido alegórico, sino en el literal

(Cervantes 2002a, p. 347)

todo cuanto decimos es murmurar.

(Cervantes 2002a, p. 321)

A self-reflexively rhetorical dimension is woven into the text itself.70 In a respective approach, it is requisite to describe what is stated (*de dicto*, *de re*)—and, more intricately, what could have been, but is not. In a context referring to *inventio*, *sermocinatio* (qua device in terms of *tractatio*), and aiming at crafting an effect of plausibility, Campuzano claims:

The things they talked about ['trataron'] were important and diverse ['grandes y diferentes'], and more aptly debated ['tratadas'] by wise men ['varones sabios'] than spoken out of the mouths of dogs ['dichas por bocas de perros']. So that, since I could never have made up ['inventar'] these utterances on my own, I have come to believe ['vengo a creer'], in spite of myself and against my better judgment ['contra mi opinión'], that I have not been dreaming ['soñaba'], and that the dogs have been, in fact, talking (Cervantes 2016a, p. 445; Cervantes 2002b, p. 294). <sup>71</sup>

At the metalevel, the choice has been precisely for dogs speaking 'wisely' (literally: to and with each other, in their capacity as canines, and in what is, to their knowledge, an 'intraspecies' colloquy)—and

<sup>67</sup> See "la admiración que nos causó el vernos con habla" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 336); cf. (Gaylord 2002, p. 115); cf. "Hablan sobre la posibilidad de hablar (como Cervantes habla en el Prólogo de la posibilidad de prologar)" (Sieber 2002, p. 35).

<sup>68</sup> In its generally metalingual context—cf. "Este nombre se compone de dos nombres griegos" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 320)—the pun in '*añadiendo colas al pulpo*', with Berganza remarking "no se llaman colas las del pulpo" (p. 319), seems a rhetorico-semantic paronomasia, melding '*colon*' (from Greek '*kólon*') with '*cola*'; for another reasoning, see (Forcione 1984, p. 6n.; cf. pp. 227–28); on wordplay in the *coloquio*, see (Hart 1979, p. 383). The account of Berganza's and Scipio's being human brothers in canine shape is additionally motivated poetically: the sorceress causative of their alleged metamorphosis—"Tuvo fama que convertía los hombres en animales" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 337)—is supposed to be able to "hacer nacer berros", a patent paronomasia with the "perros" she is then said to have 'midwifed'; cf. "mostróle que había parido dos perritos", "este perruno parto de otra parte viene", "ella había convertido a sus hijos en perros" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 338); cf. (Forcione 1984, p. 155n.). For the 'paronomastic' "metamorphosis" in "*Canis*, Cañizares, 'Canization'", see (Kohlhauer 2002, p. 54; trans. dsm).

<sup>69</sup> Cf. (Forcione 1984, pp. 10, 41, 102, 126–27, 138); (El Saffar 1976, pp. 58, 84–86, passim; El Saffar 1974, pp. 64, 76, 82–85); (Gossy 1989, pp. 57–58); (Schmauser 1996, pp. 159–60); (Teuber 2005, p. 257); (Boyd 2010, pp. 15–16, 41); (Aylward 2010, pp. 235, 239–58); (Spadaccini and Talens, p. 228); (Kohlhauer 2002, pp. 75, 81). The *coloquio* commences with an ironic marker (typical of Cervantine *écriture*), then echoed at the end: "[la] merced que el cielo en un mismo punto a los dos nos ha hecho" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 299); "El acabar [ ... ] y el despertar [ ... ] fue todo a un tiempo" (p. 359); cf. (Boyd 2010, pp. 16, 41). For internal parallelisms featuring slight variations with considerable discursive import: "la ociosidad, raíz y madre de todos los vicios" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 310); cf. (*1Tim* 6:10, *2Thess* 3:6–13, spec. v.10); "la ociosidad sea madre de los pensamientos" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 318). Cf. Johnson's metapoetical statement: "We are left, as usual, where Cervantes so often leaves us, with [ . . . ] multiple perspectives, and [ . . . ] competing voices" (Johnson 1991, p. 22).

<sup>70</sup> This must all the more caution against anachronistic construals, against spiriting away the reader or recipient.

<sup>71</sup> On the various "*modi tractandi*", here spec. "*sermocinatio*" qua 'putting words into the mouth of', see (Lausberg 2008, pp. 532–33, §1105; p. 543, §§1131–1132)—with 'delegating one's voice' being a device of indirection. On "*memoria*" and "*inventio*" with regard to Cervantes, cf. (Nerlich 1989, pp. 264–65).

not for other, equally conceivable entities (else one might as well think of two owls, horses, or elephants); it is a discourse historically motivated selection, as the following will demonstrate.72

A recent translator of the *Exemplary Novellas* labels four of them—including "The Glasswork Graduate", "The Deceitful Marriage", "The Dogs' Colloquy"—"darker", "gloomier narratives" (Cervantes 2016c, p. 431).73 Typifying the protagonist of the first as "[a] thoroughly disillusioned pessimist" (Cervantes 2016c, p. 210), he avers—with (Forcione 1982, pp. 242–50)—the "destructive negativity of cynical philosophy" (Cervantes 2016c, p. 212).<sup>74</sup> Reflecting a widespread attitude toward 'cynicism'—cf. (Mayfield 2015, pp. 3–11)—such value judgments tend to arise from certain (personal, moral, notional) expectations, as per which something is then seen to fall short. While the gauge applied is naturally up to the respective reader's proclivity, the above is not the only possible measure and assessment.

This essay takes as its point of reference the—distinctly transcultural—reception of the literary *persona* of 'Diogenes the Dog', which had already had a history of almost two millennia when the Cervantine "Coloquio" was published in 1613, culminating the *Novelas ejemplares*. 75

A text's discursive substratum—its structurally relevant, (partly) latent or express intertexts (a historico-culturally specific, even distinctive kind of code)—might be located at a metalevel of the rhetorical function of *docere*, and be conceived of as (conatively) directed at the extratextual recipient (metareferentially, metalingually, from a poetico-hermeneutic perspective).76 The process of reception can (and typically does) take place without attention being paid to this additional plane—just as one might enter a house without knowing its ground plan. In other words: a literal level—at which, for instance, textual canines are (semiotically) portrayed and (virtually) received in their capacity as dogs—can coexist with other planes simultaneously present (among them the discursive).77 Even so, knowledge of the structural, "architextual" (Kohlhauer 2002, p. 60; trans. dsm; cf. p. 81) level tends to initiate a reassessment of the overall (semiotic) edifice by adding (exegetic) nuances, disclosing

<sup>72</sup> Refunctionalizing the concept of "motivation" *mutatis mutandis* (Jakobson 1987b, pp. 26–27); cf. (Küpper 1990, pp. 41–42, 41n.–42n.). At a literal level, cf. also: "el único animal que se ajustaba a la intención satírica del *Coloquio* era precisamente el perro, por su doble condición de animal doméstico, hábil escrutador de vidas cotidianas, y de andariego y callejero. Ni el asno ni el gallo le servían para ello" (Blecua 1972, p. 177). Like other domestic beings (or, as Blecua argues above, more than others), dogs tend to be perceived by humankind as quasi-go-between entities—hence (literarily) expedient for evincing various forms of human–animal interaction. Generally speaking, dogs may have always seemed to give humankind the impression that they were striving to communicate; the particularly close—spatial, physical—proximity that has (arguably all but always) obtained between these species may be seen to provide the (factual) basis for a continued semiotic interaction characterized by reciprocity, mutuality; hence: "reading a dog's bodily movements as communication is not anthropomorphic, but is an acknowledgement of the shared embodiment that makes all languages possible" (Raber 2013, p. 192n.).

<sup>73</sup> Cf. e.g., (Riley 1976, pp. 195–96); (Gaylord 2002, pp. 111–12); (Boyd 2010, p. 5); (Dunn 2010, p. 98); (Nerlich 1989, pp. 306–7); (Forcione 1989, p. 340). Contrast Hart's sober (qua '*sachlich*') approach (Hart 1979, pp. 383–84, 385n., 386n.).

<sup>74</sup> Cf. (Riley 1976, pp. 196–197); (El Saffar 1976, p. 45); (Forcione 1984, pp. 13–14, 133). On the *coloquio* with respect to Cynicism, see (Forcione 1984, pp. 5–6, 6n., 29–30, 56, 132, 155–56, 155n., 166, 171–76, 180–83, 201, 219, 227); (Ziolkowski 1983, pp. 101–2); (Hart 1979, pp. 381, 386n.); cf. and contrast (Antonio 1953, *cum grano salis* throughout, due to its biographistic approach, pp. 293–95, 304–7, passim, and problematic conception of cynicism, pp. 295, 297–98, 303, 306–7); to some extent, the former and latter set of problems applies also to (Riley 1976, pp. 191, 196–98); cf. the echoes in (Aylward 2010, pp. 235–37); see also (Montauban 2006, passim, spec. pp. 770–72), (Montauban 2009, passim, spec. pp. 395–97), both *cum grano salis*; for a brief and problematic mention, cf. (Dümchen 1989, p. 113).

<sup>75</sup> See (Sieber 2002, p. 31); cf. "this extraordinary two-part finale" (Gaylord 2002, p. 113); "the summation of the entire moral thrust of the *Novelas*" (Boyd 2010, p. 41; cf. p. 42).

<sup>76</sup> As to a multilevel approach, see Küpper's explication (with reference to Aristotle, Lotman) regarding "welchen Grad an Abstraktion die Literatur erreicht, welchen Profils also ihr kognitiver Anspruch ist": spec. "dass ein literarischer Text in dieser Hinsicht eben jenen Grad erreicht, den wir ihm als Leser zuschreiben"; hence: "das entsprechende Niveau von Verallgemeinerung ist in das Benehmen des Rezipienten gestellt"—with it being possible "im Akt der Lektüre mehrere denkbare Ebenen des Allgemeinen zu erproben und zwischen diesen Ebenen hin- und herzuwechseln" (Küpper 2013, p. 265).

<sup>77</sup> Within the *coloquio*, Cipión performs an exegesis of Camacha's (supposedly prophetic) verses, trying to read them allegorically: "sus palabras se han de tomar en un sentido que he oído decir se llama al[e]górico, el cual sentido no quiere decir lo que la letra suena, sino otra cosa" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 346); when that has apparently proven unsuccessful, he opts for the 'literal sense': "no en el sentido alegórico, sino en el literal, se han de tomar los versos de la Camacha" (p. 347); and when this proves inconsistent with the facts—precisely since "nos estamos tan perros como ves" (p. 347)—he rejects the verses and witches altogether.

other potential points of view. Such is the objective of the ensuing synopsis, providing the discourse historical groundwork for the colloquy's (partly oblique) references to cynicism.78

D. Laertius' *Lives of Eminent Philosophers* were brought from Constantinople in the early fifteenth century, translated into Latin within the first half thereof, available in print by the 1470s, and widely circulated.79 Well-known Diogenical matter had already been prevalent throughout Europe in the Medieval Latin *Gesta Romanorum*, the Spanish *Bocados de oro*. <sup>80</sup> While the (infinitizable) sentences and anecdotes in such compilations invite 'reallocation' by their very form, Machiavelli's refunctionalization of dicta—extracted from D. Laertius, employed in *La vita di Castruccio Castracani da Lucca* (~1520)—is particularly noteworthy.<sup>81</sup> It might be signaled by the mention of "Florence" and "Lucca" in the Cervantine novella "The Glasswork Graduate" (Cervantes 2016d, pp. 216–17)—precisely in a text performing a structurally equivalent reallocation of sayings with a cynical slant.82 In terms

<sup>78</sup> Concerning the *Quijote*, Küpper states: "the author favors the oblique modus as a result of fundamental considerations" (Küpper 2005, p. 219n.; trans. dsm); Nolting-Hauff accentuates "a particularly wary mode of expression" on the part of Cervantes (Nolting-Hauff 1987, p. 192; trans. dsm). Overall, as Forcione notes, "Cervantes tends to exploit the value system of his society to construct his works" (Forcione 1989, p. 350); cf. also (Nolting-Hauff 1987, pp. 191–92); (Küpper 2000, p. 179)—the latter with the universal remark as to "was sich hinter wohlfeilen Formeln zu verbergen pflegt: Abgründe" (p. 184n.).

<sup>79</sup> See (Rahe 2007, pp. 42–43, 42n.); (Mayfield 2015, p. 95n.); cf. and contrast (Riley 1976, pp. 189, 191–92); referring to Riley, see also (Montauban 2009, p. 395).

<sup>80</sup> On the *Gesta Romanorum*, see (Largier (1997, pp. 246–48)), giving an *exemplum* featuring a familiar Alexander–Diogenes encounter, from a 1342 manuscript—cf. (Oesterley 1872, p. 589, §183, germ. §15); see the Medieval Spanish *libro de los enxemplos* (~13th century), cited in (Largier (1997, pp. 204–5), referring to Valerius Maximus, to Seneca's *de beneficiis* for its moral message—see (Seneca 2006, pp. 298–99, V.iv.3–4). Cf. the 13th century *El libro de los buenos proverbios*, "also translated into Hebrew", based on an "Arabic collection of sayings [ ... ] of the 9th century" (Largier (1997, p. 208n.; trans. dsm). On the 13th century *Bocados de Oro*, see (Bocados 1971, pp. 39a–44, X); (Largier (1997, pp. 188–96); cf. (Mayfield 2015, p. 23n.); as to the "Medieval 'genres'" of "the *exempla* and the *novas*" (Spadaccini and Talens 1989, p. 210; see pp. 211–213); *cum grano salis*, cf. (Beusterien 2016, pp. 8, 37–40, 49, 51, 53–54, 57). The above might demonstrate the transcultural, translingual prevalence of the matter at hand. Rather than to a historical individual, it refers to a literary *persona* commonly called 'Diogenes the Dog/Cynic (of Sinope)'—cf. "ó KωΆν" (Aristotle 2006, p. 400, III.x.7, 1411a)—continually constructed and construed over the course of a considerable tradition enduring to this day: "the story of Diogenes, like a snowball rolled downhill, gathered additions to itself as it went along" (Dudley 2003, p. 19); generally, see (Niehues-Probsting 1988 ¨ , p. 18); (Mayfield 2015, pp. 11–12, 18–53, spec. 18n., 21n.–22n.).

<sup>81</sup> See (Machiavelli 1969, pp. 747–63); cf. (Strauss 1978, pp. 223–25); (Rahe 2007, pp. 42–43, 43n.); (Mayfield 2015, pp. 94–95, 94n.–95n.).

<sup>82</sup> On '*chria*', (in)finite '*sententia*', see (Lausberg 1990, pp. 130–31, §§398–399; Lausberg 2008, pp. 431–34, §§872–879, pp. 536–40, §§1117–1121); re the *coloquio*, cf. (Hart 1979, passim, spec. p. 380). For Blumenberg's concept of "Umbesetzung", 'refunctionalization', 'reallocation', cf. (Blumenberg 1999, pp. 52, 57–58, 60, 71, 87–88, passim; Blumenberg 1996, pp. 183–299); re applications, see (Küpper 1990, pp. 258, 274, 406, passim); (Mayfield 2015, p. 170n.; Mayfield 2017c, passim). For the present argument concerning the *coloquio*, it is needful to log a comparable presence of this textual strategy in the "Novela del licenciado Vidriera" (Cervantes 2002c, pp. 54–73); cf. (Riley 1976, pp. 190–95, passim); (Küpper 2000, pp. 180–90; re cynicism, pp. 186n.–187n., 190); (Ricapito 1996, pp. 85–88); (Dümchen 1989, passim). Refunctionalizations occur in terms of form and content—cf. (Cervantes 2016d, pp. 221–39), with (D. Laertius 2005, pp. 22–85, VI.20–81). The context—*siglo de oro*, Counter-Reformation Spain, the attribution of the protagonist's wayward behavior to a mental condition caused by a substance administered against his will, see (Cervantes 2016d, p. 220)—produces (paradigmatic) alterations (in tendency); moreover, a textual strategy of *aemulatio* regarding the Diogenical 'source type' (Lotman's term *mutatis mutandis*)—see (Lotman 1972, pp. 151, 151n.); cf. (Mayfield 2015, pp. 11–12, 12n., 19, 19n., 22–55, 272, 272n., 286)—holds sway throughout, while the basic structure of the anecdotes and *sententiae* remains discernible; cf. and contrast (Riley 1976, pp. 191–94, including examples); (Forcione 1982, p. 263, ch. 3 passim); cf. (Forcione 1984, pp. 6n., 7, 12n., 181, 201); (Schmauser 1996, pp. 87, 89–90). In terms of tendency, cf. e.g., the Cervantine version—"he would only drink water from springs or rivers, and that only with his hands. [ ... ] During the summers, he slept out in the countryside, out in the open ['al cielo abierto']" (Cervantes 2016d, p. 221; Cervantes 2002c, p. 54); the formulation "al cielo abierto" is also used by Berganza (Cervantes 2002a, p. 305)—with this account in D. Laertius: "One day, observing a child drinking out of his hands, he cast away the cup from his wallet with the words, 'A child has beaten me in plainness of living'" (D. Laertius 2005, p. 39, VI.37); "In summer he was wont to roll around on the red-hot sand" (D. Laertius 2008, pp. 289–90, VI.23; trans. dsm); cf. (Mayfield 2015, pp. 46–48). In terms of structural affinity, cf. e.g., a Cervantine version—"One time, as he was standing in front of a tailor's shop, he noticed that the fellow was standing around doing nothing ['estaba mano sobre mano']. He said to him: 'There is no doubt about it, master tailor: you are on the path to salvation [ ... ], since you have nothing to do, you won't have any occasion to tell lies'" (Cervantes 2016d, p. 231; Cervantes 2002c, p. 65)—with the following in D. Laertius: "to a man whose shoes were being put on by his servant, he said, 'You have not attained to full felicity, unless he wipes your nose as well; and that will come, when you have lost the use of your hands'" (D. Laertius 2005, p. 47, VI.44); cf. (Mayfield 2015, p. 45). A penchant for wordplay is discernible in "The Glasswork Graduate" (in Cervantes generally) and D. Laertius passim; cf. "De las damas que llaman *cortesanas* decía que todas, o las más, tenían más de corteses que de sanas" (Cervantes 2002c, p. 71; for comparable puns,

of genre, the *coloquio*'s frequently (and in part explicitly) satirical thrust additionally reinforces its ties to cynical discourses—the latter having been dependably linked particularly to the Menippea since Antiquity.<sup>83</sup>

Everyone knows this anecdote: "He [sc. 'Diogenes'] lit a lamp in broad daylight and said, as he went about, 'I am looking for a man'" (D. Laertius 2005, p. 43, VI.41).<sup>84</sup> It is decidedly refunctionalized in "The Deceitful Marriage":

two dogs [ ... ] go around at night with the brothers of the Order of St. John of God, lighting the way with a pair of lanterns ['lanternas']. [ ... ] if perchance someone tosses alms out of a window, [ ... ] the dogs go up to it right away, shedding light ['alumbrar'] with their lanterns, to see what has fallen. And they tend to stop in front of the windows which they know ['saben'] to be places where people are in the habit of ['tienen costumbre de'] giving them alms ['darles limosna']. And out on the street like that, the two dogs behave so meekly ['mansedumbre'] that they seem ['parecen'] more like lambs ['corderos'] than dogs; back in the hospital, however, they are veritable lions ['leones'], protecting ['guardando'] the building with extreme care and vigilance ['cuidado y vigilancia']. (Cervantes 2016a, pp. 443–44; Cervantes 2002b, p. 293) <sup>85</sup>

A comparison with the terse Diogenical anecdote, attention to the discursive implications conveyed by contrast, are needful, as the above sets the scene for all that follows in terms of animal narration in the *coloquio*—hence also for a potential reception in this respect.86 Initially, one might log the alterations: midday vs. night, ostensively undue or prodigal vs. functional employment of

cf. pp. 63, 63n., 65, 65n., 67]B39-humanities-06-00028); with: "The school ['scholèn'] of Euclides he [sc. 'Diogenes'] called bilious ['cholén'] and Plato's lectures ['diatribèn'] waste of time ['katatribén']" (D. Laertius 2005, pp. 26–27, VI.24); cf. (D. Laertius 2008, p. 290n.); (Dudley 2003, p. 57); (Mayfield 2015, p. 50n.; on Diogenical wordplay, p. 30n.). Generally, cf. "News of his madness ['locura'] and of his answers and sayings extended throughout Castile" (Cervantes 2016d, p. 223; Cervantes 2002c, p. 56); "people of every walk of life were always hanging on his every word" (Cervantes 2016d, p. 228; cf. p. 230; Cervantes 2002c, pp. 61, 63); "In the end, he said so many such things that, if it were not for [ ... ] his dementia ['locura'], anybody would have thought he was one of the wisest men in the world" (Cervantes 2016d, p. 239; Cervantes 2002c, p. 73)—statements that, *mutatis mutandis*, might plausibly be reapplied 'backwards' to '*ho kýon*' (qua control); spec. in connection with the (paronomastic) comment on the apparent 'madman', embedded in a particular altercation: "más tenéis de bellaco que de loco" (Cervantes 2002c, p. 55). 'Diogenes' is dubbed "[a] Socrates gone mad" by 'Plato' (D. Laertius 2005, p. 54, VI.54); thereto, cf. (Mayfield 2015, p. 31). Figuratively at first, Berganza is described as "algún demonio en figura de perro", dubbed "'perro sabio'" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 333); later, some take it literally: "'¡Apártense, que rabia el perro sabio!' [ . . . ] es Demonio en figura de perro" (p. 345).

<sup>83</sup> (Juvenalian) satire is explicitly mentioned: "era difícil cosa el no escribir sátiras" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 306; cf. p. 306n.); (Forcione 1984, pp. 180–82); see (Kohlhauer 2002, p. 66). As to satire, diatribe, the Menippea, the carnivalesque, with respect to the *coloquio*, see especially (Kohlhauer 2002, p. 54; cf. pp. 56–57, 60, 63, spec. 64–70, 74–76, 78, 81, passim; with explicit reference to Cynicism, cf. pp. 70, 74); generally, see (Nolting-Hauff 1987, passim; pp. 184–89), in conjunction with (Nolting-Hauff 1983, passim); as to the *coloquio* in particular, cf. (Nolting-Hauff 1987, pp. 190–95).

<sup>84</sup> See (Mayfield 2015, pp. 31–31, 31n.–32n.); cf. and contrast (Forcione 1984, pp. 155–56).

<sup>85</sup> See (Forcione 1984, pp. 155–56, 155n.); also Berganza, on his conduct toward the poet: "Hícele mis acostumbradas caricias, por asegurarle de mi mansedumbre" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 351). Cf. Montaigne: "I observe with [ ... ] amazement the behavior, [ ... ] common enough, of the dogs that blind men use both in the fields and in town; I have noticed how they stop at certain doors where they have been accustomed to receive alms, how they avoid being hit by coaches and carts, even when for their part they have enough room to pass; I have seen one, along a town ditch, leave a smooth flat path and take a worse one, to keep his master away from the ditch" (Montaigne 1989, p. 340, II.12); cf. the spec. pertinent passage in Montaigne's French with the Cervantine wording above: "je me suis pris garde comme ils s'arrêtent à certaines portes, d'où ils ont accoutumé de tirer l'aumône" (Montaigne 2009, p. 196, II.xii). The other segment perhaps relevant here, "j'en ai vu le long d'un fossé de ville, laisser un sentier plein et uni, et en prendre un pire, pour éloigner son maître du fossé" (p. 196, II.xii), may seem like a rendering of dogs as anti-*pícaros*, if contrasted with Lazarillo's vengeful termination of serving "el ciego", at the end of the first *tractado* (*Lazarillo* 2011, pp. 44–46, I)—for whom he acts as a sort of human seeing-eye dog, and an aide in begging alms, "salimos por la villa a pedir limosna" (p. 44, I)—by deceiving the blind man into leaping headlong ("de toda su fuerza") into a post ("poste"), leaving him "medio muerto" (*Lazarillo* 2011, p. 45, I).

<sup>86</sup> Concerning the dogs with their lanterns, Beusterien writes: "Cervantes evokes the commonplace notion from the day that the dogs are connected to the pursuit of an exemplary life associated with Saint Dominic and his order. A multitude of images from the sixteenth and seventeenth century can be found of Dominican dogs holding torches in their mouths [ ... ] Rosal's description of the Dominicans states: 'the preaching order of [ ... ] Saint Dominic has the dog with a torch in its mouth as its coat of arms, a symbol of preaching and representative of the purest doctrine and an exemplary life'" (Beusterien 2016, p. 49; cf. p. 49n.); as to Dominicans and canines, see also (Forcione 1984, pp. 155n.–156n.); (Alves 2014, p. 277); (Manning 2007, p. 148). In the latter case, dogs are indeed (only) instrumentalized as symbols, wherefore

(artificial) sources of light, apparently gratuitous vs. conducive, purposive objective, resplendent futility of endeavor vs. attainment. Asking for alms is also part of the agenda dependably attached to the arch-Cynic's literary *persona* since Antiquity—as in this notorious instance: "He once begged alms of a statue, and, when asked why he did so, replied, 'To get practice in being refused'" (D. Laertius 2005, p. 51, VI.49).<sup>87</sup> The tendency differs considerably from that of the Cervantine canines; their collecting of alms is set in a Christian—socio-morally sanctioned, rather than willful (even frivolous)—context.

Regarding their intratextual portrayal, these specific dogs—in their textual capacity as animals—are here markedly (re)functionalized by human beings: as organico-technical mélanges (body, lantern); as ambulant luminaries, characterized by a knowledge of human habits (later presented as capable of articulating the like). In material, metaphorical, and abstract terms (all of which are simultaneously present textually), both aspects appear as leitmotifs of the following *coloquio*: 'to shed light on', focusing on sight and ken (by figurative extension); 'to know customs', accentuating a retentive faculty (among other things).88

From an intertextual perspective, their characterization is clearly informed by a Christian ground swell, as the catchwords "meekly" and "lambs" indicate (immediately perceived by anyone in that discourse historical climate): "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth" (*Mt* 5:5; *KJV*); "Bienaventurados los mansos: porque ellos recibirán la tierra por heredad" (*RVA*). "I send you forth as lambs among wolves" (*Lk* 10:3; *KJV*); "yo os envío como corderos en medio de lobos" (*RVA*).

This discursive setting is melded with another venerable point of reference. The discussion of the guardians (*phýlakes*) in Plato's *Politeía*—here (Plato 2013, pp. 182–91, II, 374e–376c; see pp. 314–19, III, 410c–411d), cf. (Ziolkowski 1983, p. 96), (Kohlhauer 2002, pp. 58, 58n., 71, 74–75)—seeks a literally natural occurrence coalescing (inward) affability (towards familiars) and (outward) aggression (against externals): "they [sc. the guardians] must be amenable ['práous'] toward their own people, but intractable ['chalepoús'] against their enemies" (Plato 2013, pp. 184–85, II, 375c); and heuristically encounters it in the factual conduct of canines:

Where shall we find a gentle and stouthearted ['praon kaì megalóthymon'] character together? [ ... ] surely gentleness of nature and strong spirits are opposing qualities. [... ] Yet whichever of these qualities you removed, the result would never be a good guardian ['phýlax agathòs']. [ ... ] there are natural dispositions [ ... ] which have these opposing qualities. [ ... ] We may see it in other animals ['állois zóois'], not least in the

Beusterien's all but exclusive privileging of this imagery—which would have contributed to the Early Modern recipients' being able to tie in their experience with the *coloquio*'s virtual world—may seem somewhat remarkable, considering his claim to a decidedly non-figurative, Animal Studies approach otherwise (Beusterien 2016, pp. 35–36, 48n., passim). The reference to Cervantes' being "also interested in the Cynics" (Beusterien 2016, p. 78n.) occurs later, as a footnote in the context of a discussion concerning Velázquez' painting of "Mennipus [sic], known as Cynic or 'little dog'" (p. 78), where Beusterien asserts: "While the dogs carrying torches principally connected them with Dominican iconography, it also connected them with the Cynic philosophers" (p. 78n.). Given the express reference to cynicism in the *coloquio*, as well as the textual presence of Platonico-Socratic and *Scriptural* indications even at the semantic level, an effectively exclusive emphasis on Dominican iconography (which, in turn, would have been influenced by the aforesaid traditions) may seem problematic. Beusterien's reading of the *coloquio* as "a revolutionary animal exemplum" (Beusterien 2016, p. 39)—contrast (Kohlhauer 2002, p. 61)—hinges on the dualism of "the dog's connection to saintliness" and "to a tradition in which they are icons of the diabolic" (Beusterien 2016, p. 50; cf. p. 51); a reference to the text's explicit gesture(s) toward cynicism would have significantly diluted the alleged polarity Beusterien requires, in order to make his case.

<sup>87</sup> Cf. (D. Laertius 2005, p. 47, VI.46, p. 51, VI.49, p. 61, VI.59, pp. 69, 68n., VI.67); see (Mayfield 2015, pp. 26n., 30, 45, 48, 51, 52n., 61, 306). Cf. Berganza on the *gitanos*: "Cuando piden limosna, más la sacan con invenciones y chocarrerías que con devociones" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 348).

<sup>88</sup> "Cipión and Berganza serve as watchdogs and 'lightdogs'" (Nerlich 1989, p. 309). Throughout the *coloquio*, the dogs are not 'employed' in line with what might seem their most 'utile' natural capacity (the olfactory) from a human perspective; instead, they serve as audiovisual observers—a tendency accentuated by frequent mentions of terms referring to the respective senses (in physical and figurative contexts); but cf. "llegó a mis narices un olor de tocino [ ... ]; descubríle con el olfato, y halléle" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 325)—ironically, this instance (where Berganza's scent plays a crucial role) causes considerable havoc for the humans involved. Generally, cf. also Raber's heuristic contrast: "When early modern texts discuss cats, they rarely if ever dwell on the haptic zone that for postmoderns may be the most significant source of pleasure for both parties: petting cats simply does not figure in early modern texts or cultural artifacts, although we must assume that it happened" (Raber 2013, p. 25).

one we compared to our guardian. I'm sure you know about dogs with good breeding ['ton gennaíon kynon']: that their character ['ethos'] is naturally to be able to be most friendly to those they are used to and recognize, but the opposite with those they don't know. [ ... ] Then this is possible [ ... ] and we are not looking for our guardian to be the type that contradicts nature ['ou parà phýsin']. [ ... ] he who is going to be watchful ['ho phylakikòs'] still lacks something: in addition to being strong-spirited, he must be naturally interested in philosophy[.] [ ... ] You will also see this in dogs, something that deserves our admiration in the animal. [ ... ] at the sight of someone unknown to it, it becomes aggressive, even if it hasn't had an adverse experience before. But whoever it sees that it recognizes, it welcomes them even if it has never been treated well by that person [ ... ] this natural instinct of the animal makes it seem clever ['kompsón'] and truly a philosopher ['alethos philósophon'] [ ... ] in that it distinguishes what it sees as either friendly or hostile ['phílen kaì echthràn'], by no other means than being familiar with the one and not recognizing the other. Yet how could it not be eager to learn[,] when it can distinguish by what it knows and what it does not know what belongs to its world ['oikeion'] and what is alien ['allótrion'] to it? [ ... ] is [not] passion for knowledge ['philomathès'] the same thing as the passion for wisdom ['philósophon']? [ ... ] In that case, let's [ ... ] apply it to mankind as well. (Plato 2013, pp. 186–89, II, 375c–376b) <sup>89</sup>

Again, the Cervantine text—staging the hospital's environment as a quasi-micro-*pólis*—provides a catchword, "guardando" (Cervantes 2002b, p. 293) to support the signaling of this intertext, echoed at several levels (semantic, structural) in the *coloquio*. <sup>90</sup> In both Plato and Cervantes, the respective dogs are textual canines, but precisely in their capacity as animals; the recipient is to (and likely will) visualize virtual dogs, based on her experience with tangible, olfactible ones. Even so, the necessary presence of this literal level does not signify that—at the discursive level concurrently present—the natural, factually observable conduct of dogs could not also have further implications (as is the case in both texts). In other words: not only does a discursive reading not efface the literal plane; but the former actually depends on the latter.

Regarding the incorporation of apparent opposites, another *Scriptural* dictum literally tying in with the above is crucial: "I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves" (*Mt* 10:16; *KJV*); "yo os envío como á ovejas en medio de lobos:

<sup>89</sup> The dog had already been introduced at (Plato 2013, pp. 182–83, II, 375a); mentioned again, with the horse (pp. 184–85, II, 375a). The glosses at (Plato 2013, pp. 188n.–189n.) seem to be innocent of a serious appreciation for the rhetorico-hypoleptic dimension of Plato's *écriture*; on this problem, see (Ziolkowski 1983, p. 96). Given a respective readiness, a polyfunctional view of semiotic artifacts might demonstrate that apparent or near opposites (the ironic, grave, cheerful, severe, etc.) may be simultaneously present; re the *coloquio*, see (Forcione 1984, pp. 171–74, 177–78, 195, 200, 214, 231)—spec. "contexts of rapidly shifting perspectives and varied tones" (p. 173); "[t]he plurality of meanings effected" (p. 174); "play of possibilities" (p. 177).

<sup>90</sup> Scipio refers to the "amistad y fidelidad inviolable" attributed to dogs with the respective term figuratively employed, "guardaron" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 300; cf. p. 300n.). Regarding outward aggression, Berganza states: "servía con gran cuidado y diligencia; ladraba a los forasteros y gruñía a los que no eran muy conocidos; [ ... ] hecho universal centinela de la mía y de las casas ajenas" (pp. 312–13). In his shepherding episode: "it seemed to me that the proper and natural function of dogs ['propio y natural oficio de los perros'] is to stand guard over ['guardar'] livestock, which is a task entailing a very great virtue, namely that of sheltering and defending the humble ['humildes'] and the needy from the proud ['soberbios'] and powerful" (Cervantes 2016b, p. 457; Cervantes 2002a, p. 305; cf. pp. 310–11), where these terms reappear: "el oficio de guardar", "se guardase", "guardar", "guarda", "centinelas"). Generally, the attributes human beings in a certain context attach to particular animals tend to be mediated by previous (literary) formulations (fables, folktales, proverbs, etc.); cf. e.g., Montaigne's following formulations, apparently melding near-contemporaneous historical data with allusions to the Platonic intertext: "as the Spaniards in the recent conquest of the Indies did to their dogs, to whom they gave pay and a share in the booty; and these animals showed as much skill and judgment in pursuing their victory and holding back, in charging or withdrawing according to the occasion, in distinguishing friends from enemies, as they did ardor and fierceness" (Montaigne 1989). For a reading of a document relating to "the Spanish dog" qua "mighty military fighting machine" of "sixteenth-century conquistadors", see (Beusterien 2016, pp. 1–3)—given the Animal Studies approach of the latter, the wording may seem rather curious.

sed pues prudentes como serpientes, y sencillos como palomas" (*RVA*).<sup>91</sup> While, at a literal level, the familiarly canine (shepherding) function of fending off wolves will later feature in the *coloquio*—see (Cervantes 2002a, pp. 305–11, spec. 310–11), with Berganza wearing "el collar de *Leoncillo*", standing in for the defunct dog so named (p. 306)—the serpentine–columbine prodigy, which Christ's dictum counsels, is replaced by alluding to the alloy of 'lion' and 'lamb' that another *Scriptural* passage employs to portray Christ Himself (see *Rev* 5:5–6).92

Likewise, it is needful to note that Epictetus' diatribes—specifically (Epictetus 1928b, pp. 130–69, III.22)—had already refunctionalized the Platonic 'guardian–watchdog' analogization to textually housetrain unruly Cynics, particularly with the aim of Stoicizing the image otherwise conveyed of the 'Diogenes' *persona*. <sup>93</sup> The Epictetian discourse employs the equation 'Cynic (from '*kýon*') qua scout and guardian' in a literalized fashion, thereby deriving an itemized occupational profile and targeted mission statement for his Stoicized 'Cynicism':

Man, the Cynic has made all mankind his children [ ... ] in that spirit he approaches them all and cares for them all. Or do you fancy that it is in the spirit of idle impertinence he reviles those he meets? It is as a father he does it, as a brother, and as a servant of Zeus, who is Father of us all. (Epictetus 1928b, p. 159, III.22); cf. (Mayfield 2015, p. 65)

above all, the Cynic's governing principle should be purer than the sun; if not, he must needs be a gambler and a man of no principle, because he will be censuring the rest of mankind, while he himself is involved in some vice. (Epictetus 1928b, p. 163, III.22); cf. (Mayfield 2015, p. 69)

the true Cynic [ ... ] must know that he has been sent by Zeus to men, partly as a messenger ['ángelos'], in order to show them that in questions of good and evil they have gone astray [ ... ]; and partly [ ... ] as a scout ['katáskopos']. For the Cynic is truly a scout, to find out what things are friendly to men and what hostile; and he must first do his scouting accurately, and on returning must tell the truth[.] (Epictetus 1928b, pp. 136–39, III.22); cf. (D. Laertius 2005, pp. 44–45, VI.43); (Mayfield 2015, pp. 69–73) <sup>94</sup>

<sup>91</sup> Not only a learned Early Modern audience would all but inevitably connect this *Scriptural* passage, or (narrative) allusions thereto, also with the notorious Plautine *sententia* (which, incidentally, also resonates with the Platonic passage above, if cited in full): "lupus est homo homini, non homo, quom qualis sit non novit" (Plautus 1966, p. 176, II, v.495); re the *coloquio* in this respect, cf. (Kohlhauer 2002, p. 59). Generally, see Gracián's topical coalescence: "entre los hombres, pues cada uno es un lobo para el otro" (Gracián 2009, p. 99, I.iv); "ya estamos entre enemigos [ ... ] que si los hombres no son fieras es porque son más fieros, que de su crueldad aprendieron muchas vezes ellas. Nunca mayor peligro hemos tenido que ahora que estamos entre ellos" (p. 100, I.iv). Contrast Beusterien, who—contesting what he calls "the *homo homini lupus* tradition", including "*La Celestina*", "Gracián", "Hobbes" (Beusterien 2016, p. 48; cf. p. 49)—claims: "Cervantes [ ... ] marks an important step toward the manifestation of the Animal Studies argument against the use of the *homo homini lupus* metaphor" (p. 49).

<sup>92</sup> Cf. and contrast (Forcione 1984, pp. 155–56). See Gracián's formulation: "*No ser todo columbino*. Altérnense la calidez de la serpiente con la candidez de la paloma. [ ... ] Sea uno mixto de paloma y de serpiente; no mostro, sino prodigio" (Gracián 2011, pp. 234–35, §243); cf. (Mayfield 2015, pp. 227–28). In the *coloquio*, Cipión praises the Jesuits in precisely those terms ("singular prudencia [ ... ] humildad profunda [ ... ] bienaventuranza"), while adding the notion that they function as celestial scouts: "guiadores y adalides del camino del cielo" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 316); cf. (Hart 1979, pp. 380–81); (Forcione 1984, pp. 147–51); (Nolting-Hauff 1987, p. 192). Regarding 'poetic license', Horace's *ars poetica* states that this cannot include "that savage ['immitia'] should mate with tame ['placidis'], or serpents couple with birds, lambs with tigers" (Horace 2005, pp. 450–51, vv.12–13).

<sup>93</sup> See (Mayfield 2015, pp. 61–75, spec. 69–70, 72n., 73). Cf. its history of reception during the Early Modern Age: "the first printed edition of the *Discourses*" was "published [ ... ] in Venice in 1535" (Dobbin 2011a, p. xxiii). "The most important modern editions are [ ... ] published in Basel between 1560 and 1563, which included a Latin translation and commentary" (p. xxiv).

<sup>94</sup> Cf. the second quote with Scipio's ensuing guidelines: "murmura, pica y pasa, y sea tu intención limpia, aunque la lengua no parezca" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 308). On 'Diogenes' qua "spy" (Epictetus 2011, pp. 45–46, I.24); Epictetus ties to this literary *persona* the 'espying' of the following: "death is no evil, for it is not shameful either. [ ... ] ill repute is the empty noise of madmen" (p. 45); "to be simply clothed is better [ ... ] to sleep on the bare ground is the softest bed": "This is a proper spy" (p. 46). Dobbin glosses: "Diogenes is a 'spy' because he has scouted out the extremes of hardship, and is in a position to report that nothing there is beyond endurance" (Dobbin 2011b, p. 202)—adding that suchlike is "part of a revisionist effort to rescue Cynicism's reputation by bringing it more into line with traditional Hellenic values" (p. 203).

Displaying a monodirectional, didactico-moralizing impetus, an assertive air of authority, the Stoic thus tries to impose his view of how matters should be. With differences in tone and semblances in tendency, the Cervantine *coloquio* features the ensuing agenda:

You think gossiping ['murmurar', implying harm done: 'slandering', 'maligning', 'censuring'] is the same as philosophizing ['filosofar']? There you go! Canonize it, [... ] Berganza, that cursed plague of gossip ['la maldita plaga de la murmuración'], and give it whatever name you like, and that will give us a reputation for being cynics ['cínicos'], which is the same as saying 'gossip-mongering dogs' ['perros murmuradores']. (Cervantes 2016b, p. 471; Cervantes 2002a, p. 319)

The translation of "murmurar", "murmuración", "murmuradores" as "gossip" seems infelicitous, here; for such arguably mitigates the term's impact, obscuring the import of the discursive reference to the history of reception and various refunctionalizations of cynicism.<sup>95</sup> The damage (potentially) done by the tongue—"speaking ill" ("decir mal")—is a leitmotif throughout (Cervantes 2016b, p. 466; Cervantes 2002a, p. 315).<sup>96</sup> Moreover, such forms of articulation are stably attached to cynicism from its outset, due to the contumelious conduct of the arch-Cynic 'Diogenes': "He was great at pouring scorn on his contemporaries" (D. Laertius 2005, p. 27, VI.24).97

Apparently in accord with the discursive climate of its conception, the "Colloquy" has Berganza link injurious words and deeds to the doctrine of Original Sin: "wrong-doing and speaking ill ['hacer y decir mal'] are things inherited from our first parents ['nuestros primeros padres'], that we lap up with our mothers' milk" (Cervantes 2016b, p. 466; Cervantes 2002a, p. 315; cf. pp. 342, 344).98 Ostensively in line with the official Counter-Reformation agenda and its universal(ist) claim, this Catholic reading is then also applied to (a particular conception of) secular philosophy (words put in Scipio's mouth):

<sup>95</sup> As the third meaning of three, the *DRAE* offers: "Conversar en perjuicio de un ausente, censurando sus acciones" (Real Academia Española 2014, s.v. "murmurar")—with "perjuicio" conveying a clearly severe implication. Cf. the witch's self-description: "no puedo [ ... ] pensar en bien, porque soy amiga de murmurar" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 343; cf. p. 340). Having cautioned "Vete a la lengua, que en ella consisten los mayores daños de la humana vida" (p. 304)—Cipión distinguishes two kinds of "murmuración": "consentiré que murmures un poco de luz y no de sangre; [ ... ] no es buena la murmuración, aunque haga reír a muchos, si mata a uno" (pp. 306–7); cf. "murmura, pica y pasa" (p. 308); Sieber glosses: "Cipión se refiere al lenguaje como instrumento físico del satírico que puede herir a su víctima" (Sieber 2002, p. 37). Referring to Scipio's aforecited line, Beusterien bases his reading of the *coloquio* on Aesop's having (been believed to have) been a stutterer—with "Cervantes' creation of talking dogs [ ... ] parallel[ing] Aesop's interest in creating talking animal[s]" (Beusterien 2009, p. 218); hence he wishes to hinge "new readings of *El coloquio de los perros*" vis-à-vis Cervantes' intuited stuttering on a "literal" ("not [ ... ] a figurative") reading of the sentence "'en ella consisten los mayores daños de la humana vida'" (Beusterien 2009, p. 219)—the decontextualization of which may seem rather problematic. For "murmuración" as "'backbiting'" (Ziolkowski 1983, p. 101); cf. (Forcione 1984, pp. 171–72, 180–81, 227); (El Saffar 1974, p. 64); (Hessel 2008, pp. 13–14, the latter *cum grano salis* passim). Elsewhere, the trans. gives "murmura" as "tattle" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 308; Cervantes 2016b, p. 459), while later rendering "un maldiciente murmurador" (linked to: "calu[m]niar") as "a certain malicious slanderer" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 314; Cervantes 2016b, p. 466), "murmuración" as "slander" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 318; Cervantes 2016b, p. 469); cf. also (Kohlhauer 2002, pp. 65–66, 71); the semantic distance between 'gossip' and 'slander' seems considerable. Generally, an onomatopoetic quality of the word '*murmurar*' cannot be discarded; cf. the felicitous formulation: "murrende Kritik" (Teuber 2005, p. 253; with '*knurrende*' implied in a canine setting); hence also 'snarling' (perchance 'grumbling'). Cf. the contexts, variants of '*murmurar*' in "The Glasswork Graduate" (Cervantes 2002c, pp. 59, 69, 71); see (Riley 1976, p. 194). As to the semantic scope of '*murmuración*', and regarding the overall *œuvre*, the dedication's nexus of "los Cínicos" with 'vituperation', 'lack of respect' ("su vituperio, sin guardar respecto a nadie"), might be adduced (Cervantes 2003, p. 54); see (Riley 1976, p. 194); re Machiavelli, cf. (Strauss 1978, p. 40); (Mayfield 2015, pp. 109, 197, 197n.); *cum grano salis*, as Riley notes—(Riley 1976, pp. 194–95); cf. (Hart 1979, p. 386n.)—also the reference in Torres' '*aprobación*' for the *Quijote*'s second part; see (Cervantes 2005, p. 20). Generally, cf. also Gracián's description of the human tongue as a weapon "mucho más terrible[ ... ] y sangrienta[ ... ]" than the "armas naturales" of the animals: "tienen [sc. 'los hombres'] una lengua más afilada que las navajas de los leones" (Gracián 2009, p. 101, I.iv); the glosses add: "*Navajas:* 'Fig. colmillo de jabalí y de algunos otros animales'. (*Dic. Acad.*) Gracián lo relaciona con la lengua de los murmuradores, que también se llaman 'navajas'. (*Dic. Aut.*)" (Gracián 2009, pp. 101n.–102n.).

<sup>96</sup> Cf. (Cervantes 2002a, pp. 306–8, 314–15, 318–19, 321, 327, 340, 343); see (Forcione 1984, pp. 187–236, spec. 196, 201–2, 218–21).

<sup>97</sup> Cf. (Mayfield 2015, pp. 28–35). Re "The Glasswork Graduate": "Like Diogenes he is intellectually vain and courts the admiration of a public which he spends most of his time insulting. [ ... ] His habit of destructive criticism is his outstanding Cynical characteristic" (Riley 1976, p. 194).

<sup>98</sup> See (Forcione 1984, pp. 171–73, 195–96, 202–4); (Riley 1976, pp. 195–96).

Beware, Berganza, lest that urge to philosophize ['esa gana de filosofar'] you say has come over you be some temptation sent to you by the devil. Because slander ['murmuración'] has no better veil for glossing over and covering up its dissolute wickedness ['su maldad disoluta'] than the slanderer's ['murmurador'] giving to understand that everything he says is a matter of philosophical opinion ['sentencias de filósofos'], and that speaking ill ['decir mal'] amounts to moral censure ['reprehensión'], and revealing ['descubrir'] other people's flaws ['defetos'] is only righteous zeal. And there is no slanderer ['murmurante'] whose life, if you consider and scrutinize it, is not full of vice ['vicios'] and contempt for others ['insolencias'] (Cervantes 2016b, p. 469; Cervantes 2002a, p. 318).

After a section chastising the ostentatious, non-pertinent, erroneous use of Latin for purposes of signaling erudition—see (Cervantes 2002a, pp. 318–19)—Scipio offers the abovequoted reproof, cautioning against gaining a reputation for being "cínicos" qua "perros murmuradores" (p. 319).

Despite several attempts—including later ones, especially since the Enlightenment, see (Mayfield 2015, pp. 3–11, 66–75)—the Stoicized version of the 'Cynic' could not succeed. By contrast, the Cervantine take is still very much present comparatively—also due to several literary allusions, adaptations.99 The variance between the Epictetian and the Cervantine strategy of reshaping the cynic's image is directly tied to their discursive tendency and communicational situation—hence also of narratological import. "I wouldn't want us to sound like preachers", Berganza asserts; and when he admonishes "all [that] sounds like preaching, Scipio", the latter replies: "So it seems to me, so I shall remain silent" (Cervantes 2016b, p. 463).100 Whereas the Stoic imperatively scolds and dogmatically lectures his intratextually explicit audience, the Cervantine *coloquio*'s "contrapuntal" (Díaz-Plaja 1968, p. 110; trans. dsm), decidedly dialogic, dynamically polydirectional disposition permits the implicit (intra-, extratextual) addressees to follow the verbally staged contentions *in utramque partem*—see (Forcione 1984, pp. 179, 186, 228)—the articulated and (virtually) embodied 'intraspecies' altercation between the two canines, in the manner of their choice: be it primarily for purposes of pleasure (*delectare*), of edification (*docere*), or for effecting an emotionally responsive state of mind (*movere*); be it as a piece of epideictic rhetoric (the *genus demonstrativum*, chiefly in its variant of blaming rather than praising), an (implicit) exhortation (based on a scene featuring several voices, as in the *genus deliberativum*), an indictment of contemporary society (qua infinitized 'lawsuit', pertaining to the *genus iudiciale*); be it as a secular confession, an extended fable, a (Menippean, carnivalesque) satire or dialogic diatribe, a *novela picaresca*, a meta-dialog, a metalingual or metapoetical treatise; be it as a socio-historically, epistemologically informative, zoopoetically plausible narrative (simultaneously encouraging and facilitating the taking of other perspectives); be it still, or altogether, otherwise.101

<sup>99</sup> See spec. Hoffmann's "Nachricht von den Neuesten Schicksalen des Hundes Berganza" (Hoffmann 2006, pp. 101–77, II.v; cf. pp. 690n.–723n.). See the synopses in Ziolkowski's ch. "Talking Dogs: The Caninization of Literature" (Ziolkowski 1983, pp. 86–122, spec. 102–22, 240–45); on Unamuno's *Niebla*, see (Friedman 2006, pp. 264–65, 303); as to Lizardi's "Conference of a Bull and a Horse", cf. (Alves 2011, p. 198); for further references concerning the *coloquio*'s 'afterlife' in other texts, see also (Nolting-Hauff 1987, p. 192); (Johnson 1991, pp. 23, 23n.); (Beusterien 2016, pp. 24–25, 45n.); (Kohlhauer 2002, p. 81); as regards the "representational strategies of the illustration of 'El coloquio de los perros'" in its various editions over the centuries, see (Manning 2007, passim, spec. p. 148, here p. 136).

<sup>100</sup> The Spanish has forms of 'to seem': "no quiero que parezcamos predicadores" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 311); "Todo eso es predicar, Cipión amigo [ . . . ] Así me lo parece a mí, y así, callo" (p. 312).

<sup>101</sup> Generally, cf. (Forcione 1984, p. 17); (Dunn 2010, p. 86); (Hart 1979, pp. 378–79, 382, 384n.). For the rhetorical genera, see (Lausberg 2008, pp. 52–61, §§59–65). On the dialog's dynamics, cf. the metatextual reference in the framework narrative: "púselo en forma de coloquio por ahorrar de *dijo Cipión, respondió Berganza*, que suele alargar la escritura" (Cervantes 2002b, p. 295); cf. (Aylward 2010, p. 238). On Cervantine dialog, see (Kohlhauer 2002, pp. 70–76); (Spadaccini and Talens 1989, pp. 211, 222, passim); cf. spec. "Cervantes's works culminate in dialogism" (Spadaccini and Talens 1989, p. 211); "a plurality of voices surfaces *within the text*" (p. 222). Kohlhauer also suggests: "In vielerlei Hinsicht liest sich das Hundegespräch wie eine pointierte Persiflage auf die Disputatio des Mittelalters [... ] ebenso ['käme'] das gelehrte Streitgespräch der Renaissance in Frage" (Kohlhauer 2002, p. 71). The intratextual framework offers (Aesopic) fables, folktales, for generic situating: "¡Si se nos ha vuelto el tiempo de Maricastaña, cuando hablaban las calabazas, o el de Isopo, cuando departía el gallo con la zorra y unos animales con otros!" (Cervantes 2002b, p. 294). Berganza applies to his situation a specific Aesopic fable regarding a "donkey" (Cervantes 2016b, pp. 464–65);

#### **7. 'Against the Dog only a Dog': Talking Canines Humanizing Cynicism**

qué quiere decir filosofía; que aunque yo la nombro, no sé lo que es;

sólo me doy a entender que es cosa buena.

(Cervantes 2002a, p. 320)

Rhetorical techniques of indirection (especially such as pertain to a multiplication, interlacing of narrative levels) are prevalent in the Cervantine *œuvre* overall—and also in the novellas at hand.102 Rather than lecturing the addressee by itemizing how the human Cynic must be and act, the *coloquio*'s two dogs talk—as textual canines—about how they are and behave in (literary) fact: a vivid, virtually actual embodiment of the etymological root of the word 'cynic' ('*kýon*')—rather than a human being observing and adopting animal traits, with 'Diogenes' being dubbed a 'dog' due to his flagrantly crude conduct.103 Via the contrast of Berganza's (articulated) bearing (as a literal canine) to that on the part of the humans in his narrated lifeworld, the reader—taking the textual dog's perspective at a metalevel—may have a tendency to side with the colloquy's canine approach as represented by this

in his exegesis, focusing on the (rhetorical) *aptum*, he uses the term "pícaro" re one who might pertinently imitate a donkey: "rebuzne" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 313); this also links to the mention of "Apuleius's *Golden Ass*", "*El asno de oro*" (Cervantes 2016b, p. 491; Cervantes 2002a, p. 339); cf. (El Saffar 1976, p. 63). The text's structure (a life story, usually *ab ovo*; narrated episodically; tendering a sequence of various masters served, locales visited, customs observed; with a tone ranging from tongue-in-cheek to caustic; etc.) implicitly signals the picaresque; cf. and contrast (El Saffar 1976, pp. 15, 38–39, 46; El Saffar 1974, pp. 63–64, 80); see (Forcione 1984, pp. 7, 15, 24–29, 89–99, 156–58, passim); (Schmauser 1996, pp. 198, 201); (Teuber 2005, p. 254); (Ziolkowski 1983, pp. 100, 102); (Gossy 1989, pp. 59–60, 72–74, 128n.–129n.); (Gaylord 2002, pp. 114, 127n.–128n.); (Aylward 2010, pp. 237–39); (Kohlhauer 2002, pp. 66–69, 78); (Nolting-Hauff 1987, passim, spec. pp. 185–87), also in conjunction with (Nolting-Hauff 1983, passim); re the *coloquio*, see (Nolting-Hauff 1987, pp. 190–92); cf. "'metapicaresque'" (Echevarría 1980, p. 19, cf. spec. p. 23, passim); the latter reprinted in (Echevarría 1993, pp. 48–65, here 54); the initial setting conduces thereto, in signaling a deviant milieu: "Seville ['Sevilla'] [ ... ] that shelter of the poor and refuge of outcasts, whose grandeur not only finds a place for the lowly, but also allows the great to go unnoticed" (Cervantes 2016b, p. 464; Cervantes 2002a, p. 302); on Seville in this respect, see (Küpper 1990, p. 403). Sieber suggests: "Lo que lee es una 'novela picaresca' [ ... ] una parodia del género [ ... ]. Las aventuras de un perro son en realidad una experiencia de intertextualidad. Tiene todos los elementos: el punto de vista autobiográfico [ ... ], padres desconocidos [ ... ], sirve a muchos amos [ ... ] y juega el papel de satírico, castigando a la mayoría de sus amos, y descubriendo sus vidas hipócritas" (Sieber 2002, p. 35). Campuzano—admitting to his "intención tan torcida y traidora", while preferring to prudently omit it ("que la quiero callar")—qualifies a literary (secular) confession thus: "aunque estoy diciendo verdades, no son verdades de confesión, que no pueden dejar de decirse" (Cervantes 2002b, p. 286); rhetorically, this pertains to the office of *dispositio* ('being economical with the truth'); generally, see (Lausberg 2008, pp. 241–47, §§443–452). Cf. "Una verdad te quiero confesar, Cipión" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 344). "The very fact of a succession of masters undermines the ideal of loyalty of which the dogs have spoken. Berganza's narration is, from a dog's point of view, a confession. He has failed as a loyal servant. [ ... ] Berganza justifies his disloyalty by citing the hypocrisies and deceptions of men" (El Saffar 1974, pp. 67–68). The witch (like an unrepentant 'Augustinian') seems to be making her willful '*confessiones*' to a dog—cf. (Forcione 1984, pp. 41–42, 59–60, 63, 68, 89–91, 135–37, 178). As regards genre (and apart from brief mentions of "the humanist dialogue" (Beusterien 2016, p. 57; cf. pp. 37–38), Beusterien seems to limit the *coloquio* to a "ground-breaking version" of the "animal exemplum" (p. 40; "revolutionary", p. 39; cf. pp. 8, 49, 51, 53–54, 57): "Cervantes [ ... ] not only radically reconfigure[s] the animal exemplum and the humanist dialogue, but the renaissance representation of the canine. [ ... ] Cervantes borrows renaissance conceptions of the animal only to reconfigure them" (Beusterien 2016, p. 57). Even when omitting the narrative framework that is *El casamiento engañoso* from the analysis (which hardly seems a sustainable approach, given its textual presence in the *coloquio*), such a generic mono-focus will seem problematic for this (and very likely for any other) Cervantine text. Incidentally, Beusterien's all but categorical emphasis on the genre of the *exemplum* might, from his own point of view, not seem to be exactly conducive to the Animal Studies approach he claims. Focusing on (Menippean) 'satire' and the 'carnivalesque' (Kohlhauer 2002, p. 54; cf. pp. 56–57, 60, 63, spec. 64–70, 74–78, 81, passim), Kohlhauer reads the *coloquio* as a 'parody' ("parodistisches [ ... ] Spiel") on "animal literature" (p. 53; trans. dsm; cf. pp. 57, 60, 65, 75, spec. 77, 79–81, passim); "eine Parodie, eine Satire der Satire" (p. 66), 'breaking with all of its conventions' (p. 54; cf. pp. 56–58, 60, 77, passim); he stresses its "'desymbolization' [ ... ] of the conditio animalis" (Kohlhauer 2002, p. 62; trans. dsm; cf. p. 77). Metapoetically, Sieber sees Cervantes 'satirizing' "la falta de estructura aristotélica de esas novelas picarescas" (Sieber 2002, p. 35). One might consider the poet's all but exclusive emphasis on the "espectáculos" (Cervantes 2002a, pp. 352–53, here 353) as staging the effects of not following Aristotle in this respect; on '*ópsis*', see (Aristotle 1995, pp. 52–55, §6, 1450b); cf. (Mayfield 2017b, p. 27n.). Cf. "Esta *novela* [sc. the *coloquio*] es [ ... ] una *meta-novela*"—Dunn cited in (Sieber 2002, p. 38n.); cf. (Gaylord 2002, pp. 115–16). Cf. "a colloquy about the colloquy" in general, "a kind of metadialog" (Kohlhauer 2002, p. 75; trans. dsm; cf. p. 77).

<sup>102</sup> See e.g., (Forcione 1984, pp. 24, 27, 178–79); (El Saffar 1976, p. 16); (Aylward 2010, pp. 250, 253, passim); (Kohlhauer 2002, pp. 75, 79–81, passim).

<sup>103</sup> With the second to last item *cum grano salis*, the ensuing précis might be utile: "Various reasons were given for the[ ... ] canine title: [ ... ] sexual shamelessness, [ ... ] biting criticism—and [ ... ] sycophancy—[ ... ] homeless frequenting of the streets" (Riley 1976, p. 192; cf. and contrast p. 196); see (Ziolkowski 1983, p. 97).

interlocutor in the dialog.104 In this indirect way, the *persona* of a human cynic (generally conceived) is implicitly (at the discursive level) reshaped by a textually literal recourse to the very animal that provided the name in the first place—a complex situation of (partly latent) discursive remodeling that relies precisely on (the recipient's appresentation of) the dogs textually present in their capacity as animals.

Echoing the framework narrative's account concerning the apparently renowned conduct of the clinic's canines, the ensuing tenders Berganza's perspective, describing his (view of his) canine performance within the colloquy's (virtual) world:

one night, seeing you ['viéndote'] carrying a lantern ['llevar la linterna'] in the company of that good Christian, Mahudes, I perceived you to be contented, virtuous, and engaged in pious actions ['contento y justa y santamente ocupado']. And, full of righteous envy ['buena envidia'], I sought to follow in your footsteps ['quise seguir tus pasos'], and with this laudable intention I presented myself to Mahudes, who straightaway chose me to be your companion and brought me to this hospital (Cervantes 2016b, p. 507; Cervantes 2002a, p. 355). <sup>105</sup>

Concurrently present with the (socio-historically, zoopoetically plausible) literal plane, the concept of (visually induced) *imitatio* appears to be patent at a discursive level.106 The dogs, as animals, seem 'humanized' (qua process)—especially Berganza. Still, he is not presented (respectively: does not represent himself) as an idealized specimen—even after joining the hospital crew.<sup>107</sup> Throughout his (narrated) life, he often acts in not exactly ethical ways: partly (and plausibly) due to his factually canine nature—see (Schmauser 1996, pp. 78–79); in part because his behavior as animal always seems influenced by human (while not strictly humane) conduct—with the doctrinal root of this ('fallen') state of affairs being explicit.<sup>108</sup> Even so, Berganza's actions are humanized (at a metalevel) in that he

<sup>104</sup> Rhetorically, this is a most effective (because indirect) device, since (even provisionally) 'identifying' with the hounds is not necessary: the delegation of humanity to dogs does not inevitably make a claim as to the comportment of humans (only potentially)—thereby refraining from a moralizing 'you should/ought to'; generally, see (Aylward 2010, p. 258). Cf. "One of the peculiar effects of the *Colloquy* [ ... ] is its heavy thrust toward dogmatic assertion and its simultaneous resistance to that very thrust. A double elusiveness" (Forcione 1984, p. 17; cf. p. 18); generally, Krauss states "[d]ałs Cervantes nicht moralisieren ging" (Krauss 1940, p. 22).

<sup>105</sup> While also being a reference to a traceable historical individual, cf. (Alonso 1942, passim, spec. pp. 301–302), the syllables in the name of Berganza's and Scipio's master may also allude to the other world religions (previously) present on the Iberian peninsula—a hypothesis reinforced by the emphatic phrase in its vicinity (with thanks to Prof. Küpper for this suggestion).

<sup>106</sup> As to his previous capacity for imitative behavior: "cuando me daban nueces o avellanas las partía como mona [ ... ] ensalada [ . . . ] comí como si fuera persona" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 316).

<sup>107</sup> Contrast (Forcione 1984, pp. 161–63).

<sup>108</sup> Cf. Forcione on "the manner in which Berganza implicates himself in the folly that he surveys" (Forcione 1984, p. 175; cf. p. 235); hence suggestions of "heroism", cf. (Forcione 1984, pp. 154–66, here 154), of "Berganza" qua "true descendant of the Socratic school of philosophers" (p. 160; equally re Neo-Stoic elements, pp. 163–68), may seem problematic. Berganza is a hound of many names and masters—but ultimately his own; his 'service mentality' tends to be motived by the fact that it serves him to serve—when it does: "Yo, de corrido, ni pude ni quise seguirle" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 354); "Pero, en efeto, llevado de mi buen natural, quise responder a lo que a mi amo debía, pues tiraba sus gajes y comía su pan, como lo deben hacer no sólo los perros honrados, a quien se les da renombre de agradecidos, sino todos aquellos que sirven" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 320); cf. "buen natural" (p. 313); see (Forcione 1984, pp. 157–58). Throughout, he leaves his 'masters': "servía bien [ ... ] y nadie me despidió, si no era que yo me despidiese, o, por mejor decir, me fuese" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 312); "sin despedirme de nadie" (p. 332); this conduct is sometimes rationalized as a defensive move: "acordé de poner tierra en medio, quitándomeles delante de los ojos. Halléme un día suelto, y sin decir adiós a ninguno de casa, me puse en la calle" (p. 323). Berganza expressly instrumentalizes a virtue: "la humildad [ ... ] es un medio [ ... ] Désta [ ... ] me aprovechaba yo" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 312); crucially, cf. (p. 316); see (Hart 1979, pp. 380–81, 383); contrast (Antonio 1953, p. 307); (Riley 1976, p. 197); (Forcione 1984, pp. 162–64, 169–74). Scipio states: "Berganza, si tú fueras persona, fueras hipócrita, y todas las obras que hicieras fueran aparentes, fingidas y falsas, cubiertas con la capa de la virtud, sólo por que te alabaran, como todos los hipócritas hacen" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 321). This parallels the witch's 'Machiavellian'—see (Machiavelli 1995, pp. 115–20, XVIII); (Mayfield 2015, pp. 118, 122, 125–26, 133–41, 146, 150, 173–75, 193, passim)—explanation of her conduct: "rezo poco, y en público; murmuro mucho, y en secreto; vame mejor con ser hipócrita que con ser pecadora declarada [ ... ]. En efeto: la santidad fingida no hace daño a ningún tercero, sino al que la usa. [ ... ] este consejo te doy: que seas bueno en todo cuanto pudieres; y si has de ser malo, procura no parecerlo en todo cuanto pudieres" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 340); "cubro con la capa de la hipocresía mis muchas faltas" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 342); on "*murmuración* and hypocrisy", see (El Saffar 1974, pp. 66–68, here 66); cf. (Forcione 1984, pp. 29–30, 175–76); (Ihrie 1982,

does not partake in 'man's inhumanity'—on account of his kind caninity (as commonly conceived); and since he ties in with human(ist) values otherwise (considered) inaccessible to an animal, such as moral philosophical musings of the following nature: "premeditated vengeance bespeaks cruelty and a spiteful disposition" (Cervantes 2016b, p. 506).109

From a meta-perspective, Berganza is neither portrayed as an utterly deprived, all but depraved, and then (partially) reformed '*pícaro*'—nor as an idealized sage in canine skin. Rather, he is presented in terms of a conceivable '*errare caninum est*': a flawed, ultimately considerate *animal quasi rationale*, concurrently capable of aggressive and gentle conduct—precisely as Plato's 'Socrates' had envisioned the guardians of his *pólis* by heuristically tying in with an apparent coincidence of opposites occurring naturally in the observable behavior of dogs (precisely in their capacity as animals). Alleviating its rigor, the Cervantine version outperforms the Epictetian reformulation of the Cynic by rendering the cynical Berganza a dog in fact—a decidedly down-to-earth one, with visible defects in accord with the current discursive climate (Original Sin, affecting nature as a whole).<sup>110</sup> While still 'only' barking (a literal dog in his own narrative), Berganza is forced to keep his observations to himself; not speaking the human tongue, he is naturally unable to gradually alter or somewhat alleviate (say, by introducing laws) the state of affairs—the human condition—he witnesses:

since it was easier for me to perceive all these things than to reform them, I decided not to pay any attention to them. I therefore sought refuge in a sanctuary, as so many do when they renounce vices when they can no longer practice them, although it's better late than never (Cervantes 2016b, pp. 506–7). <sup>111</sup>

pp. 113–14). In *Scripture*, an explicit effect of the Fall is described in *Gen* 3:19, which Berganza echoes: "me hallaba bien con el oficio de guardar ganado, por parecerme que comía el pan de mi sudor y trabajo" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 310); even so, and against his apparently best intentions, he is not actually performing his task ("Desesperábame de ver de cuán poco servía mi mucho cuidado y diligencia"), being deceived by the shepherds, whose malevolence ("los pastores eran los lobos") evinces another effect of the Fall (Cervantes 2002a, pp. 310–11). Cf. "A lo menos, yo haré de mi parte mis diligencias, y supla las faltas el cielo" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 315); see (Cervantes 2002b, p. 292); (Forcione 1984, p. 146).

<sup>109</sup> The Spanish resembles a (proverbial, forensic) *sententia*: "la venganza pensada arguye crueldad y mal ánimo" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 354). Even so, Berganza is not only a barking dog, but also a biting one (both: literally, figuratively); his intermittent factual mordancy in several episodes, e.g., (Cervantes 2002a, pp. 322–23, 331, 344–45); cf. (Hart 1979, pp. 381–82) might be seen to 'translate' into a certain incisiveness; since sarcasm ('tearing flesh' verbally) does not seem to be his case (*murmuración*, cynicism, being somewhat more on the 'insidiously' subtle side), one might argue that 'the gift of speech' as such already somewhat blunts his 'bite' (particularly in this dialogic setting, and self-interestedly); cf. (Cervantes 2002a, p. 321). On 'man's inhumanity', cf. e.g., "these butchers kill a man as readily ['con la misma facilidad'] as they kill a cow" (Cervantes 2016b, p. 455; Cervantes 2002a, p. 303); generally, see (Mayfield 2015, pp. 197–98). Cf. "the world of the *Coloquio* is a world of beasts [ ... ] [with] human beings everywhere descending to the level of the beast [ ... ] The association of man's inhumanity with bestiality in Christian writings is [ ... ] as ancient as the Bible" (Forcione 1984, p. 83; cf. pp. 117–18, 132).

<sup>110</sup> See Riley's twist-in-the-tail formulation: "Berganza [ ... ] keeps lapsing and finally gives up trying to avoid making remarks that might be construed as malicious" (Riley 1976, p. 195). Cf. Scipio's *sententia*: "since doing evil is a thing that comes natural[ly] ['viene de natural cosecha'], it's easy to learn how to do it" (Cervantes 2016b, p. 454; Cervantes 2002a, p. 302). At the metalevel—and in contrast to Baroja's view, stressing the "humorous touches" regarding the witch's depiction qua mediated via a dog (Baroja 2001, p. 219; cf. p. 220)—it will hardly be without discursive import that the didactic formulation of the doctrine (and vicious cycle) of Original Sin—thereto, cf. (Küpper 1990, pp. 51n., 55–56, 56n., 116, 122, 159, 401–2, 414–15, 421, passim)—is put into the witch's mouth, acting as a "teóloga": "Dios es impecable; de do se infiere que nosotros somos autores del pecado, formándole en la intención, en la palabra y en la obra, todo permitiéndolo Dios, por nuestros pecados [ ... ] la costumbre del vicio se vuelve en naturaleza [ ... ] como el deleite me tiene echados grillos a la voluntad, siempre he sido y seré mala" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 342; cf. p. 344); (*Rom* 7:19; see *Mt* 4:6, *Lk* 4:10–11); cf. (Forcione 1984, p. 171). In his picaresque, partly cynical rationalizations, Berganza sometimes begins sounding like the 'Machiavellian' witch: "hoy se hace una ley, y mañana se rompe, y quizá conviene que así sea. Ahora promete uno de enmendarse de sus vicios, y de allí a un momento cae en otros mayores" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 321). Generally, cf. "the canine viewpoint functions as an alienating device that exposes human affairs in a cynical light. [ ... ] scarcely an aspect of early seventeenth-century Spanish society fails to come under the cynical eye of the dog Berganza" (Ziolkowski 1983, p. 102).

<sup>111</sup> Riley notes "[t]he touch of cynical humour in these words" (Riley 1976, p. 197); cf. (Forcione 1984, pp. 177–78); (Hart 1979, p. 383). Generally, see Berganza's struggling with his being unable to articulate himself in the human tongue, cf. (Schmauser 1996, p. 77); (Gossy 1989, pp. 73–74); (Dunn 2010, p. 99): "queriendo decírselo, alcé la voz, pensando que tenía habla, y en lugar de pronunciar razones concertadas ladré" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 358). He speaks of "la grande tentación que tengo de hablar" (p. 304); "me acuden palabras a la lengua como mosquitos al vino" (p. 315). Berganza says he had considered speaking before being capable thereof: "determiné, como si hablar supiera, aprovecharme dellos [sc. frases 'latines']" (p. 318). See his semiotic behavior: "Bajé yo la cabeza en señal de obedecerla" (p. 336); "Díjele bajando la cabeza

While freely admitting to his shortcomings and not abandoning his canine nature, Berganza (at the literal level, in his textually natural capacity qua dog) does indeed do his part throughout (not only at the hospital)—mostly (alleging that he is) acting more 'humanely' (in a humanist acceptation) than ostensive 'humans' (in the textual realm he crafts in his capacity as narrator, and by way of his narrative).112 Even so (one might conjecture, at a metalevel), a human being—while not able to give up its flawed nature (in the orthodox view)—may play its part for the time being.

As the extensive history of reception concerning Diogenical matter evinces, all of the manifold attempts at moralizing—civilizing, humanizing, housebreaking—that apparently feral '*kýon*' ultimately proved feckless: always, the appealingly appalling mélange that is cynicism—its skillful contumely, its refined disrespect, its elegant indelicacy in stance and statement, see (Mayfield 2015, pp. 1, 12–13, 53–55, 98n., 109, 390n.)—has effectively outshone and outdone any Epictetus or Enlightenment representative (much less any more recent attempters) as might have felt it incumbent on themselves to muzzle the matter.113 For '*parrhesía*' ('saying it all', freedom of speech) remains 'the most appealing thing among men'—as 'Diogenes' is said to have asserted.114 After more than two millennia, the Cervantine *coloquio*—specifically its character Berganza, semiotically present as a literal canine, and (all but inevitably) appresented as such by the recipient—is arguably still the closest any text has come in terms of pitting a (discursively) functional opponent against the *persona* of the arch-Cynic: '*nemo contra Canem nisi canis ipse*', 'against the Dog only a dog'.115

que sí haría" (p. 343); on the expectation of human beings in this regard, cf. (Cervantes 2002a, p. 339); they tend to act as if the hound could talk: "y todos me hablaron, y así me preguntaban por mi amo como si les hubiera de responder" (p. 332). To facilitate (the semblance of) a dialog, the witch generally supplies what she surmises might be Berganza's queries: "Quisiérale yo preguntar [ ... ], y parece que me leyó el deseo, pues respondió a mi intención como si se lo hubiera preguntado" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 341; cf. p. 312, between the dogs)—this might also imply the reader's position.

<sup>112</sup> Despite his disavowals: "la virtud, [ ... ] con alcanzárseme a mí tan poco, o nada, della" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 316). Berganza (says he) makes up for his masters' faults, lies: "por no sacar mentiroso a mi amo" (p. 334). As to Humanism in this respect, see (Forcione 1984, pp. 15–16, 146–86, spec. 152–53, 186, 215, 227, 235, passim); cf. (Forcione 1982, passim).

<sup>113</sup> Regarding cynicism in "The Glasswork Graduate": "Vidriera is a mixture of attractive and unattractive qualities. [ ... ] his likable qualities combined with his ruthless critical intellect" (Riley 1976, p. 190); while the context is problematic, cf. the felicitous link between "wit" and "vituperative" in this respect (Babb cited in (Riley 1976, p. 191).

<sup>114</sup> "Asked what was the most beautiful thing among men ['en anthrópois'], he [sc. 'Diogenes'] replied: 'The free word' ['πα*-*ησíα']" (D. Laertius 2008, p. 312, VI.69; trans. dsm; D. Laertius 2005, p. 70); see (Mayfield 2015, pp. 52–53). Cf. "the unsparing candor of the Cynic philosopher" (Forcione 1984, p. 6; cf. p. 228). On *parrhesía* and 'propriety' in the *coloquio*, see (Cervantes 2002a, p. 319); cf. (Forcione 1984, pp. 5–8, 13). While embedded in a problematic context, the following seems decisive: "*Berganza y Cipión* [ ... ] dicen todo cuanto quieren y como quieren. [ ... ] Los dos perros, murmuración adelante, llegan a murmurar de la murmuración" (Antonio 1953, p. 305); re Erasmus in this respect, cf. (Forcione 1984, p. 183). *Parrhesía*, paradoxically put: animals cannot talk, so they might say whatever they want.

<sup>115</sup> Cf. the following motto, opening part IV of Goethe's *Dichtung und Wahrheit*: "*Nemo contra deum nisi deus ipse*" (Goethe 1962, p. 205); cf. (Blumenberg 2006a, p. 596, passim). This oppositive structure reflects the arch-Cynic's tendency of aiming at outshining anyone—as inscribed into several encounters with seeming 'social superiors', such as 'Philip', 'Plato'—as to the latter, cf. e.g., (D. Laertius 2005, pp. 28–29, VI.26); (Forcione 1984, p. 183); (Mayfield 2015, pp. 25n., 26–27, 37n., 44, 44n., 47n., 52n.)—with the most emblematic being: "When [ ... ] sunning himself [ ... ], Alexander [ ... ] stood over him [sc. 'Diogenes'] and said, 'Ask of me any boon you like'. To which he replied, 'Stand out of my light' ['aposkótesón mou', sc. 'unshadow me']" (D. Laertius 2005, pp. 40–41, VI.38); cf. (Mayfield 2015, pp. 20n., 27–28, 42–43, 47–48, passim). In this respect, the *coloquio*'s being (in generic label, in textual fact) a multidirectional, polyphonic dialog is fundamental—see (Spadaccini and Talens 1989, pp. 222, 229): an uncynical Scipio's counterclaims, his more restrained *persona* and presence, are articulated and active throughout—even while Berganza is performing his (intermittently) parrhesiastic, cynical self.

**Acknowledgments:** The author is grateful to Joachim Küpper and Susanne Zepp for their effectual comments to the benefit of this essay. The author wishes to thank the anonymous reviewers commissioned by the *Humanities* journal, as well as the editor for the Special Issue *Animal Narratology*, Joela Jacobs.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.

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© 2017 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

## *Article* **The Search for Dog in Cervantes**

#### **Ivan Schneider ID**

Seattle, WA 98104, USA; ivan@ivantohelpyou.com

Received: 20 March 2017; Accepted: 11 July 2017; Published: 14 July 2017

**Abstract:** This paper reconsiders the missing *galgo* from the first line in *Don Quixote* with a set of interlocking claims: first, that Cervantes initially established the groundwork for including a talking dog in *Don Quixote*; second, through improvisation Cervantes created a better *Don Quixote* by transplanting the idea for a talking dog to the *Coloquio*; and third, that Cervantes made oblique references to the concept of dogs having human intelligence within the novel.

**Keywords:** Cervantes; talking dogs; narratology; animal studies

#### **1. Introduction**

"[Cervantes] saw his scenes and the actors in them as pictures in his mind before he put them on paper, much as El Greco [see Figure 1] made little clay models of his figures before painting them." (Bell 1947, p. 101)

**Figure 1.** Detail from El Greco, *Adoration of the Magi* (1568), Museo Soumaya, Mexico City. Public domain (Greco 1568).

The knight-errant Don Quixote wears his armor, carries his lance, and rides his skinny steed Rocinante throughout the novel and in the popular imagination. But what happened to the greyhound, or *galgo*? Why does Cervantes mention a hidalgo's *galgo* at the start of the first chapter of Book I of *Don Quixote*, and why does he let it disappear?

This unexplained absence seems to be a clear violation of the dramatic principle of "Chekhov's Gun," i.e., "Don't put a loaded gun on stage if you don't plan to shoot it" (Chekhov 1976). In this case, the loaded gun is a fast greyhound, introduced alongside the most iconic items carried by the knight only to be relegated to being a mere detail on the level of a pot of stew.

The famous first line of the novel:

"In a village in La Mancha (I don't want to bother you with its name) there lived, not very long ago, one of those gentlemen who keep a lance in the lance-rack, an ancient shield, a skinny old horse, and a fast greyhound." (Cervantes 1999b, p. 13)

*"En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, no ha mucho tiempo que vivía un hidalgo de los de lanza en astillero, adarga antigua, rocín flaco y galgo corredor."* (Cervantes 1999a, pt 1 chp. 1)

Given its prominent placement, one might expect the greyhound to reappear elsewhere within the novel, as do Don Quixote's lance, shield, and horse. Any such expectation is confounded. Certainly, you would not expect a dog to appear in a book of chivalry, and nevertheless, in the very first sentence of a parody that, according to the Prologue,<sup>1</sup> "tries to shatter the authority of all those tales of chivalry" (Cervantes 1999b, p. 11), we find a dog. Bahktin cites *Don Quixote* as an exemplar of parody (Bakhtin 1981, p. 51) and of the "novelistic hybrid" (Bakhtin 1981, p. 361) that mixes high and low, "dragging what is being compared [i.e., chivalric novels] down to the dregs of an everyday gross reality congealed in prose" (Bakhtin 1981, p. 386). In a parody, by any definition and of any genre, a dog would not be out of place.

The learned Cervantista knows full well that the *galgo* from the first line never reappears, but the first-time reader, expecting parody and immediately finding a dog, might anticipate a second appearance of the *galgo* for comic effect, or if nothing else, to mark the moment of separation between hound and hunter. These divergent expectations separating naïve from experienced readers illustrate reader-response theory and Iser's "active interweaving of anticipation and retrospection" (Iser 2007, p. 1006). On a first reading of *Don Quixote*, a person, particularly one attuned to the presence of literary animals (e.g., by a child or an animal narratologist), would anticipate eventual resolution on the question of the *galgo*; but even these readers would, in retrospect, relegate the detail to apparent meaninglessness upon the unfolding of the story. It is the project of this paper to revisit that overly hasty dismissal.

The English-language critical literature only lightly covers the topic of the *galgo*. Flores explains the missing *galgo* as a symbolic representation of the world of the past that Don Quixote is about to abandon: "Cervantes, who in his opening sentence is juggling with the past [ . . . ], the present [ . . . ], and the future (the hidalgo, the *lanza en astillero*, the *adarga antiqua*, and the *rocín flaco* will transform later on into a knight, a fighting weapon, a protective shield, and Rocinante, respectively), can then and there both mention and dispense with the past of the hidalgo (the greyhound) with which the future knight will have nothing to do" (Flores 1993, pp. 212–13).

Beusterien looks at the actual encounters with *galgos* in the narrative, leaving out those times when characters merely refer to *galgos* metaphorically or in passing conversation. He writes:

"Generally, Cervantes was interested in dogs. He wrote 'El coloquio de los perros,' the most provocative dog dialogue ever written. The opening line of Don Quijote reminds the reader of one of the protagonist's former companions. Quijano has an old galgo corredor. When Quijote leaves on his first sally, he never mentions the dog again. Although at the end of his adventures Quijote does not return to that galgo that he left behind, the conclusion of Part II mentions his meeting with galgos. When Quijote reaches his

<sup>1</sup> In the prologue to Part I, the author is interrupted while sitting at his desk: " ... wondering what I ought to say, one of my friends suddenly came in, clever, smart, and seeing me so buried in thought asked me why, and I didn't hide anything from him ... " (Cervantes 1999b, p. 7). Nowhere does it say that this unnamed friend, who gains unbidden access to the writer's inner sanctum, was human.

village and arrives home for good (to die), some greyhounds chase a rabbit right between the feet of Sancho's donkey." (Beusterien 2010, p. 101)

This paper reconsiders the missing *galgo* in *Don Quixote* with a set of interlocking claims: first, that Cervantes initially established the groundwork for including a talking dog in *Don Quixote*; second, through improvisation Cervantes created a better *Don Quixote* by transplanting the idea for a talking dog to the *Coloquio*; and third, that Cervantes made oblique references to the concept of dogs having human intelligence within the novel. These assertions synthesize readings in Cervantes scholarship combined with the burgeoning field of animal narratology at the intersection of narratology and animal studies.

In constructing an argument, I make some simplifying assumptions, the first being that the immediate disappearance of the *galgo* was intentional. In the words of Bruce Wardropper: "In judging a work of art the critic must assume first the relevance of every detail" (Wardropper 1957, p. 588). The alternative is that Cervantes carelessly neglected to tie up the loose end of a missing *galgo* throughout scores of ensuing chapters; that Homer nods. Such inadvertent forgetting would form the basis for an intriguing psychoanalytic reading based on the *galgo*, following Johnson's procedure for approaching the question of the unconscious in texts: " ... to look for gaps in the discourse which reveal the presence of something concealed beneath the visible surface, or, in El Saffar's phrase, something left unsaid" (Johnson 1993, p. 82). What, then, would it mean for Cervantes to have concealed the presence of the hunting dog, a symbol of wealth and nobility, even while elevating to mythical status the worn-out nag Rocinante? If unintentional, such an erasure would speak volumes about Cervantes in relation to his society's perception of the utility of animals—and yet it is much more satisfying to consider the erasure an intentional move that reveals something left unsaid about Cervantes's artistry.

I also assume that the term *galgo* refers to a dog. Gregorio Martínez Navarro suggests that the various English translators have gotten it wrong all these years, that absent the indefinite article ("*un*"), "*galgo corredor*" is an adjectival phrase describing Rocinante rather than a noun phrase referring to what he calls a "ghost greyhound," or "*galgo fantasma*" (Navarro 2006). While this would be a tidy solution to the mystery of the disappearing dog, we will proceed according to the commonly accepted translation, that our *hidalgo* was one of those *hidalgos* with both horse and hound, not a hound-like horse. As none of the items inventoried are preceded by an indefinite article, this strongly suggests that each item should be given similar footing as idiomatic yet independent noun phrases.

My last preliminary assumption is that the dog was not simply a throwaway detail illustrating the *hidalgo* type. The phrase "one of those gentlemen" (*"hidalgo de los de"*) suggests that many *hidalgos*, not just Alonso Quijano, possess shield and rack, horse and hound. These possessions and animals act as class and status markers, making the listed items useful to describe a typical member of the Spanish lesser nobility of *hidalgo* gentlemen. Given that three of those items persist as entities throughout the novel, it would be capricious to single out the *galgo* as disposable. We should start with the assumption of the animal's importance, and then seek explanations that illuminate the text in new ways.

The body of the paper includes a brief timeline of the inferred dates of composition for the later works of Cervantes, including *Don Quixote* and the *Exemplary Novels*; followed by three interlocking claims:


to "The Colloquy of the Dogs," or "*El coloquio de los perros*" (hereafter the *Coloquio*). We can identify the precise moment when the *galgo* was written out of the story as Don Quixote's return from the first sally, when the housekeeper makes no mention of the *galgo* even while accounting for the remaining items of the opening quartet. Shortly thereafter, Sancho Panza was introduced, providing Don Quixote with a human interlocutor that could engage in rich dialogues with other human characters in a way that an animal companion could not.

3. Cervantes makes oblique references to anthropomorphic animal intelligence. The unusual phrase "greyhound of an author" (*galgo de su autor"*) suggests an ironic nod to the discarded concept of a talking-dog narrator, prompting a review of Cervantes' narrative strategies. The further appearances of *galgos* in the novel have hunting-dog connotations, leading to Don Quixote's confrontation near the end of his life with *galgos* perceived to be wicked magicians. These *galgos* take on new resonance with consideration of the first two claims.

#### **2. Background**

*Don Quixote* was published in two parts: Part I in 1605, and Part II in 1615. In the interim, Cervantes compiled *Exemplary Novels* (Cervantes 2016), published in 1613. *Exemplary Novels* includes the *Coloquio*, a talking-dog story which El Saffar designates as one of those stories "comparable in greatness to *Don Quixote* itself." Furthermore, El Saffar places the composition of *Coloquio*, and the other highly-regarded stories, as having been "written around the time when Part I was composed, that is, between 1602 and 1606" (Saffar 1976, p. 11). This creates an intriguing picture of other manuscripts sharing the same desk as the First Part of *Don Quixote*, and the presence within *Don Quixote* of interpolated stories supports the timeline*.* For example, the three-chapter interpolated story *El curioso impertinente*, translated by Raffel as "The Story of the Man Who Couldn't Keep from Prying," has been the subject of a longstanding debate about whether it forms an essential part of *Don Quixote*, or if (per Boussagol via Wardropper) it's "a *novela ejemplar* which Cervantes published as part of his great novel because he had it on his hands" (Wardropper 1957, p. 587). Both points of view can be correct, in that Cervantes may indeed have had on his hands a fully formed idea for *El curioso impertinente*, and in deciding to interpolate it into *Don Quixote*, subsequently found ways to form thematic connections with the work as a whole.

Following the publication of *Exemplary Novels* in 1613, Cervantes' desk is no tidier than it had been ten years earlier. At that point, he has yet to release the Second Part of *Don Quixote* (Cervantes 1999b) and his collection of plays in *Eight Interludes* (Cervantes 1996) in 1615, and the posthumously-published *Persiles and Sigismunda* (Cervantes 2009) in 2017. In the Second Part of *Don Quixote*, Cervantes no longer interpolates the impertinences of the First Part, and the narrator explains that the Arab historian Cidi Hamete Benengali "had decided not to introduce any separate, artful tales, but only such narratives as, to his mind, emerged out of the strictly historical facts" (Cervantes 1999b, p. 586). Meanwhile, *Persiles and Sigismunda* is almost entirely built on a carefully-wrought framework of interpolated stories from secondary characters. Even though the titular characters remain at the center, their story is revealed only at the end of the novel. The narrative is built around the stories of the people they meet during their adventures, and in this sense, *Persiles and Sigismunda* is the highest expression of the Cervantean aesthetic of interpolation, bringing together a diversity of perspectives from a range of characters without apology for the interruptions. Cervantes wanted to tell stories from different perspectives, and in *Persiles and Sigismunda* he formed the appropriate vehicle to do so.

The interpolated story *El curioso impertinente* in *Don Quixote* could have been easily transplanted into *Exemplary Novels*, which implies that such transplantations occurred during the simultaneous creation of both works. The argument to follow suggests that the *Coloquio* was a transplanted seedling from *Don Quixote* that found more fertile ground for germination in the context of *Exemplary* Novels, and that (to continue the gardening analogy) some of the *Coloquio*'s roots remained intact in *Don Quixote*'s soil.

#### **3. Can I Get a Witness?**

The history of the talking animal goes back at least to Aesop (see Ziolkowski 1983), and Carranza describes the influence of Aesop on Cervantes via the 15th century *Life of Aesop* published together with *Aesop's Fables* during Cervantes' lifetime (Carranza 2003, p. 148).

The most obvious example of a talking-animal story in Cervantes can be found in the final part of *Exemplary Novels*, the *Coloquio*, which gives voice to animals long desiring to transmit the contents of their prodigious memories; in the words of the talking dog Berganza: " ... ever since I had the strength to gnaw a bone I have wanted to speak, to say things that settled in my memory, and there, being old and numerous, either moldered away or were forgotten" (Cervantes 2016, p. 368). This places us in a fictional world in which dogs not only speak, but also yearn to share the wisdom of their experiences with others.

Cervantes' final work, *Persiles and Sigismunda*, contains talking wolves: "one of them . . . I swear it's true ... told me with a clear and distinct voice and in my own language: 'Spaniard, go away and look elsewhere for your fate, unless you wish to die here torn apart by our claws and teeth; and don't ask who it is telling you this, just thank Heaven you've found mercy even among wild animals'" (Cervantes 2009, pp. 40–41).

Yet the first appearance of a talking animal within the works of Cervantes appeared in neither the *Coloquio* nor *Persiles and Sigismunda*, but rather in the commendatory verses in the front matter of *Don Quixote.* The poem "On Rocinante," by El Donoso, the Motley Poet, begins in the voice of the first-person animal:

I am that Rocinante fa–, Great-grandson of great Babie–, Who, all for being lean and bon–, Had one Don Quixote for an own–; But if I matched him well in weak–, I never took short commons meek–, But kept myself in corn by steal–, A trick I learned from Lazaril–, When with a piece of straw so neat– The blind man of his wine he cheat—" (Cervantes 1999c)

*Soy Rocinante, el famobisnieto del gran Babie-. Por pecados de flaque-, fui a poder de un don Quijo-. Parejas corrí a lo flo-; mas, por uña de caba-, no se me escapó ceba-; que esto saqué a Lazaricuando, para hurtar el vial ciego, le di la pa-* (Cervantes 1999a)

In El Donoso's poem, Rocinante claims knowledge of his lineage back to Babieca, the legendary horse of the medieval warrior El Cid, and in learning the art of theft from a famous episode in *La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes* (1554), the horse also demonstrates a degree of cultural literacy. We also see the poetic device of a missing syllable at the end of each line, a recurring, anticipatory pause evoking the difficulty of human–animal communications. Then, in a commendatory sonnet from the poet Solisdán, Rocinante speaks with Babieca. In this final poem in the front matter, which Haley calls a "*coloquio de los caballos*" ("dialogue of the horses") (Haley 1984, p. 175), the horses speak in complete sentences, animal-to-animal:

B. "How comes it, Rocinante, you're so lean?" R. "I'm underfed, with overwork I'm worn." B. "But what becomes of all the hay and corn?" R. "My master gives me none; he's much too mean." B. "Come, come, you show ill-breeding, sir, I ween; 'T is like an ass your master thus to scorn." R. He is an ass, will die an ass, an ass was born; Why, he's in love; what's plainer to be seen?" B. "To be in love is folly?"–R. "No great sense." B. "You're metaphysical."–R. "From want of food." B. "Rail at the squire, then."–R. "Why, what's the good?

I might indeed complain of him, I grant ye, But, squire or master, where's the difference? They're both as sorry hacks as Rocinante." (Cervantes 1999c)

*B. ¿Cómo estáis, Rocinante, tan delgado? R. Porque nunca se come, y se trabaja. B. Pues, ¿qué es de la cebada y de la paja? R. No me deja mi amo ni un bocado. B. Andá, señor, que estáis muy mal criado*, *pues vuestra lengua de asno al amo ultraja. R. Asno se es de la cuna a la mortaja. ¿Queréislo ver? Miraldo enamorado. B. ¿Es necedad amar? R. No es gran prudencia. B. Metafísico estáis. R. Es que no como. B. Quejaos del escudero. R. No es bastante. ¿Cómo me he de quejar en mi dolencia*, *si el amo y escudero o mayordomo son tan rocines como Rocinante?* (Cervantes 1999a)

On the heels of this dialogue begins the first part of *Don Quixote.* Given the context of the commendatory verses of Cervantes' alter-egos El Donoso and Solisdán, we enter the main narrative of *Don Quixote* with the foreknowledge that through poetry, animals can not only communicate clearly with each other, but also haltingly with a human intermediary. From this, our expectation should be that the animals we encounter possess a humanlike intelligence. In *Don Quixote*, the desire to communicate across species boundaries can be found in both horse and human. In 1.15, the narrator states that "had [the badly-beaten Rocinante] possessed a tongue to complain with, most assuredly neither Sancho nor his master would have been behind him" (Cervantes 1999b, p. 86). Later, Sancho ruminates about his yearning for animals to speak "as they used to in Guisopete [Aesop]'s time," so that he might "tell my donkey anything I felt like, and that way I could live with my bad luck"2 (Cervantes 1999b, p. 148). The commendatory verses lay the groundwork for a talking-animal narrative, and yet the desires of both Sancho and Rocinante remain unfulfilled.

<sup>2</sup> Ormsby translates the phrase "*departiera yo con mi jumento*" (Cervantes 1999c) as "I could talk to Rocinante [sic]," mistaking a donkey (*jumento*) for a horse. Raffel's translation identifies the correct animal, but the phrase "tell my donkey" connotes the animal's passive listening rather than the presence of an Aesopian dialogue partner. According to Covarrubias' 1611 dictionary, the primary meaning of the verb "*departir*" is "*razonar, quando uno pregunta, y otro responde; pero quando uno se lo habla todo, no departe, por que no da parte*" (Covarrubias Horozco 1611, p. 647), or "to reason, when one asks, and another responds; but when only one speaks, one does not *departe*, because one does not *da parte* ["give part," i.e. allow one's interlocutor to speak]" (translation mine). By this definition, and with his mangled Aesop reference, Sancho wished for an asinine dialogue. It may have been an unequal dialogue, as the following phrase "anything I felt like" ("*lo que me viniera en gana*") (Cervantes 1999c) indicates that Sancho was more interested in speaking his own mind than eliciting the donkey's perspective, but a dialogue nonetheless.

Given these Aesopian traces, we should consider the animals we encounter as sentient beings with the latent ability to communicate in human language, and it is in this spirit that we further investigate the whereabouts of the missing hound. If the *hidalgo* Alonso Quijano indeed had a *galgo* of quiet intelligence, that *galgo* would have been present to observe the activities described in the early chapters. On that premise, we can revisit the opening chapters from the perspective of the canine to imagine what the *galgo* would have seen.

The imagined perspective of the *galgo* comes into play with the idea of *Don Quixote* as a history. Brian D. Patrick writes: "*Don Quixote* presents itself as a (fictive) work of history, and historians generally narrate events of which their knowledge is textually mediated rather than first hand [... ]" (Patrick 2008, p. 125). Yet history texts must originate in first-hand accounts. Human sources were present during Don Quixote's adventures with the introduction of Sancho Panza. But who was present to bear witness to Alonso Quijano's solitary ruminations and his subsequent transformation into Don Quixote?

At home, the hidalgo "lived with a housekeeper who was over forty, and a niece who hadn't reached twenty, plus a boy for the fields and the market" (Cervantes 1999b, p. 13). Presumably, they would have been able to provide some account of the madness of Uncle Alonso. But would the housekeeper have watched silently as Alonso polished up his great-grandfather's suit of armor, assembled a half-helmet, and tested its strength with a sword? Would the niece or the boy have observed the old man over the course of four days imagining names for his old horse, or for eight days while he thinks up his own title and name, or rehearsing his speech to Dulcinea del Toboso? The only one with the proximity, access, and sentience (per the laws of the Cervantine universe) to bear witness was none other than the *galgo*. In this parody of history, only the *galgo* could have testified as to the soliloquies and reveries of his master.

In the first sally, Cervantes adheres to the constraints of a story having a plausible canine narrator, carefully keeping Don Quixote within earshot of a watchful *galgo*. This suggests that Cervantes, as an improvisatory writer, initially toyed with the idea of a canine source for the historical account of a hidalgo-turned-knight.

The narrator uses an interesting turn of phrase when Don Quixote embarks upon his first sally:

" ... without telling anyone what he was up to or being seen by a single soul ... " (Cervantes 1999b, p. 17 )

*"Y así, sin dar parte a persona alguna de su intención, y sin que nadie le viese* ... *"* (Cervantes 1999a, pt 1 chp. 2)

The first part of the phrase states that "*persona alguna*," or "no person," was told of his departure, which stands in contrast with the second part of the phrase: "*nadie le viese*," or "no one saw him." This offers a pair of clever loopholes—since the *galgo* is not a *persona*, we can imagine Don Quixote revealing to his dog the details of his impending departure. Subsequently, even if the dog did not visually observe Don Quixote's departure, the dog may have yet borne witness using other senses.

Following Don Quixote's unseen departure, the *galgo corredor* would have had little trouble tracking him throughout his out-of-doors adventures of the first sally from Chapters 2 through 6, including the visit to the inn; the knighthood ceremony in the stable and the fight with the muledrivers; Andrés being whipped by the farmer Juan Haldudo and the encounter with the Toledo merchants; Don Quixote's return home; and the inquisition of the library. A *galgo* would make a plausible and consistent witness for these events. Although the concept of dogs-as-pets is a relatively modern invention, in terms of the evolved bond between dogs and humans we are close enough to Cervantes' time to allow for the notion of a middle-aged man in his library forming a close bond with his dog, even one such as a *galgo* bred for hunting.

An objection may be raised—might the history have relied not on the *galgo*, but rather upon the testimony of the horse Rocinante? After all, the commendatory verses feature talking horses, not talking dogs. Also, Don Quixote asks the "noble chronicler of this extraordinary history" to

"not forget my good Rocinante, unendingly the companion of all my wanderings and my every journey" (Cervantes 1999b, p. 18). Such constant companionship would have made Rocinante an excellent witness. Yet when it comes to the earlier transformation of Alonso Quijano, it strains credulity to expect that a horse would be given access to a gentleman's library or home. The text states that Alonso Quijano polished his great-grandfather's suit of armor prior to naming Rocinante (Cervantes 1999b, p. 15), which implies that the horse could not have witnessed this event, nor overheard Alonso's mutterings as inscribed in the novel.

Of course, we know full well that Cervantes did not, in fact, introduce a talking-dog narrator in *Don Quixote*. *Don Quixote* contains no interpolated story told by a talking dog, or by any talking animal. Before we mourn the loss of the *galgo*, we must identify where Cervantes may have turned away from the idea, how he did so, and what may have deterred him from taking this path.

#### **4. Gone Galgo**

Cervantes was an improviser. Roberto González Echevarría finds "a great deal of implicit improvisation" in Part I of *Don Quixote*, with "features of the novel itself that seem to betray their improvised construction" including several "notorious Cervantine oversights" (Echevarría 2015, p. 171). Ramón Menéndez Pidal writes that "Cervantes wanted the action to be fraught with all the trifling inconsistencies of improvisation" and that Cervantes "refuses to be bogged down by useless detail" (Pidal 2005, p. 76). Indeed, one might consider the entire question of the *galgo* to be a useless detail, which would be a reasonable inference were it not for the fact that Cervantes soon turned his pen to the talking-dog short story of the *Coloquio.* If we follow El Saffar's timeline, the *Coloquio* was written simultaneously with the composition of *Don Quixote*. Thus, the *galgo* must be considered a useful detail, and rather than to make a blanket assertion that the detail doesn't matter, we should use Cervantes' improvisatory skill to explain how the animal was erased.

An improvisatory writer would soon chafe at the limitations involved with the labyrinthine plotting needed to have a hidden canine narrator following the protagonist. The concept of a silent, watchful dog stalking *Don Quixote* quickly introduces logistical difficulties and irresolvable complexities. That is, how would a dog possibly follow the adventures of his companion without getting involved in the story? Would a faithful dog have watched silently as his master engaged in armed combat? At some point, the dog in the shadows would need to partake in the hunger, pain, and blanket-tossing. My hypothesis is that Cervantes found a better solution in Sancho Panza. It's much funnier to have Sancho tossed in a blanket than to subject a *galgo* to similar treatment. Then, we can surmise that Cervantes came up with a better solution for how to tell a talking dog story. Instead of having to choreograph the complex movements of a dog following a single master, he told the retrospective life story of a dog with several masters through a dialogue contained in the frame story of the *Casamiento*.

Given these better alternatives, we find Cervantes pulling a bit of sleight-of-hand to erase the *galgo* from the reader's memory. After the first sally, the farmer brings Don Quijote home to their village, where they hear the housekeeper "loudly proclaiming" to the priest and the barber: "He hasn't been seen in three days, and neither has his horse, or his shield, or his lance, or his armor" (Cervantes 1999b, pp. 32–33). This recitation of missing items closely echoes the first line, except that the last item, the *galgo*, has here been replaced by the armor. Also, the housekeeper inverts the order of the first three items in the sequence. The initial set S0 = {lance, shield, horse, dog} has been replaced by S1 = {horse, shield, lance, armor}. The narrator shuffles the top three cards, deals "armor" underneath, and slips the dog card up his sleeve. Here is the point of erasure, the very moment when the dog is taken out of play.

What, then, is the armor that takes the place of the *galgo*? Introduced in the first chapter at the very point where Don Quixote puts his notion to become a knight errant into action, the armor is the most singular and distinctive item among Don Quixote's material possessions, the very object that defines his profile in the popular imagination, and it is an object granted a history of its own:

"The first thing he did was polish up his great-grandfather's suit of armor, which for a century or so had been lying, thrown in a corner and forgotten, covered with mildew and quietly rusting away." (Cervantes 1999b, p. 15)

"*Y lo primero que hizo fue limpiar unas armas que habían sido de sus bisabuelos, que, tomadas de orín y llenas de moho, luengos siglos había que estaban puestas y olvidadas en un rincón.*" (Cervantes 1999a)

Recall that the first line calls him "one of those gentlemen" (*"un hidalgo de los de"*) (Cervantes 1999b, p. 13), an abstraction that suggests the presence of any number of similar gentlemen having the same possessions—a lance in the rack, ancient shield, old nag, and racing greyhound. What sets Don Quixote apart from those other *hidalgos*—apart from the library—is this rusting suit of armor ("*armas*"). In the place of the unseen solitary *galgo*, which Beusterian observes to be "one of the first hunting dogs to be connected with purity of *casta"* (or "breed") (Beusterien 2010, p. 23), Don Quixote unveils his unusual armor. It's a curious coincidence to find that a suit of armor with a "metal headpiece that would cover just the top of his skull," i.e., a *kippah*-like skullcap, had been hidden away "for a century or so" (Cervantes 1999b, p. 15) (or, "for some centuries," "*luengos siglos*")—i.e., since well before the time of the 1492 Edict of Expulsion which forced Spain's Jews to choose between conversion or exile. This leads to an intriguing potential reading of the text that contrasts the pure-breed *galgo* with the Hebraized armor, thus commenting on the purity of blood, or "*limpieze de sangre*," of Don Quixote, or even of Cervantes himself.3

In Don Quixote's three-day absence, the housekeeper somehow notices that the "forgotten" armor is missing. This suggests that the armor had in fact not been forgotten, but rather conveniently ignored. The housekeeper never bothered to clean the armor at any point during her employment, but knew enough to include it in her inventory of missing items. She was aware of its existence, even as she tacitly participated in keeping the armor hidden and away from sight in a way completely unlike the lance in the rack and the ancient shield, those totemic items given prominence in the households of one of those typical *hidalgos*. Again, we discover echoes of the Jewish *conversos* forced to convert to Christianity, their hidden histories thrown in a corner, forgotten, and left to rust.

Regarding the *galgo*, the housekeeper says nothing. Since the housekeeper noticed the absence of Don Quixote's horse, it follows that she might have noticed if his dog had also disappeared to follow its master. We might explain her failure to mention the dog in one of four ways: First, the missing *galgo* may have fallen not under her care; given that it was a hunting dog, it would be the responsibility of the "boy for the fields and the market" (Cervantes 1999b, p. 13). Second, the dog may have returned ahead of its master, and so the housekeeper did not connect the dog's shorter absence with Don Quixote's absence. Three, the narrator, translator, or historian purposefully omitted the dog from the story. Fourth, the dog had stayed home. Whatever the explanation, at this very moment, the *galgo* is gone.

<sup>3</sup> It remains an unresolved question as to whether Cervantes was of *converso* ancestry (i.e. a "convert" from Judaism to Christianity), with the argument generally divided between those who support the *converso* claim based on textual evidence within Cervantes' writings and those who reject the claim from a lack of supporting historical evidence. Lokos outlines the history of the argument (Lokos 1999), notably including the modern-day cultural resistance to the idea of a *converso* history for Cervantes' family. González Echevarría raises the *converso* question to dismiss it: "I am not convinced by the hypothesis, timidly advanced by [Manuel] Durán, that his teacher Americo Castro and other students of his proposed on very flimsy evidence, of a *converso* Cervantes – one, that is, whose purportedly Jewish background would have made him marginal. [... ] Castro's theories are, to my mind, too dependent on the racial hatreds and atrocities of the twentieth century to be applicable with little proof to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries" (Echevarría 2005, p. 13). Durán weighs the lack of proof against Cervantes' overall tone as a writer: "A critical, ironic bent, plus an affinity for the ideas of Erasmus seem to point in the direction of a *converso* ancestry. The documentary proofs are lacking. Yet some of the best modern Hispanists, Americo Castro and Stephen Gilman among them, lean towards the idea that Cervantes came from a *converso* family" (Durán 2005, p. 32). McGaha surveys the literary and biographical evidence regarding Cervantes' heritage, including speculation as to the place and circumstances of Cervantes' birth, and although he remains skeptical of many of the claims based on the historical record, he nevertheless finds that "the most convincing evidence of Cervantes' *converso* background is the attitudes he displays in his work" (McGaha 2004, p. 174). To the body of textual evidence in favor of the *converso* designation, we may include the contrast between *galgo* and armor.

#### **5. Hunting Dogs**

At this point, we can consider other *galgo* occurrences in the text for indications of anthropomorphic animal intelligence. The novel's second mention of *galgo* appears to be an insult:

"...and if indeed there's anything worthwhile missing, I'd blame it on its dog of an author, rather than on any deficiency in the subject itself." (Cervantes 1999b, p. 53)

*"* ... *y si algo bueno en ella faltare, para mí tengo que fue por culpa del galgo de su autor, antes que por falta del sujeto."* (Cervantes 1999a, pt 1 chp. 9)

The translation "dog of an author" (Raffel), or even "hound of an author" (Ormsby), subsumes the specific *galgo* breed into a larger category. That "*galgo"* is an interdenominational insult seems a reasonable conclusion given that dog-related terms in the Spanish language carry negative linguistic connotations that Beusterien suggest were "inherited from the Semitic repulsion toward the dog" (Iser 2007, p. 99); and indeed, dog-related insults were commonplace on opposite shores of the Mediterranean. In "The Bagnios of Algiers," Cervantes' play inspired by his five-year captivity in Algiers, there are 20 occurrences of the word "*perro*" ("dog") and three occurrences of "*galgo*" (Cervantes 2017) (also translated in the English text as "dog" (Cervantes 2010))—all insults leveled at humans. Nevertheless, the breed specificity marks "*galgo"* as an odd insult, particularly given how it recalls the hidalgo's *galgo*.

The "*galgo de su autor*" comment arrives during a momentous narrative transition. After the first author runs out of source material and abandons the narrative in the middle of a climactic battle in Chapter 8, we then meet a second author in Chapter 9 who discovers a bundle of old notebooks in the Alcaná marketplace at Toledo. The second author has the notebooks translated, revealing the continuation of the history as recorded by the Arab historian Sidi Hamid Benengeli. This transfer of narrative control represents a key moment in what Haley calls the "supplementary story" (Haley 2005, p. 241) of *Don Quijote*:

"The characters in this corollary tale are all involved in the mechanics of telling and transmitting Don Quijote's story. Their adventures, not as violent as Don Quijote's but no less exciting for that, are the search for source materials in Manchegan archives, the creation of a continuous narrative from fragmentary and sometimes overlapping sources, the translation of the continuous narrative from Arabic to Castilian, the recasting of the translation and the publication of the revision, with intrusive commentary at every stage." (Haley 2005, p. 242)

Mancing writes: "Few issues in Cervantine scholarship have attracted more attention than the identification of the narrative voices in the novel and the clarification of relationships among them" (Mancing 2003, p. 118). Mancing identifies the presence of an editor who "undercuts his historian's authority and reliability by describing him as a lying dog of a Moor" (Mancing 1981, p. 66); and moreover, he identifies that editor as none other than the direct authorial presence of the historical Cervantes "who reconstructs the 'history' of Don Quijote, searches the archives of La Mancha, takes note of oral tradition, and pieces together a coherent story", acting as both the narrator of the fictional work starting in Chapter 1, as well as the *segundo autor* ("second author") introduced in Chapter 8 (Mancing 2003, pp. 129–30).

Haley calls this presence an "intermediary," the "shadowy figure who materializes at the end of chapter 8 to join the first author's fragment to the second author's contribution and appears again in the final chapter of part I to supply the concluding remarks" (Haley 2005, p. 244). In contrast to the first author's gullibility in relation to his unexplained sources, the editor displays relative sophistication; what the first author designates as "true" ("*verdadera*") history, the editor calls a "curious" ("*curiosa*") and "pleasant" ("*apacible*") history (Cervantes 1999b, p. 49). In doing so, the editor acts as librarian, recategorizing the book from history to fiction (Haley 1984, p. 179), and then the editor—much like the

*galgo*—quickly disappears, a "persona invented expressly to tell the beginning of the story, [who] is discarded once the story is underway" (Haley 1984, p. 173).

Parr finds the intermediary narrator active throughout the entire text. The editor "obviously knows more and is therefore more powerful than either the first or second author—[and] can immediately be seen, retrospectively, to demote the first narrative voice, which we had innocently assumed to be the frame narrator, to subordinate or intradiegetic status." (Parr 2004, p. 127). In an extended analysis drawing on narratological concepts from Genette (1980) and Bal (2009), Parr designates this editorial voice as the "supernarrator" (Parr 1988, p. 11), offering evidence that the supernarrator remains distinct from the second narrator based on their respective attitudes toward Cidi Hamete. The second narrator "was censorious of the Moor" (Parr 1988, p. 16), while the supernarrator had a "more accommodating attitude toward the Moorish historian (Parr 1988, p. 17). Following Parr's analysis, based on the attitude expressed toward Cidi Hamete we can identify the voice behind "*galgo de su autor*" as the second narrator rather than the supernarrator.

If you're looking for talking dogs, "*galgo de su autor"* is a tantalizing clue. Stated plainly, what if we took the phrase "*galgo de su autor*" literally? The identification of the author as a *galgo* would signal the presence of a heretofore unheralded component of the novel's narrative apparatus. F.W. Locke, cited by Mancing, suggests that there was "an even more remote source for Cidi Hamete Benengali's manuscript" (Mancing 1981, p. 66). Along those lines, we can speculate that the *galgo* may have shadowed Don Quixote during some part of his adventures and then related those recollections through a human interlocutor—either the first narrator, Cidi Hamete Benegeli, or some other unseen source. Alas, if there was a talking dog in the archives, Cervantes does not reveal it.

That still leaves the question of why the second narrator used the unusual term "*galgo*" instead of any other term connoting "dog." Perhaps Cervantes was discarding the *galgo* card still hidden in his sleeve. In this analysis, Cervantes had taken the first steps in the opening chapter toward allowing a talking dog to follow Don Quixote and serve as his noble chronicler. Yet by the second sally, he had introduced a better interlocutor for Don Quixote's counterpart (Sancho Panza); and with the shift to the second narrator, he put into service a better chronicler (Sidi Hamete Benegali); and at some point during the composition of *Don Quixote* he conceived of a better vehicle for a talking-dog narrator (the *Coloquio*). With the housekeeper's sleight-of-hand, Cervantes removes the dog from contention as a sidekick, and with the second narrator's "*galgo de su autor*" comment, Cervantes bids an ironic farewell to the discarded idea of a talking-dog narrator.

Henceforth, the *galgos* in the novel have hunting-dog connotations: the galley slave compares himself to a *galgo* on a leash (Cervantes 1999b, p. 129, pt 1 chp. 22), much as a hunting dog would be kept on a leash prior to releasing its prey (see Figure 2); the Knight of the Grove observes that even the poorest squire has "a hack and couple of *galgos* and a fishing rod to amuse himself," to which Sancho Panza responds that he has *galgos* "enough and to spare in my town" (Cervantes 1999b, p. 423, pt 2 chp. 13); and Don Diego de Miranda describes his pursuits as "hunting and fishing, but I keep neither hawks nor *galgos*, nothing but a tame partridge or a bold ferret or two" (Cervantes 1999b, p. 439, pt 2 chp. 16). Finally, in the penultimate chapter of the Second Part of *Don Quixote*, we have the last appearance of *galgos* interrupted in the course of hunting a hare. Don Quixote takes these *galgos* to be a bad omen (*"Malum signum!"*), and Sancho, by this time knowing his master well enough to draw out the symbolic implications of Don Quixote's cryptic remark, provides a reassuring interpretation that casts the *galgos* as wicked magicians chasing a transformed Dulcinea (Cervantes 1999b, p. 738, pt 2 chp. 73). Yet Don Quixote is ultimately correct in his prophecy—Dulcinea does not come, and he soon dies. In the end, the *galgos* catch Don Quixote, dispelling his carefully constructed delusions.

**Figure 2.** Francisco de Goya, *Perros y útiles de caza* o *Perros en traílla* (1775). Oil on canvas. 112 × 174 cm. Museo del Prado (Madrid, España) Public domain (Goya 1775).

With his reaction to the hunting dogs, we may reconsider Don Quixote's relation to his own *galgo*. At the beginning of the novel, he was introduced as a keen huntsman ("*amigo de la caza*") who then, by reading tales of chivalry, "almost forgot to keep up his hunting" ("*olvidó casi de todo punto el ejercicio de la caza*") (Cervantes 1999b, p. 13). At the start of Chapter 2, he leaves behind his previous life, including his dog and the exercise of hunting. By the end of the novel, he treats as deeply disturbing the appearance of *galgos* acting in the violent capacity of hunting dogs. With this personal transformation, we may discover a "critique of the hunt ... consonant with humanists who abhor the cruelty and excess of this aristocratic pastime" (Scham 2014, p. 108).

This emerging stance against the cruelty of hunting by dogs also extends to cruelty directed toward dogs. In the Prologue to Part II of *Don Quijote*, Cervantes relates two tales that he wishes the reader to personally convey to Avellaneda, a contemporary of Cervantes. Between the 1605 publication of Part I and the 1615 publication of Part II, Avellaneda stole Cervantes' characters to create his own derivative work, the so-called "false Quijote." In the first tale intended for Avellaneda, a madman traps a dog on the street, shoves a reed pipe into its hindquarters, and inflates the dog into the shape of a ball (see Figure 3). The madman addresses the people watching: "You think it's easy, your graces, swelling up a dog like that?" Cervantes echoes the question: "Do you think it's easy, your grace [i.e., Avellaneda], making a book?" (Cervantes 1999b, p. 361)

**Figure 3.** Tamara Schneider, *Perro como una pelota*. © 2017 Tamara Schneider. Used with permission.

Beusterien interprets the inflated-dog anecdote: "Cervantes tells this story because he wants his reader to know that Avellaneda's sequel has taken his 'dog,' the first part of Don Quijote, and blown it up out of proportion, exaggerating the character of Quijote, for example, in unsightly ways" (Beusterien 2010, p. 102).

If the swollen dog represents Part I, a beaten dog represents Part II. In the second story, a madman who drops heavy rocks on dogs' heads is soundly beaten in return by the owner of one such dog, a whippet, or *podenco*, a smaller relative to the *galgo*. Cervantes delivers the moral: "Maybe the same fate [i.e., a severe beating] will befall our historian, and he won't drop his clever load into any more books, because when they're bad, books are even harder than stones" (Cervantes 1999b, p. 361). The second story also mentions briefly two other dog breeds: mastiffs, or *alanos*, and terriers, or *gozques* (see Figure 4). Fearing another beating, the madman mistakes all dogs for *podencos*, and thus refrains from dropping stones on any *perro*.

**Figure 4.** Tamara Schneider, *Dog breeds in Don Quixote*. © 2017 Tamara Schneider. Used with permission.

These sympathetic portrayals of the zoomorphic books-as-dogs representations of *Don Quixote* paint Cervantes as a defender of the canine species. Yet as the human companion to a sentient animal, the character of Don Quixote left much to be desired. Taking the lead of Haraway in taking dog-human relationships seriously (Haraway 2003), we should also consider the perspective of the abandoned *galgo*. The realistic post-history of Don Quixote's dog would not be that depicted in contemporary works by Estefanell (2004) and Carvajal (2005) imagining Don Quixote's *galgos* accompanying the knight-errant on new adventures. Instead, it would be more fitting to see the melancholy depiction of a morose, forlorn *galgo* wondering why its master curtailed their time together in favor of flipping through inky sheets of rolled wood pulp; lamenting the fate of being abandoned to the care of an indifferent housekeeper, Alonso's young niece, or the boy from the fields; and finally, dying as an unwanted dog in the overpopulated countryside. When Don Quixote finally returns home to die as Alonso Quijano, there is no Homeric reunion between a brave Odysseus and his faithful Argos. Don Quixote's last encounter with *galgos* is a *malum signum*.

#### **6. Conclusions**

Flores (1993) treats the *galgo* as a symbol of the past that had been left behind, and yet the past is not so easily repressed. Cervantes calls forth *galgos* at transitional moments in the novel with the switch from the first to the second author, and then upon the impending death of Don Quixote. In the prologue to Part II, Cervantes portrays both parts as dog-shaped books, with one of those dogs being a smaller relative of the *galgo*, the *podenco*. These are the indications that the *galgo* remained present in the mind of the author throughout the composition of the novel.

If we accept Cervantes as an improvisatory genius, then we must accept that earlier portions of *Don Quixote* were laden with infinite possibility. That is to say, if he started the novel with a *galgo*, there would have been many possibilities for him to play out the idea. We cannot assume that his

initial intention was identical to his final expression a decade later. In its initial stages, the careful staging of the story left the way clear for an animal witness. That Cervantes chose a different path does not forestall the possibility that the earlier path had been strongly considered. We may excavate the traces of a talking-animal story within *Don Quixote*, reconstructing how through careful thought and experimentation Cervantes may have picked through and determined that the best option for *Don Quixote* was to trade the *galgo* for a suit of armor; and the best way forward for the idea of a talking-dog narrator was to come in the form of the *Coloquio*.

Cervantes' works have become objects of intense study by practitioners of narratology such as Parr and El Saffar. Following the lead of Beusterien, we can also anticipate further interest in Cervantes by scholars in the burgeoning field of animal studies. Now, with the emergence of animal narratology at the vibrant intersection of narratology and animal studies, we should hope for a resurgence of interest in Cervantes as a means of investigating the mechanisms by which animals are made to speak, and the ways in which humans speak on behalf of animals.

Lastly, I turn to "Las Meninas" (see Figure 5), the Velázquez painting so often referenced by Cervantes scholars including Gonzáles Echevarría (2015), Parr (2004), Ortuño (2012), Beusterien (2013), and others. The work, which so perfectly captures the interrelationships between creator, subject, and audience, has become a common visual entry point for grasping the logic of *Don Quixote*. Connolly describes "mystical ekphrasis" as "a mode of interpretation in which an image that occurs to the reader and that may have inspired the text, but for which there is no conclusive evidence, is used imaginatively to interpret the text" (Connolly 2017, p. 102). By that definition, the frequent reference to "Las Meninas," a work that chronologically could not possibly have inspired Cervantes, embodies an impossible variety of mystical ekphrasis. With animal narratology now being applied to Cervantes, "Las Meninas" has lost none of its impossibly mystical power, for there in the foreground of the painting, closest to the viewer and perfectly aligned with the corner of Velázquez's framed canvas on which he paints, we see a silent, trodden-upon figure patiently waiting with closed eyes—there, too, we find a dog.

**Figure 5.** Diego Velázquez. *Las meninas* (1656), Galería online, Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain. Public domain. (Velázquez 1656).

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.

#### **References**

Bakhtin, Mikhail Mikha˘ılovich. 1981. *The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays*. Edited by Michael Holquist, Translated by Caryl Emerson, and Michael Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Bal, Mieke. 2009. *Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative*, 3rd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Bell, Aubrey Fitz Gerald. 1947. *Cervantes*. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.


Haraway, Donna. 2003. *The Companion Species Manifesto*. Chicago: Paradigm Press.


Mancing, Howard. 2003. Cervantes as Narrator of Don Quijote. *Cervantes* 23: 117.


Saffar, Ruth El. 1976. *Cervantes: El Casamiento Engañoso and El Coloquio de Los Perros*. London: Grant & Cutler Ltd.


Wardropper, Bruce W. 1957. The Pertinence of El curioso impertinente. *PMLA* 72: 587–600. [CrossRef] Ziolkowski, Theodore. 1983. *Varieties of Literary Thematics*. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

© 2017 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

## *Article* **Narrative Transformed: The Fragments around Franz Kafka's "A Report to an Academy"**

#### **Doreen Densky**

Department of German, New York University, 19 University Place, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10003, USA; doreen.densky@nyu.edu

Academic Editor: Joela Jacobs Received: 7 February 2017; Accepted: 6 April 2017; Published: 10 April 2017

**Abstract:** Franz Kafka's "A Report to an Academy", in which the ape-turned-human Rotpeter provides a narrative account of his life, has been scrutinized with regard to its allegorical, scientific, and historical implications. This article shifts the focus toward the narrative set-up by closely reading the transformation that can be traced in the sequence of several narrative attempts found in Kafka's manuscripts. Analyzing the fragments around this topic, I show how Kafka probes different angles—from a meeting between a first-person narrator and Rotpeter's impresario and a dialogue between the narrator and Rotpeter, via the well-known "Report" itself, on to a letter by one of Rotpeter's former teachers—that reveal a narrative transformation equally important as the metamorphosis from animal to human. The focus on the narrative constellations and on the lesser-known constitutive margins of the "Report" help to better understand, moreover, the complex relationship between immediacy and mediation, the ethnological concern of speech for the self and the unknown animal other, and poetological questions of production, representation, and reception.

**Keywords:** animal narrators; human-animal studies; Franz Kafka; manuscripts; speaking-for; narrative representation; literary representation

#### **1. Introduction**

Franz Kafka's famous text narrated by an ape who has become human, "A Report to an Academy" ("Ein Bericht für eine Akademie"), was penned one hundred years ago, in 1917 [1–5]. It is one of the few texts that the Prague author prepared himself for publication, first in the periodical *The Jew* (*Der Jude*, along with "Jackals and Arabs"/"Schakale und Araber", under the title "Two Animal Stories"/"Zwei Tiergeschichten") in 1917, and together with twelve other pieces in the collection *A Country Doctor* (*Ein Landarzt*) in 1919/1920. In this report or monologue, the former ape Rotpeter provides a narrative account to a learned society about his life. He was shot and captured by a hunting expedition in the West African bush, transported to Europe in a cage on a ship, where he finds himself without the ability to move freely, and where he learns to imitate the habits of the crew. When he arrives in Hamburg, he needs to choose between a life in the zoo or as a variety show artist. Deciding for the latter, he systematically learns to become human with the help of several teachers, but he also loses the memory of his experiences as an ape.

While the "Report" has been studied extensively with regard to its anthropomorphic-allegorical, scientific, and historical implications [6], it is striking that Rotpeter's speaking abilities as such and the complicated narrative set-up find less attention. In this article, I propose to take seriously questions surrounding animal voice, human knowledge, and poetological implications by following those scholars who are not only looking at the "Report" itself but also at the fragments in Kafka's known manuscripts that speak about or feature Rotpeter, such as Gerhard Neumann [7,8] and Annette Schütterle [9]. After all, the published version of the report or monologue includes only two parts of altogether five known narrative segments mentioning or featuring Rotpeter. Spread out over two octavo notebooks (D [4] and E [5]), Kafka probes several narrative constellations that alter who speaks for whom, with whom, or to whom. As a matter of fact, he is even foregrounding these largely formal questions in the lesser-known pieces. Preceding the "Report" in the notebooks (and thus written before it), there are a first-person narrator's account of meeting the former ape's impresario (segment I) and a conversation between this visitor and Rotpeter himself (II). Following the segments in the manuscripts that Kafka would later publish under the title "A Report to an Academy" (III and IV), we find a short reader's response (written after the well-known "Report") in the form of a letter by one of Rotpeter's teachers (V).

I argue that the thematic metamorphosis from ape to human is accompanied by an equally important formal, narrative transformation, which is akin to the poetological structure of literary production, representation, and reception. This progression can be traced alongside of the sequence of the five narrative segments in the manuscript, including the three lesser-known ones that frame the "Report". Three issues are therefore at stake. The first issue is the relationship between immediacy and mediation, as well as between nature and culture, or *Fürsorge* (here meant as immediate, physical care for another) and *Fürsprache* (a mediated cultural speaking-for someone or something before another person or institution). The second issue concerns the unusual ethnological approach of blurring speech for the self and for the unknowable (animal) other. The third issue relates to core questions for literature itself, because the former ape's unique *presentation* (the "Report") is framed by questions of preparation or *production* and *reception*. In short, the performative aspects of the report become even more forceful in their narratological, ethnological/anthropological, and poetological implications when the sequence of fragments is read closely and chronologically as the research by a narrator-character (I and II), the sheer presentation of the former ape (III and VI), and a reader's reaction (V).

#### **2. Before the Report: Impresario and Narrator (Segment I)**

In the middle of a productive writing phase, Kafka used a pencil as writing utensil and blue, small octavo notebooks common in schools (16.4 cm and 9.8–9.9 cm), not the usual larger quarto notebooks or loose leaves ([4], p. 169). Several of the altogether twelve known octavo notebooks allow us to trace Kafka's complicated writing process that repeatedly shows his struggles with finding narrative beginnings and ends, as well as his strategies of re-writing topics in order to find the narrative perspective he deemed worthwhile publishing. In addition to "A Report to an Academy" these texts include "The Hunter Gracchus" ("Jäger Gracchus") and "An Imperial Message" ("Eine kaiserliche Botschaft"), among others. The focus in the following four parts of this paper is exclusively on those segments directly talking about or featuring Rotpeter, not those before, in-between, and after that have connected motivic complexes, as Schütterle has shown in great detail, following the *critique génétique* [9].

Written before the "Report", the first two segments show the complex interplay between notions of mediacy and immediacy to relate the phenomenon and story of Rotpeter. It appears as though Kafka was carefully approaching the topic by first letting two humans speak about Rotpeter in his absence and then staging a dialogue between a human and an ape before giving full narrative agency to Rotpeter in the "Report" itself. Both in the storyworld (segment I) and in terms of narrative representation (segment II) these fragments transgress human and animal behavior and speech.

The first segment begins: "We all know Rotpeter, just as half the world knows him" ([1], p. 259). ("Wir alle kennen den Rotpeter, so wie ihn die halbe Welt kennt" ([3], p. 384)). Rotpeter himself is thus preceded by his high degree of popularity, because "we"—the narrator and the reader—have presumably heard of him, as much as every other person. The entire first segment, which encompasses about four octavo notebook pages and slightly less than two print pages in the German critical edition, will not feature Rotpeter and not mention his former ape-hood at all. Instead, the first-person, homodiegetic narrator [10] recounts his grotesque meeting with Rotpeter's professionally accomplished impresario, Herr Busenau, which bears semblance to slapstick:

Hardly had he caught sight of me—me the unknown, the unimportant guest—when he, possessor of highly distinguished medals, king of trainers, honorary doctor of great universities, jumped up, shook me by both hands, urged me to sit down, wiped his spoon on the tablecloth, and amiably offered it to me so that I might finish his omelet ([1], pp. 259–60).

Kaum erblickte er mich, den fremden bedeutungslosen Gast, sprang er, der Besitzer höchster Orden, der König der Dresseure, der Ehrendoktor der großen Universitäten, —sprang er auf, schüttelte mir die Hände, nötigte mich zum Sitzen, wischte seinen Löffel am Tischtuch ab und bot mir ihn freundschaftlichst an, damit ich die Eierspeise zuende esse ([3], pp. 384–85)

Kafka added the comparison "like a bendable figure" ("wie ein Gummimännchen" ([4], pp. 82–83)) to the act of jumping up, but he crossed it out. The unexpectedly personal act of offering his own meal to the visitor, combined with the unnatural, comedic motion, turns into the even more personal and physical act of attempted feeding: "He would not accept my grateful refusal and promptly tried to feed me. I had some trouble calming him down and warding him off, as well as his spoon and plate" ([1], p. 385). ("Meinen ablehnenden Dank ließ er nicht gelten und wollte nun anfangen selbst mich zu füttern. Ich hatte Mühe ihn zu beruhigen, und ihn mit Teller und Löffel zurückzudrängen" ([3], p. 385)). This nurturing attempt is a means of intimate care: a kind of *Fürsorge* in the apt German. *Fürsorge* is here understood as actively caring for someone who needs help or support [11], but with a particular focus on forms of physical care. The last third of the first fragment, which is related in the impresario's direct speech, is equally concerned with appreciation for the guest's kind arrival and questions of care, but for the sensitive nature of (the absent) Rotpeter, who does not want to be approached. The impresario stresses that "[s]eeing people is often repugnant" to Rotpeter ([1], p. 260) ("es widersteht ihm oft Menschen zu sehn" ([3], p. 385)), including the own impresario, who needs to withdraw after the performance while Rotpeter drives home alone.

The comical, even absurd, physical encounter between two grown men who talk about Rotpeter as a sensitive artist, hints at an important relation in all segments at scrutiny here and in some other animal stories by Kafka: The relation between natural, physical care—a type of *Fürsorge*—and cultural, spoken support—*Fürsprache* or speaking-for. *Fürsprache* is here meant as the communicative scenario in which someone speaks for someone or something in front of another (a person, a group, or an institution)—a crucial concern in Kafka's oeuvre [12,13]. The impresario's name is a case in point for the interrelation between immediate care for another and mediated speech: If taken as a telling name ("Busen" means bosom), Busenau reveals maternal care and physical nourishment, while the title impresario denotes the verbal and business promotion of an artist.

The word that best captures this first textual segment in relation to the "Report" is *before* ("vor") in both the temporal sense and the spatial sense. The impresario is speaking before Rotpeter appears as a speaking subject on the pages of the octavo notebook (in segments II, III, and IV) and on the stage within the storyworld. The word "vor" itself comes up in several compound constructions throughout the segment. Perhaps coincidentally, but noteworthy regardless, the meeting between the first-person narrator and the impresario happens before noon ("*Vor*mittag" ([3], p. 384)), even though the impresario is already wearing his evening suit for the performance ("*Vor*stellung" ([3], p. 385)). Less coincidental appears to be the location of their meeting in the "anteroom" ([1], p. 259) ("*Vor*zimmer" ([3], p. 384)) of Rotpeter's apartment (all emphases mine).

Kafka's first fragment on the topic of Rotpeter is fully in the human world, with a first-person narrator and human characters. There is only one subtle hint that Rotpeter, about whom the text speaks, was or is an animal: His impresario is, among other things "king of trainers" ("der König der Dresseure"). Kafka is eroding the boundaries between animal and human not in terms of narrative discourse, but through the impresario's attempted feeding of the guest within the storyworld. The impresario is also not speaking *for* Rotpeter, but *about* him, setting the stage, as it were, for the appearance of the famous performer. At the end of the first fragment, he describes how Rotpeter wants

to be left alone after each performance yet how he, as his trainer, always keeps an eye on him: "But I, who of course dare not let him out of my sight, always rent the apartment opposite his and watch him from behind curtains" ([1], p. 260). ("Ich aber der ich ihn natürlich nicht ohne Aufsicht lassen darf, miete immer die gegenüberliegende Wohnung und beobachte ihn hinter Vorhängen." ([3], p. 385)). Although in the guise of protection here, the omnipresent gaze at Rotpeter (as well as at numerous other Kafka protagonists including Karl Roßmann, Josef K., and K. in the novels), is ultimately a power tool to discipline behavior.

This positioning opposite of Rotpeter is picked up in the second segment, but in the form of a narratological decision that brings the reader a step closer to the animal mind: It is an interspecies dialogue between the guest and Rotpeter, who speaks for the first time. The narrative stage is thus newly arranged directly after the words "behind curtains" ("hinter Vorhängen") and following a graphic analogue to heavy draperies that both close and open in the manuscript in the form of multiple penciled lines across the page.

#### **3. Opposite of Rotpeter: A Conversation (Segment II)**

The second fragment, or Kafka's second known attempt to find a suitable narrative configuration for the topic surrounding Rotpeter, encompasses slightly less than eight octavo notebook pages. While the first segment is marked by a temporal and spatial *before* or *in front of* ("vor") the speaking Rotpeter, it is now that of *opposite of* ("gegenüber") the phenomenon at hand. Narratologically and thematically, this segment gives a stronger sense of immediacy to convey Rotpeter's life than the previous one. A further transformation will occur in the following two segments—part of the "Report" itself—, in which the former ape directly writes or speaks *to* ("an") or, more precisely, *for* ("für") an academy. In the fifth and last known textual segment, the narrative perspective changes again to a reader of the "Report", who addresses Rotpeter from a distance.

Formally, the second segment bears resemblance to a drama, as a conversation between Rotpeter and an interlocutor that begins *in medias res*. The verbal exchange had been going on for an indeterminable amount of time and there is no mediating impresario in the storyworld and no heterodiegetic narrator. Although it not directly said, one can assume that the interlocutor is the first-person narrator from the first segment, who has now been received by Rotpeter himself, after the preparatory conversation with the impresario. The segment begins with him saying:

"When I sit opposite you like this, Rotpeter, listening to you talk, drinking your health, I really and truly forget—whether you take it as a compliment or not, it's the truth—that you are a chimpanzee. Only gradually, when I have forced myself out of my thoughts back to reality, do my eyes show me again whose guest I am."

"Yes." ([1], p. 260)

"Wenn ich Ihnen, Rotpeter, hier so gegenübersitze, Sie reden höre, Ihnen zutrinke, wahrhaftig—ob Sie es nun als Kompliment auffassen oder nicht, es ist aber nur die Wahrheit—ich vergesse dann ganz, daß Sie ein Schimpanse sind. Erst nach und nach, wenn ich mich aus den Gedanken zur Wirklichkeit zurückzwinge, zeigen mir wieder die Augen wessen Gast ich bin."

"Ja." ([3], pp. 385–86)

This verbal exchange establishes that Rotpeter is an ape, even though his speaking abilities—the dialogue partner is "listening" to him "talk" and Rotpeter's striking "yes" is both his answer and the first word we read from him—obscure this fact. For the interlocutor, it is only the visual perception and the perceived "reality" that makes this clear. A sense of immediacy is set in scene because there are no stage directions or other narrative frames. Instead of quotation marks, which typically assign words to the storyworld and set them apart from the discourse world, Kafka used lines across the octavo notebook page to offset the speaking parts, offering the impression of a direct verbal exchange from two speaking agents sitting opposite of one another.

In their conversation, an element from the previous segment—a meal as source of care—is brought up when the interlocutor asks: "Is something wrong? Shall I call the trainer? Perhaps you're in the habit of taking a meal at this hour?" ([1], p. 260). ("Fehlt Ihnen etwas? Soll ich den Dresseur rufen? Vielleicht sind Sie gewohnt um diese Stunde eine Mahlzeit einzunehmen?" ([3], p. 386)). Eating is now described in human terms for Rotpeter, which stands in ironic contrast to the impresario's attempt to feed the human guest—an action reserved for animals and babies. Moreover, the topic of Rotpeter's aversion to human beings and the issue of immediate physicality come up, but here they are expressed by Rotpeter himself (not related by the impresario or performed by him with the human guest), when Rotpeter says: "Sometimes I'm overcome with such an aversion to human beings that I can barely refrain from retching" ([1], p. 260). ("Manchmal überkommt mich ein solcher Widerwille vor Menschen, daß ich dem Brechreiz kaum widerstehen kann." ([3], p. 386)). He goes on to explain that it is not about the individual, but about human beings in general. The human smell that mixes with the smell of his former self nauseates him in particular. As proof, he asks his opposite to not only trust his words as verbal mediators, but to test immediately on his body, inviting him to merge human conduct (to listen) and animal behavior (to smell for himself): "Here, on my chest! Put your nose deeper into the fur! Deeper, I say!" ([1], p. 261). ("Hier auf der Brust! Tiefer die Nase ins Fell! Tiefer, sage ich." ([3], p. 386)). The closeness to the chest—subtly prefigured in the first segment with the impresario's name "Busenau"—serves as a means toward both empathizing with the animal experience and being estranged from it.<sup>1</sup>

Not only is the primal sense of smell foregrounded, but also the sense of vision when, in another intimate physical interaction, Rotpeter offers to show the site where the second bullet entered him (the first being on the visible cheek): "I'll take my trousers down so you can see that scar, too" ([1], p. 261). ("Ich werde die Hose ausziehn, damit Sie auch diese Narbe sehn." ([3], p. 387)). Immediate olfactory and visual perceptions add to the verbal explanations, even though the fully cultural, civilized, and town-dwelling interviewer needs to counter with regard to the first that he has lost parts of a natural sense of smell.

The play with the dynamics between mediation and immediacy is most prominently shown in the passage in which Rotpeter begins to tell the story of his capture in a cage, without any way out, after showing his wounds.. Although Kafka crossed out the most revealing parts, I include them:

"Here then was where the bullet entered; this was the severe, decisive wound. I fell from the tree and when I came to I was in a cage between decks. Sir, you have never been an ape and you have never been in a cage, so I cannot make anything of this comprehensible for you."

"Difficult fate. I can commiserate with you even as a none-ape." ([1], p. 261 and my translations)

"Hier also war der Einschuß, das war die entscheidende schwere Wunde, ich fiel vom Baum und als ich aufwachte war ich in einem Käfig im Zwischendeck. Mein Herr, Sie sind niemals Affe gewesen und waren nie in einem Käfig, ich kann Ihnen also davon nichts begreiflich machen."

"Schweres Schickal. Das kann ich auch als Nichtaffe mitfühlen." ([3], p. 387; [4], pp. 96–97)2

<sup>1</sup> This transgression between human and non-human experience in the storyworld is akin to the process that Lars Bernaerts et al. posit for animal narratology, namely "as the result of a *double dialectic* of empathy and defamiliarization" ([14], p. 69; see also part 4 of this paper).

<sup>2</sup> Please note that parts of the block quote are strike through (as they are in the octavo notebooks).

When the human calls himself, and is seen as, a non-ape, the limits of understanding another (animal) being's concerns are expressed. At the same time, the interlocutor feels empathetic and thus stresses an aspect of immediacy. The continuation of this passage similarly underlines the restrictions of fully immersing oneself in the experience of another species. The human interlocutor exclaims: "In a cage! Between decks! It's one thing to read your story, and quite another to hear you tell it!" ([1], p. 261). ("Im Käfig! Im Zwischendeck! Anders liest man davon und anders faßt man es auf, wenn man Sie selbst es erzählen hört." ([3], pp. 387–88)). Rotpeter's reply begins: "And yet another, sir, to have experienced it" ([1], p. 261). ("Und noch anders, wenn man es selbst erlebt hat mein Herr." ([3], p. 388)). The emphatic reactions by the interlocutor lead to the center of questions surrounding different forms of narrating and mediating the transformation of the ape. The progression from reading about the issue (and the narrator-interviewer says he has "read everything that's been printed" about it, ([1], p. 261)), via direct communication with Rotpeter, on to personal experience (impossible for the interlocutor) is a progression from mediacy to immediacy. It resembles the progression from the double mediation in these first two segments (the conversation about the absent Rotpeter and the conversation with him) to the immediacy of letting Rotpeter exclusively speak for himself in the famous "Report".

#### **4. For the Academy: Rotpeter's Report (Segments III and IV)**

After the abrupt end of the second text fragment, mid-sentence, and following two further short texts without any direct thematic relation to the Rotpeter topic, we find the beginning of Rotpeter's famous monologue or address. The two known fragments that became parts of the "Report" were written down in the fourth octavo notebook (D) and comprise roughly eleven and a half and thirteen notebook pages, together slightly more than nine print pages in the critical edition of the published version. About five and a half pages in the critical edition follow and these parts have not been found among Kafka's manuscripts. At least one notebook between the fourth and the fifth known ones is likely missing. In the following analysis, I will therefore refer to the published version with the title "A Report to an Academy" ("Ein Bericht für eine Akademie") [1,2].

One apparent detail, already in the title, is especially important to understand the peculiar narrative dynamics: the preposition "for" (*für* in the original German), even though "to" (*an*) seems more appropriate for many—and is rendered in the common translations into English as such. The Kafka-reader Walter Benjamin, too, writes the incorrect preposition in his own notes.3 Once the focus is on the function words in the title, it is also worth mentioning that it is "a" and not "the" report (*ein*, not *der Bericht*), in line with the general tendency of indeterminacy in several stories of the collection *A Country Doctor* (*Ein Landarzt*) ([16], pp. 224–25). What does it mean to deliver a report *for* an academy—and to do this in front of an audience? Rotpeter, who addresses the audience as "Honored Members of the Academy!" ([1], p. 250) ("Hohe Herren von der Akademie! ([2], p. 299)) speaks or writes for the institution insofar as he fulfills the request to report about the life he "formerly led as an ape" ([1], p. 250) ("äffisches Vorleben" ([2], p. 299)). He tries to show, as far as possible, "the line an erstwhile ape has had to follow in entering and establishing himself in the world of men" ([1], p. 251) ("die Richtlinie [...], auf welcher ein gewesener Affe in die Menschenwelt eingedrungen ist und sich dort festgesetzt hat" ([2], p. 300)). While there is no doubt that the genre is a report, its mode of delivery cannot be unambiguously discerned. If delivered as a speech, it would mean that the humans sitting opposite of Rotpeter would hear his literal voice—and several pathos-filled remarks, ending with exclamation points, would support such an analysis. If delivered as a written response, the recipients would not face him directly, but read his textually mediated voice—and Kafka's change of the phrase *make a report*/"Bericht [...] erstatten" to something closer to *submit a report*/"Bericht [...] einzureichen"

<sup>3</sup> Benjamin writes "Bericht an eine Akademie: hier erscheint Menschsein als Ausweg. Gründlicher kann es wohl nicht in Frage gestellt werden" ([15], p. 119).

in the octavo notebook ([4], pp. 110–11), as well as the later response by the teacher to a written version of the report (segment V), would call for such an analysis.

Whether spoken or written, the report presupposes a silently listening or reading audience. This audience is addressed directly a few more times, for example when Rotpeter exclaims "your life as apes, gentlemen, insofar as something of that kind lies behind you, cannot be farther removed from you than mine is from me" ([1], p. 250). ("Ihr Affentum, meine Herren, soferne Sie etwas Derartiges hinter sich haben, kann Ihnen nicht ferner sein als mir das meine" ([2], p. 300)). Those words signal, in a subtle manner, that Rotpeter does not only speak about and for himself, but also for those who have invited him to speak: humans and, at the same time, academics or members of an academy, and thus representatives of human knowledge.

Rotpeter, like the audience, only has access to his ape past through the narration of others ("fremde Berichte" ([2], p. 301)), i.e., reports by those who have accompanied him, and who told him how he was caught by an expedition of the Hagenbeck company and sent from the Gold Coast via ship to Hamburg. The memories of his youth, he tells the academy, had to vanish in order for him to become human. When Kafka lets Rotpeter speak or write about the time the former ape cannot remember, he unsettles the relationship between who is able and authorized to speak: former ape or man, object of study or institution of learning. The segments Kafka ended up publishing as the "Report" question who gets to speak for whom and who gets to transmit the knowledge of Rotpeter's origin ("Ursprung" ([2], p. 299)) and, by extension, the origin of human beings. To put it differently, the transition from animal nature into human culture is not directly accessible by the one who has experienced it during his lifetime. Rotpeter has to use the past tense and the linguistic tools available to him after becoming human. Ironically, he needs to express himself in a human system of communication, which is precisely what removes him from his ape-hood. In his own words:

Of course what I felt then as an ape I can represent now only in human terms, and therefore I misrepresent it, but although I cannot reach back to the truth of the old ape life, there is no doubt that it lies somewhere in the direction I have indicated. ([3], p. 253)

Ich kann natürlich das damals affenmäßig Gefühlte heute nur mit Menschenworten nachzeichnen und verzeichne es infolgedessen, aber wenn ich auch die alte Affenwahrheit nicht mehr erreichen kann, wenigstens in der Richtung meiner Schilderung liegt sie, daran ist kein Zweifel. ([2], p. 303)

Rotpeter does, however, recall the visceral mode of thinking that lies in the ape-nature, stating that "apes think with their bellies" ([1], p. 253) ("Affen denken mit dem Bauch" ([2], p. 304)). His full memory, he tells the academy, gradually sets in only when waking up after having been shot twice, between decks on the ship and trapped inside a cage. There he soon begins observing the crew and finds it easy to imitate their behavior. Spitting, smoking a pipe, and drinking schnapps are the first acts (with the latter a rather difficult task) toward becoming human. Rotpeter also mentions that his teacher on board realizes he has to fight against his own ape nature, although Rotpeter has, of course, the harder part ([1], p. 257; [2], p. 310). After learning the bodily gesture of the handshake, Rotpeter also learns his first word—"Hallo!"—, which is his big break "into the human community" ([1], p. 257). Following his close observations and the acts with which Rotpeter bids farewell to his ape-nature on the steamer, he has to choose between the zoo and the variety stage in Hamburg. Picking the latter (because the zoo would have only meant another cage), he continues his learning with a number of teachers and reaches "the cultural level of an average European" ([1], p. 258) ("die Durchschnittsbildung eines Europäers" ([2], p. 312)), while also performing with great success. At night, though, "a half-trained little chimpanzee" waits for him and he takes "comfort from her as apes do." ([1], p. 159) ("eine kleine halbtrainierte Schimpansin und ich lasse es mir nach Affenart bei ihr wohlgehen" ([2], p. 313)). The animal nature is still a part of his otherwise human life and routine.

Lars Bernaerts et al. [14], have established a framework for narratology beyond the human that helps us understand the stakes of the "Report" as Kafka's closest attempt at conveying Rotpeter's animal experience. They argue that non-human storytelling should not be analyzed only through a single concept, such as "estrangement" (in Victor Shklovsky's formalist approach [17]) or "the unnatural" (suspending the conventions of natural narrative, see Alber et al. [18]). For Bernaerts et al., we should view the phenomenon "as the result of a *double dialectic* of empathy and defamiliarization, human and non-human experientiality" ([14], p. 69). Rotpeter's speech unsettles the human and non-human experience on the fundamental narratological level, while making the unnatural transformation from animal to human its very topic, therefore engaging the readers and listeners to a double challenge of their conception of the human. David Herman [19] discerns that acts of self-narration across species raise questions around the politics and the truth status of narrative representation. The mere fact that Kafka gives voice to the (former) ape in this text, without any human narrator or dialogue partner, after having probed these two alternative narrative constellations, demonstrates the potent reduction of external narrative intervention to present Rotpeter's transformation to an academy as well as to the implied and real readers.

The focus on animal narratology therefore provides a foundation for the numerous suggestive angles from which the published "Report" has long been scrutinized. Allegorical interpretations focus on issues such as colonialism, conformism, the assimilation of Jews in Western society, and the values of art and education, as Naama Harel aptly surveys ([6], p. 54). Historical approaches concentrate on the treatment of apes in the name of the explicitly named Hagenbeck company at that time, which was the leader in animal trade ([20], pp. 293–301) and also involved in "human zoos" (*Völkerschauen*) [21], on the research of the zoologist Alfred Brehm, or on Wolfgang Köhler's investigations in *The Mentality of Apes* from 1917 [22], like the fictional Elisabeth Costello in J. M. Coetzee's *The Lives of Animals* [23]. Analyses with a scientific context zoom in on the special treatment of Darwin's evolutionary theory, which Kafka had read in his youth ([24], p. 60). And possible motivic influences from the fictional art world include E.T.A. Hoffmann's "News of an Educated Young Man" ("Nachricht von einem gebildeten jungen Mann"), which contains a letter of the educated ape Milo to his girlfriend Pipi in North America ([20], pp. 271–77; [25], p. 421).

From an anthropological standpoint (and specifically from that of biological anthropology, which studies the passage from nature to culture of humans), Rotpeter's speech for the academy poses particularly intriguing questions. As Gerhard Neumann has shown, the interest of determining the boundaries between nature and culture, animal and human life (as well as between economy, politics, and administration), becomes pertinent around 1900 and is taken up from an animal's perspective in fictional texts such Kafka's "Investigations of a Dog" ("Forschungen eines Hundes" ([26], p. 80; [27])). According to Giorgio Agamben, who has attempted to measure the zone between naked body and social law, and who frequently refers to Kafka, "*man is the animal that must recognize itself as human to be human*" ([28], p. 26). Rotpeter is not aping humans, which would imply that he is still an ape, but rather he needs to act and perform as human to be human.4 As Rotpeter himself says, in a contradictory way: "I repeat: there was no attraction for me in imitating human beings; I imitated them because I needed a way out, and for no other reason" ([1], p. 257). ("Ich wiederhole: es verlockte mich nicht, die Menschen nachzuahmen; ich ahmte nach, weil ich einen Ausweg suchte, aus keinem anderen Grund" ([2], p. 311).

At the end, Rotpeter stresses before the members of the academy that his goal is "not appealing for any man's verdict", but "only imparting knowledge" and "only making a report" ([1], p. 259). ("Im übrigen will ich keines Menschen Urteil, ich will nur Kenntnisse verbreiten, ich berichte nur, auch Ihnen, hohe Herren von der Akademie, habe ich nur berichtet." ([2], p. 313)). This explicit statement shows a strategic imitation of the linguistic and performative conventions for speaking to and for a learned society. It omits the more causal and bodily interactions that the first two segments worked

<sup>4</sup> The special punch line in Kafka's published text is, according to Neumann, that it leaves open if it is mimesis (the artistic representation of aspects of the real world) or mimicry (the act of simulating the appearance of humans) that allows the ape to make his way into life as a human being ([26], p. 92).

through: the impresario's attempt at feeding the guest and Rotpeter's showing of his wounds to the interlocutor or his invitation to smell the fur. The emphasis on Rotpeter's wish not to be judged by those who listen to or read the report, though, stands in contrast to what Kafka probes in the fifth segment.

#### **5. After the Report (Segment V) and the Ensemble of Segments**

While the monologue or report omits any kind of reaction on the side of the academy-audience, and thus any immediate response, Kafka himself anticipated—and wrote down—an explicit reader-reaction. The last known textual segment on the topic of "Rotpeter" is the beginning of a letter, sent from a distance to Rotpeter. This distance is both temporal and spatial and can be understood in a dual sense. On the level of the material writing, and thus the dynamic writing process, it is the only known segment that is not in the fourth octavo notebook (D), but in the fifth (E). On the thematic level, the letter is a spatially distant and temporally delayed reaction to the now published report. The writer of the letter is, however, not a member of the academy, an anonymous reader, a fan, or a journalistic reviewer, but he is one of Rotpeter's first teachers, whose regressive behavior is opposed to Rotpeter's progressive becoming-human. This teacher was explicitly mentioned in the "Report":

My ape nature fled out of me, head over heels and away, so that my first teacher was almost himself turned into an ape by it, had soon to give up teaching and was taken away to a mental hospital. Fortunately he was soon let out again. ([1], p. 258)

Die Affennatur raste, sich überkugelnd, aus mir hinaus und weg, so daß mein erster Lehrer selbst davon fast äffisch wurde, bald den Unterricht aufgeben und in eine Heilanstalt gebracht werden mußte. Glücklicherweise kam er wieder bald hervor. ([2], pp. 311–12)

Note the fluid reversal of roles as described by Rotpeter. While he gradually loses his ape nature, the teacher gains parts of an ape nature. No longer suitable in society, he is taken away to a mental institution for a short while. This stay in the sanatorium is the narrative thread that is prominently woven into the fifth segment, when the teacher responds (to quote the entire segment):

#### Dear Mr. Rotpeter,

I have read the report, which you have written for our academy of sciences, with great interest, indeed with increased heart rate. It is no wonder because I am, after all, your first teacher whom you remember with such friendly words. Perhaps with a bit more consideration, it could have been avoided to mention my stay in the sanatorium, but I recognize that your entire report in its marked [tone]frankness in its ruthless veracity could not have suppressed this small detail once it had randomly come to your mind while writing, even though it embarrassed me a bit. But that's not what I actually wanted to talk about here; my concerns lie elsewhere. (My translation)

#### Sehr geehrter Herr Rotpeter,

ich habe den Bericht den Sie für unsere Akademie der Wissenschaften geschrieben haben mit großem Interesse, ja mit Herzklopfen gelesen. Kein Wunder, bin ich doch Ihr erster Lehrer gewesen, für den Sie so freundliche Worte der Erinnerung gefunden haben. Vielleicht hätte es sich bei einiger Überlegung vermeiden lassen, meinen Sanatoriumsaufenthalt zu erwähnen, doch erkenne ich an, daß Ihr ganzer Bericht in seinem ihn so auszeichnenden [Ton]Freimuth in seiner rücksichtslosen Wahrhaftigkeit auch die kleine Einzelnheit, trotzdem sie mich ein wenig kompromittiert, nicht unterdrücken durfte, wenn sie Ihnen einmal bei der Niederschrift zufällig eingefallen war. Doch davon wollte ich eigentlich hier nicht reden, es geht mir um anderes. ([3], pp. 415–16; [5], pp. 58–61)

The teacher reviews the report in a tone between curiosity and admiration, and in a zone between expostulation and retraction: He acknowledges the personal cost of Rotpeter's lack of circumspection (i.e., to mention his time in a sanatorium), but then claims this is not the reason for writing the letter. Here again, he imitates Rotpeter, though not in his former ape-nature but insofar as both Rotpeter's report and the response-letter reflect their creators' passionate personal thoughts rather than delivering an objective response as requested by the academy or even mentioning the real reason for writing the response-letter, thereby creating irony. Kafka's deletion of Rotpeter's tone as marked by "ruthless veracity" ("rücksichtslose[] Wahrhaftigkeit") reveals that the unfiltered stream of information toward a quest for some kind of truth about himself could be tied to a regime of power over those who do not get to speak to (let alone for) the academic institution, such as the former teacher. Because the fragment ends before even the letter's main reason is announced, it is foregrounding a side concern—here the *personal* reaction to the report—and not the stakes of or a substantial response to the report. Kafka often places such side concerns front and center in his texts, and subtly directs the attention to *how* things are represented as equally important to *what* is said.

As a way to extend my analysis and to conclude, I will briefly mention two further texts by Kafka, which probe the ways and limits of how one can speak about and for animals: "The Village Schoolmaster", published as "The Giant Mole" ("Der Dorfschullehrer"/"Der Riesenmaulwurf"), and "Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk" (Josefine, die Sängerin oder das Volk der Mäuse"). I will then describe how the fragments surrounding "A Report to an Academy", as an ensemble, mirror the process of literary communication itself, and allow us to reflect on the potentials and limits of narrating the animal experience from a variety of perspectives that include literary production and reception.

In contrast to the heterodiegetic narrators in Kafka's novel fragments (who are not part of the narrated world yet undermine the events in a subtle and ironic manner), the animal stories predominantly use homodiegetic narrators: a former ape, a businessman in "The Village Schoolteacher" (talking about a pamphlet by a teacher about the wondrous appearance of a giant mole), and a member of the mouse folk in "Josephine" (talking about the titular mouse's mysterious song). They investigate, from a lay-researcher's perspective, the curious appearance of animals: the former self, a distant and rumored subject of study, or an outstanding member of the community.<sup>5</sup> The narrators claim to describe their observance-based knowledge for society, science, and art, respectively. What "The Village Schoolteacher" and "Josephine" focus on is a specific *form* of presentation: pamphlet and song. Yet what these forms precisely reveal, i.e., their content, remains largely obscure for their reader. The giant mole as an object of examination is progressively more eclipsed by a complex verbal fight about who gets to speak about it as an authority: the village schoolmaster or the narrator. And the narrator of "Josephine" makes clear that the mouse singer's aura has to be experienced and the immediate effect of her song has to be heard to be known; they cannot be mediated through narration. These stories therefore center on the limits of formally representing animals.

While Kafka gives voice to the (former) animal in the "Report", as object and subject of examination, and lets him narrate his own story as best as he can, the ensemble of fragments in the segments in the manuscripts, display different narrative perspectives to relate aspects of Rotpeter's life. Moreover, the *sequence* of segments resembles the process of literary communication itself—preparation or production, representation, and reception—, and thus gives us a glimpse at different facets of literature's potentials and limits for the author and for the recipient. Segments I and II read as though Kafka was trying to conceive of (and draft) ways to narrate Rotpeter's life, first with a human narrator and then in the dialogue between a human and the animal. Segments III and IV, as well as other lost notes, comprise the "Report" by Rotpeter, which curiously fuses the stories of humans about his youth and capture, on which he needs to build, and his own, remembered experience since the

<sup>5</sup> Kafka's late story "Investigations of a Dog" ("Forschungen eines Hundes"), narrated from the first-person perspective of the dog narrator who self-consciously reflects on his own life and experiences, features an animal as lay-researcher as well. The main different to the "Report" is the lack of educational or developmental progress as a basis for the research. Instead, the dog episodically relates a few research projects that fail to make any advances in knowledge.

capture. Segment V, finally, adds the perspective of a teacher and is a first reader-reaction or reception of the report.

Most collections of Kafka's stories only publish the "Report", as Kafka chose to publish in his lifetime, not the fragments he drafted beforehand and afterwards.<sup>6</sup> Yet when compiling the (German) critical edition, the editors faced a dilemma in picking a mode of representing the connection between those texts authorized by Kafka and those found in the manuscripts, as Gerhard Neumann has detailed. "A Report to an Academy" serves as an example for Neumann to expose the tension between the creative flow of writing ("Schrift") on the one side and the idea of a finished work ("Werk") on the other side ([7], p. 3). By extension, this dilemma is the relationship between the physical, private act of writing down thoughts and the cultural act of publishing the work. Neumann argues that, from the point of view of the hermeneutic scholar, the segments across the fourth octavo notebook mesh the human self and the animal other, even make the animal an agent of speaking-for the human in front of the academy ([7], p. 6). From the point of view of the editor, the difficulty arises if the authorized (published) text is the "truth" and the peripheral texts are not, or if it is only in the discarded texts that the author truly speaks, without any distortions based on the speech of others ([7], p. 12). Ultimately, the question of who speaks for whom is one that links the problem of editorship and the concerns for the hermeneutic scholar in the texts featuring Rotpeter. Neumann even compares the role of the editor with that of an ethnologist who needs to translate the exterritoriality of a foreign sphere into the own cultural sphere ([7], p. 15). In a schema on the relationship between edition and hermeneutics, he places "intimacy" (the self, the core of literary production) and "the public" (the others, the field of reception) on the ends, and in-between "speech, conversation, diary, letter" as accompanying the production and "speech, conversation, review, interpretation" as accompanying the reception (see schema in [7], p. 21).

Those points and the process of literary communication are mirrored in the five known segments with surprising neatness. First, there is the introductory dialogue between the impresario and the first-person narrator, which foregrounds a physical, even intimate approach to the topic of Rotpeter in the encounter between two men, even though the ape himself is not yet involved directly. It follows, second, the dialogue between Rotpeter and an interlocutor, which displays the tensions between medicacy and immediacy, physicality and speech, as well as *Fürsorge* and *Fürsprache*. Both segments appear to be part of the productive probing or preparation for Kafka himself, until he found the narrative perspective he would later choose for publication: the third and forth fragments. The "Report" restages, as a lecture or script, Rotpeter's communication with and about humans in a formal institutional setting. It is Kafka's closest attempt to represent the animal mind in the *double dialectic* of human and non-human experientiality. Fifth, the short written reaction by a witness of Rotpeter's transformation touches on the field of reception, even though the letter is not a public review, but a private response.

Kafka's fragments around "A Report to an Academy", in sum, offer multiple perspectives on the possibilities and limits of eroding the boundaries between human and animal other narratologically and thematically, while also exposing the process of literary production, representation, and reception. Immediate perceptions (hearing, seeing, and smelling) are juxtaposed with mediated speech, and the impossibility of fully immersing the listener or reader in the animal experience is on display. At the same time, the shifting narrative angles offer a rich source for questioning the anthropological passage from nature to culture and the poetological stakes of animal narratology.

**Acknowledgments:** I would like to thank *Humanities*' Guest Editor Joela Jacobs for her generous suggestions, the reviewers for their valuable feedback, and the journal's editorial staff for their assistance.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.

<sup>6</sup> It is worth noting that Kafka's own act of publishing the "Report" reproduces, in a sense, Rotpeter's act of speaking to an audience, here a literary one.

#### **References**


© 2017 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

**Nonhuman Others in Animal Narratology, or Under-Examined Species**

## *Article* **Insects and the Kafkaesque: Insectuous Re-Writings in Visual and Audio-Visual Media**

#### **Damianos Grammatikopoulos**

German Language and Literature Program, School of Arts and Sciences, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA; damiangr@scarletmail.rutgers.edu

Received: 16 June 2017; Accepted: 13 September 2017; Published: 16 September 2017

**Abstract:** In this article, I examine techniques at work in visual and audio-visual media that deal with the creative imitation of central Kafkan themes, particularly those related to hybrid insects and bodily deformity. In addition, the opening section of my study offers a detailed and thorough discussion of the concept of the "Kafkaesque", and an attempt will be made to circumscribe its signifying limits. The main objective of the study is to explore the relationship between Kafka's texts and the works of contemporary cartoonists, illustrators (Charles Burns), and filmmakers (David Cronenberg) and identify themes and motifs that they have in common. My approach is informed by transtextual practices and source studies, and I draw systematically on Gerard Genette's *Palimpsests* and Harold Bloom's *The Anxiety of Influence*.

**Keywords:** Kafka studies; adaptation studies; narratology; intertextuality; intermediality; mimesis; emulation; imitation; repetition; parody

#### **1. An Introduction to the** *Kafkaesque*

unlike a proper name, which moves from the interior of a discourse to the real person outside who produced it, the name of the author remains at the contours of texts—separating one from the other, defining their form, and characterizing their mode of existence.

#### (Foucault 1980, p. 123)

In his seminal essay *What Is an Author* (1969), Michel Foucault argues that the main function of an author's name, as opposed to a proper name, is to delineate the confines of an author's oeuvre and draw a line between her texts and those composed by other writers. John Searle on the other hand, in his treatise on *Proper Names* (1918) and their linguistic properties, is more concerned with the referential function of both proper and authorial names. Names, as he maintains, have no meaning per se and do not act as definite descriptions. Their main purpose is not to describe but to refer to an individual who is the bearer of that name. That same individual, however, is marked by a set of characteristics that the proper name inevitably evokes when it is pronounced or when it appears in writing. As Searle argues: "proper names do not normally assert or specify any characteristics, their referring uses nonetheless presuppose that the object to which they purport to refer has certain characteristics" (Searle [1958] 1970, pp. 170–71). Names themselves are meaningless, yet they tend to assimilate the traits and distinctive features of the person to whom they refer. "They function not as descriptions, but as pegs on which to hang descriptions" (Searle [1958] 1970, p. 172). Michel Foucault on the other hand famously posits a difference between a proper and an author's name by calling attention to the intrinsic relationship between the name of an author and her corpus. For Foucault, the name of a writer acts as a border patrol agent of sorts, guarding the invisible boundaries of texts written by different authors and preventing "intruders" to enter the textual territory they safeguard. The aim

of an author's name for Foucault is the protection of private property. Without the contribution of a name to police those margins, the classification of texts would not be possible:

These differences indicate that an author's name is not simply an element of speech (as a subject, a complement, or an element that could be replaced by a pronoun or other parts of speech). Its presence is functional in that it serves as a means of classification. A name can group together a number of texts and thus differentiate them from others. A name also establishes different forms of relationships among texts.

#### (Foucault 1980, p. 123)

What Foucault alludes to here are the possessive qualities of names. By adding an apostrophe and the letter "s" at the end of a name, we no longer refer to an individual but to her possessions, which in the case of an author include her writings. The phrases "Lacan's texts" and "Lacan's house" no longer refer to the author Lacan but to certain objects that belong or belonged to him. By slightly transforming an author's name, we perform an act that affects its reference. Similarly, when certain suffixes are added at the end of a name, the name itself becomes an adjective. By attaching the suffix "-ian", for instance, to the stem of an author's name (Freud-ian, Lacan-ian, Kafk-ian and Kafka-ian), the newly formed derivative does indeed define the borders of an author's oeuvre, as Foucault claims, but it does so only when accompanied by certain nouns (text, corpus, oeuvre): "the Freudian corpus", "the Lacanian oeuvre" etc. Furthermore, the same suffix in conjunction with an author's name conveys a distinctive quality at play in the texts of an author, which can be used as a means of comparison: "the Orwellian surveillance state". The suffix "-ean" operates in a similar manner, as in: "Derrid-ean" (the Derridean oeuvre, a Derridean notion).<sup>1</sup>

Words ending in "-esque" represent a further class of suffixes capable of turning a name into an adjective. The online Merriam-Webster definition of the same suffix reads as follows: "in the manner or style of" (Online Merriam-Webster 2017a). As opposed to the suffixes discussed above, adjectives ending in "-esque", the stem of which contains a name, are not suitable in delineating an author's oeuvre (the phrase "the Kafkaesque corpus" is rather misleading). Their function is restricted to the denotation of properties that are at play in works composed by an author. Many adjectives composed of an author's name and the suffix "-esque" have found entrance into the English language, as in Dantesque, Chaplinesque, Dylanesque, and even Jordanesque (from Michael Jordan), yet the most well-know of all of them is arguably the derivative Kafkaesque which Robert Crumb and David Zane Mairowitz labeled *The Adjective*: "At best, an identifiable mood pervades his work, mysterious and difficult to pinpoint. Which has allowed the 'pork-butchers' of modern culture to turn him into an *Adjective*" (Crumb and Mairowitz 2010, p. 5).

However, what does Kafkaesque really mean and what qualities in Franz Kafka's work does it transmit? What is the relationship between Kafka's name and its adjectival form? The online Merriam-Webster dictionary provides a definition that seems to comprise the basic meaning of the word in everyday language: "of, relating to, or suggestive of Franz Kafka or his writings; especially: having a nightmarishly complex, bizarre, or illogical quality: Kafkaesque bureaucratic delays" (Online Merriam-Webster 2017b). Most English and German dictionaries define the word along similar lines, yet some critics and artists have offered more elaborate views on the subject. The critic Rainer Nägele, for example, delimits the concept ex negativo by outlining what it excludes and claims that the Kafkaesque is never "uncanny" (Nägele 2006, p. 21). His study counters Tzvetan Todorov's assertion that "Kafka's narratives relate both to the marvelous and to the uncanny" (Todorov 1973, p. 172) and he sets out to prove that the Kafkaesque does not include any "uncanny" notions. Frederick Karl provides another definition of the Kafkaesque in his critical Kafka biography *Representative Man* (Karl 1991), delineating the concept as follows: "For *Kafkaesque* at its most meaningful and exalted

<sup>1</sup> The word "Kafk-ean" is rather uncommon but not entirely absent in critical essays: "The Kafkean Law" (Žižek 2008, p. 87).

denotes a world that has its own rules, its own guidelines, its own forms of behavior that cannot be amenable to human will" (Karl 1991, p. 757). Kafkaesque, as Karl goes on to argue, "has become the representative adjective of our times". (Karl 1991, p. 757). Yet the *Adjective*, as Crumb and Mairowitz argue, implies much more:

Because his novels *The Trial* and *The Castle* deal with the inaccessibility of higher authority, "Kafkaesque" has come to be associated with the faceless bureaucratic infrastructure which the highly efficient Austro-Hungarian Empire bequeathed the Western world. In any case, it is an adjective that takes on almost mythic proportions in our time, irrevocably tied to fantasies of doom and gloom, ignoring the intricate Jewish Joke that weaves itself through the bulk of Kafka's work.

#### (Crumb and Mairowitz 2010, p. 5)

Crumb and Mairowitz foreground the multi-faceted dimension of the term as an underdetermined signifier that struggles to express, at least at the vernacular level, the convoluted and ineffable overall quality of Kafka's oeuvre. Many critics and Kafka-*ists* (another interesting suffix in conjunction with an author's name), however, expose the multivalence of the concept that can be deployed to designate a plethora of meanings. The following definitions of the Kafkaesque taken from the recently published selection of essays entitled *Mediamorphosis: Kafka and the Moving Image* (2016) highlight the wide array of meanings that critics attribute to the term. According to Martin Brady and Helen Hughes, Kafkaesque characterizes more than just dream-like qualities:

On the one hand there is the strongly visual use of language—metaphor, analogy, a meticulous naturalism in the description of architectural space and landscape, for example—and on the other the restricted viewpoint of the protagonists. Together these make for the disconcerting world-view generally labelled "Kafkaesque."

#### (Brady and Hughes 2016, p. 182)

Shai Biderman relates the term to linguistic properties: "Kafka's style of writing is indicative to his control over the linguistic medium, and, as such, is an archetypical condition of the Kafkaesque" (Biderman 2016, p. 204). The combination of humor and horror falls into the same category as well, as Iris Bruce suggests: "What is thoroughly Kafkaesque in these scenes is the combination of humor and horror in Cronenberg's exploration of deeply rooted anxieties, which include the fear of losing control over one's body, of succumbing to irrational animalistic impulses, of being entirely at their mercy, which we see in Gregor as well" (Bruce 2016, p. 216). What becomes evident here is the fact that the Kafkaesque has no fixed meaning as an adjective that defines the essential quality of Kafka's texts. It means whatever an interpreter associates with Kafka's stories. It comes as no surprise, then, that many critics avoid the term because of its ambiguousness and ubiquity, and prefer the more neutral "Kafkaian", "Kafkian", and "Kafkan" (an abbreviated form of the "-ian" adjective ending that appears multiple times in the aforementioned *Mediamorphosis* selection of essays) when referring to distinctive properties of Kafka's texts, whatever those might be, all of which seem to act as synonyms of the Kafkaesque.

It is significant to note that adjectives ending in "-esque", as evidenced by the case of the Kafkaesque, conform to Searle's theory of proper names. Their function is not to define or describe. Rather, they serve as "pegs on which to hang descriptions. Thus, the looseness of the criteria for proper names is a necessary condition for isolating the referring function from the describing function of language" (Searle [1958] 1970, p. 172). The impossibility of pinning down the meaning of the Kafkaesque, its "looseness", resembles the properties of proper names whose aim is to refer (in this case to the author and/or her work) and not to describe (the same author and/or her work). The Kafkaesque does not act as a conventional adjective but rather as a name. It refers to Kafka's work, just like his name does, but it is the reader who assigns meanings and "hangs descriptions" to its derivatives. In the vernacular, on the other hand, the Kafkaesque appears to have broken the chains

that bound it to its origin, Kafka's proper name and his texts. In German, it is known as "kafkaesk" and it was initially employed, as Thomas Anz states, in instances relating to imitations of Kafka's texts and distinctive properties of his stories. Yet "kafkaesk" became (in)famous once it entered the vernacular, in its social application, and since then, as Anz remarks, it is only remotely connected to Kafka's literary work (Anz 1992, p. 14). Owing to that phenomenon, its meaning appears to be more stable among individuals who have not read Kafka's texts but still use the word to express "a nightmarishly complex, bizarre, or illogical quality".

Now that a theoretical frame for the concept of the Kafkaesque has been established, it is time to explore some of its (mimetic) manifestations in cartoons, comics, and films in which a central visual quality of the Kafkaesque comes to the fore. In the following sections, I focus on narratives in which the Kafkaesque is linked to hybrid insects and to a lesser extent to the theme of bodily deformity. My analysis in not concerned with graphic or cinematic adaptations of Kafka's text, but with stories that indirectly draw on Kafka's visual vocabulary. I argue that unspecified, grotesque insects, especially when they boast manlike features, often hint at one of Kafka's most influential stories: *The Metamorphosis* (1915). Their appearance, in other words, acts under certain circumstances as a Kafka-reference. The first section of my essay discusses gag-cartoons and their affinity with the genre of parody with which they share multiple formal characteristics. Given their reliance on visual cues to tell a story and their limited narrative means, cartoons that draw on Kafka's texts often seek to emulate a visual quality that is easily discernible by readers, which is why the insectoid corporeality of the protagonist in *The Metamorphosis*, Gregor Samsa, is almost always a point of reference. The second section centers primarily on Charles Burns' graphic novel *Black Hole* (1995–2005) and his animation *Fear(s) of the Dark* (2007) in which the imitation of Kafka's style is not as direct as in cartoons but equally evident and effective. The third part examines David Cronenberg's film *NakedLunch* (1991) and the themes of hybridity that the director deploys in his attempt to create a narrative based on two major sources: William S. Burroughs' novel of the same name, of which the film claims to be an adaptation, and Kafka's *The Metamorphosis*. The concluding section foregrounds the relationship between an author and her powerful forerunners as well as the struggles of the former to come to terms with the "influence" of the latter.

#### **2. Defining Cartoons against the Backdrop of Parody**

Imitation, according to Pierre Fontanier, is a figure that "consists of imitating a turn of phrase, a sentence construction, from another language; or a turn of phrase, a sentence construction, that is no longer in use. In the first case, it is called *Hellenism*, *Latinism*, *Hebraism*, *Anglicism*, etc., depending on whether it comes from the Greek, Latin, Hebrew, or English, etc. ... In the second case, it may be called by the name of the author who provided the model for it. Thus, we give the name *Marotism* to any affected imitation of Clément Marot's style."

#### (Genette 1997, pp. 73–74)

By citing Pierre Fontanier's definition of the term imitation, Gerard Genette, in his hugely influential work on transtextual relations *Palimpsests* (1982), highlights the suffix "-ism" that can be appended to the stem of an author's name in order to express a quality, a mode of writing, a doctrine, or even a movement that springs from her work (Marx-Marxism, Balzac-Balzacism). As opposed to the suffix "-esque", however, the derivation produces not an adjective but a noun. *A* Marotism or *a* Balzacism, as Genette states by placing emphasis on the indefinite article, conveys features at play in the work of authors to whose names the suffix "-ism" has been added only then, when those features seek to emigrate, when they appear in texts not written by them but by "imitators" of their style: "Strictly speaking, an Anglicism is identified only as it comes into contact with another language, at the moment it steps out of the English language, and a Marotism when it wanders out of Marot's work" (Genette 1997, p. 76). In this sense, there is nothing Kafkaesque in Kafka's novels and short

stories because everything in them is Kafkaesque. It is only in relation to other works that one can speak of it and identify it as a distinctive mode of Kafka's style. Kafkaesque is a style, a quality, a situation, a mode or writing etc. when it migrates to texts not written by Kafka himself. The name of an author might well serve as a guardian or rather a doorkeeper, as Foucault argues, yet the distinctive qualities of their oeuvre truly comes to light through an act of trespassing. To put this another way, a Marotism, Balzacism, Kafkaism (another synonym for the Kafkaesque) and similar modes of imitation and appropriation can trick Foucault's border patrol agents and cross the limits that circumscribe an author's textual, visual, or audio-visual domain.

The imitation of the Kafkaesque in gag cartoons, to which I now turn my attention, requires a visual quality of the *Adjective* because of the narrative constraints of the medium. As opposed to conventional graphic novels and comic strips that are by definition sequential, cartoon-artists have at their disposal a single panel in which they operate with two signifying systems: images and words. Due to that limitation, the presence of hybrid insects is very common in cartoons that allude to Kafka's stories as the following cartoon by Judy Horacek2 demonstrates (Figure 1). The drawing of a bug sitting on a sofa during a psychoanalytic session and the addition of Kafka's name in the speech balloon facilitate the identification of the text on which the cartoon's punch line is based. In some cases, the iconic face of the author is portrayed as well, but even such cases often refer to *The Metamorphosis* (Figure 3). Illustrators that draw on Kafka's texts and his physical appearance proceed on the assumption that readers are familiar with the hypotext (Kafka's *The Metamorphosis*) at which they are hinting3. In other words, the cartoon itself will fail to deliver its punch line if readers are not acquainted with Kafka's short story, and that forces illustrators to draw on well-known and popular hypotexts.

**Figure 1.** Cartoon by Judy Horacek.

<sup>2</sup> I would like to thank Judy Horacek, Pat Bagley, and Jirí Slíva for kindly giving me permission to publish their sophisticated cartoons (Figures 1–3).

<sup>3</sup> The term *hypotext* has been coined by Genette and designates the text upon which the mimetic text, the *hypertext* (the cartoon in our case), is grafted.

The cartoons under consideration here have a strong parodic quality given their reliance on a highly influential hypotext, and the genre of parody, as Genette argues, is the mimetic genre par excellence.

The most rigorous form of parody, or *minimal parody*, consists, then, of taking up a familiar text literally and giving it a new meaning, while playing, if possible and as needed, on the words ... The most elegant parody, since it is the most economical, is then merely a quote deflected from its meaning or simply from its context, or demoted from its dignified status.

#### (Genette 1997, pp. 16–17)

When a parody draws upon a celebrated text, it does so because the latter is recognizable by a wide audience. By tinkering with single words, phrases, or entire sentences from the parodied work (replacing the letter "b" with the letter "p" in the verb "to be" and adding an additional "e" at the end of the same verb in Shakespeare's famous quote: "to be or not to be" for instance), the writer creates a pun that is funny only due to its reference to the hypotext, and that is the main reason why the parodist has to stay as close to the source text as possible. If readers are not familiar with the referenced work or are unable to recognize the reference, the pun will remain inaccessible to them. While this kind of strictly textual parody is possible in visual media as well, at least in those that employ images and words, it is very rare because a medium that rests on both visual and linguistic cues is at its most effective when both levels are at work. The following political cartoon by Pat Bagley, posted on his Twitter account on 5 March 2016, demonstrates nicely how this type of parody utilizes visual and textual components to generate a pun (Figure 2). The modified first line from Kafka's story, famous in itself, that can be read in the upper left-hand corner of the panel in conjunction with the visual imagery of the panel, which features an insect reading a newspaper, and the current political context, rendered in the form of a headline and an image on the cover of the newspaper, deliver a punch line that hinges on multiples sources to which readers must have access if they are to understand its message. Moreover, the caption of the cartoon ("Kafkaesque") utilizes the prevalent connotations of the *Adjective* at the vernacular level to emphasize a political development that is more absurd and preposterous in the eyes of the illustrator than the transformation of a human being into a gigantic insect.

**Figure 2.** Cartoon by Pat Bagley.

The imitation that lies at the core of cartoons that incorporate elements of Kafka's writings, his name, aspects of his life, and/or his physical appearance, pertain, at least to some extent, to the norms of conventional parodies as outlined by Genette. By seeking a proximity to the hypotext and by "diverting the letter of the [source] text to another purpose" (Genette 1997, p. 78)—an operation that creates a comic effect—said cartoons pursue an imitation of the "letter", just like parodies do, but contrary to the latter they also display an imitation that targets the imagery of the hypotext. The emulation of physical appearance, which is to say the medium/genre of *caricature*, is particularly interesting here because it conforms to the exact same rules that govern the genre of parody. While the parodist imitates a well-known and celebrated text by manipulating its microstructure, the caricaturist sketches the portrait of a famous individual by exaggerating and distorting some of her physical traits and facial characteristics. The artist has to make sure that her audience will recognize her victim despite the rendered distortions, which is why the target of the caricature must be a prominent personality or celebrity. The affinity between caricature and parody becomes axiomatic from this angle. In order to construct an amusing and playful moment, the caricaturist and the parodist draw on a widely recognized hypotext the structure of which they marginally distort, but the effect they hope to achieve hinges upon the ability of readers to discern both the source and its distortion. Hence, the inclusion of a name or other textual hints that facilitate the identification process is not uncommon, especially in caricatures and illustrations like the following by Jirí Slíva entitled *Die Verwandlung* (The Metamorphosis, Figure 3). Kafka's iconic face in conjunction with the title of the illustration and the notion of hybridity that the unidentified creature evokes create a comic effect that has its roots in the hypotext on which the caricature rests. Furthermore, Slíva's notion of hybridity in this particular illustration might be twofold. Not only is the creature hybrid, half-human, half-hare, but so too are the sources of the caricature; its hypotexts. The first hypotext, Kafka's *The Metamorphosis* [Die Verwandlung], is clear and indisputable given the many references, but one can only speculate about the other(s). It does seem possible, though, that the illustration refers not only to Kafka's crossbreeds but also to Albrecht Dürer's famous painting *Young Hare*. As such, it highlights a Kafkaesque mode of hybridity that is active at both the organic (the creature itself) and the referential level (Kafka and Dürer).

**Figure 3.** Illustration by Jiri Slíva.

We must keep in mind that there is, in fact, nothing Kafkaesque in Kafka's texts; that this "mood" can only be identified as such the moment it steps out of the carefully delineated, textual confines of Kafka's oeuvre; when it enters foreign territory; when it occurs in the text of another author or as a visual equivalent in visual or audiovisual media. This assertion raises several concerns, the most important of which is the following: how is imitation of the Kafkaesque possible if we cannot even say what the word signifies? In my study, I do not claim to exhaust the full range of the term but only an aspect of it that I view as a central Kafkan trait: (hybrid) insects. Their appearance in cartoons, films and comic books, as I argue, often alludes to Kafka's *The Metamorphosis* and particularly to the hapless hero of the story, Gregor Samsa, who awakes one morning to find himself "transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect" (Kafka 1971, p. 89). It comes as no surprise, then, given the formal restrictions of the cartoon-medium that a considerable number of cartoonist often allude to the aforementioned story, particularly to Gregor's corporeality, in their attempts to generate a punch line. The illustration of an insect exhibiting human traits in conjunction with a name or a title serve as a clear reference to Kafka's work that enables readers to identify the source and grasp the gag that springs from it.

#### **3. Charles Burns' Comic Books and Animations**

"Parasite" is one of those words that calls up its apparent opposite. It has no meaning without that counterpart. There is no parasite without its host.

(Miller 1986, p. 452)

In contrast to cartoons, the presence of elements that evoke Kafka's imagery in comic books is not dependent upon readers' ability to discern the implanted reference, whether the latter is intended or not. According to Genette, whose analysis does not include Kafka's texts, the reoccurrence of certain formulations indicative of an author's style can be used as a platform for imitative practices. When the name of the main protagonist in a fictional narrative, for example, consists of a single letter that happens to be the first initial of the author's name (K. is the name of the lead character in both novels *The Castle* and *The Trial*), and when this peculiarity occurs more than just once, one can speak of a distinctive trait and categorize it as a formal feature of the author in question. Themes and motifs that occur repeatedly in an author's oeuvre can be subsumed under the broad category of an author's style as well. From this perspective, hybrid creatures and bodily deformity, to name just those Kafkan topics that are relevant to the present study, represent iterative phenomena in Kafka's texts that appeal to and can be appropriated by imitators. In this sense, what has often been labeled "the author's style" is nothing more than a series of repetitions, and repetitions, as Genette stresses, invite imitations. An imitation, then, occurs when an imitator attempts to simulate iterative formal or thematic features of influential precursors:

What I said once belongs to me and it can be parted from me only by being given over through a voluntary or involuntary transaction, officially acknowledged by a pair of quotations marks. What I have said twice or more ceases to belong to me; it now characterizes me and may be parted from me through a simple transfer of imitation; by repeating myself, I am already imitating myself, and on that point one can imitate me by repeating me.

#### (Genette 1997, p. 79)

Repetitive elements in the works of influential precursors are often the target of imitators, and a venerable member of that guild of imitators is Charles Burns. In the third chapter of his critically acclaimed and highly unsettling graphic novel *Black Hole*, an illustration of a slightly disfigured female hand in the third chapter of the comic book directs us towards the character of "Leni" in Kafka's novel *The Trial* (Leni is the mistress of K.s lawyer and the one who seduces K. in the chapter *The Lawyer/Leni*). The web of skin that stretches between all fingers of the character's hand in Burns' panel hints at the same passage in Kafka's novel in which a detailed description of Leni's hand is

presented: "Sie spannte den Mittel- und Ringfinger ihrer rechten Hand auseinander, zwischen denen das Verbindungshäutchen fast bist zum obersten Gelenk der kurzen Finger reichte. [She spread the middle and ring fingers of her right hand apart from each other and between those fingers the flap of skin connecting them reached up almost as far as the top joint of the little finger.]" (Kafka 2002, p. 145). Aside from this very direct intertextual prompt that draws our attention to Kafka's work, the most intriguing references in Burns' works are the ones that hint at *The Metamorphosis*. In that narrative, the protagonist of the story, Gregor, awakes one morning and finds himself transformed into a grotesque creature, half-human and half-insect. If we adhere to Theodor W. Adorno's principle of literariness ("Das Prinzip der Wörtlichkeit"(Adorno 1963, p. 251)), according to which every single word in Kafka's texts is to be understood literally, and reject symbolical readings of the story that view it as an elaborate metaphor (Corngold 1973, pp. 1–31), then Gregor is indeed a hybrid creature. In his *Lectures on Literature* (Nabokov 1980), Vladimir Nabokov examines the physiology of Gregor's body based on the evidence at hand in the text and concludes that Gregor must be a beetle. He admits, however, that "the metamorphosis is not quite complete as yet" because a "regular beetle has no eyelids and cannot close its eyes—a beetle with human eyes" (Nabokov 1980, p. 258). Nabokov is referring to the very beginning of the text, shortly after Gregor's realization that he is no longer a human being: "However violently he forced himself toward his right side he always rolled onto his back again. He tried it at least a hundred time, shutting his eyes to keep from seeing his struggling legs ... " (Kafka 1971, p. 89). There is additional evidence scattered throughout the text that confirms Nabokov's observation. Insects, for instance, breathe through their bodies thanks to a network of tubes called tracheae. They have neither noses nor lungs. Gregor, on the other hand, does not conform to this model. The following passage depicts Gregor's last moments before he succumbs to the wound on his back, inflicted by the apple that his father had thrown at him, and the overall neglect that he had to endure from his family: "Then his head sank to the floor of its own accord and from his nostrils came the last faint flicker of his breath" (Kafka 1971, p. 135). Hybridity, as it becomes evident here, is of the essence in *The Metamorphosis*, and one of the critics who classifies it as a central Kafka motif is Henry Sussman: "Kafka's uncanny architecture, decisive as it was for the twentieth-century imaginaries of literature and the visual arts, incorporates the threshold between the human and the animal, under his administration a particularly active and generative interface" (Sussman 2010, p. 240).

The themes of hybridity and bodily deformity dominate all facets of Burns' oeuvre as well, and the physical appearance of multiple characters allude, to a considerable extent, to Kafka's universe. Not unlike Gregor (*The Metamorphosis*) and the Kittenlamb (the half-kitten, half-lamb character in *A Crossbreed*), the two creatures in Kafka's stories that are hybrid by definition, the characters in Burns' *Black Hole* exhibit a corporeality akin to Kafka's characters. A female body endowed with a tail or a face with feelers, to name just two examples of bodily deformity in Burns' graphic novel, do not directly reference Kafka's texts, but they can be viewed as an imitation of his style. The bizarre creatures that inhabit his latest trilogy, *X'ed Out* (2010), *The Hive* (2012), and *Sugar Skull* (2014), fall under the same broad category of hybrids and creatures as well: unidentified amphibians that speak to and interact with the protagonist of the story, deformed characters with dreadful wounds on their bodies, a slug-like being that boasts a human face, and many other creatures that defy conventional means of classification. The reoccurrence of animals that speak and behave as humans (Red Peter) and inanimate creatures (Odradek) in Kafka's works that defy conventional means of classification can be viewed as an iterative, idiosyncratic feature of Kafka's style that Burns takes on when composing his narratives and designing his characters. The imitation at work here is by no means inferior to the source, for it goes beyond the mere visual reconstruction of a textual, stylistic mode.

The palimpsestuous presence of *The Metamorphosis* is more directly involved in an equally original and equally disturbing animation by Burns, his only work in this medium to date, that appears as a segment in the French animated anthology *Fear(s) of the Dark*. The beginning of the story is very similar to that of *The Metamorphosis*. As Eric, the hero of the story, awakes one morning from uneasy dreams, he finds himself in a bare room that resembles the recovery room of an infirmary. Unable to stand up

from the bed, his gaze wanders to the only window in the room and the trees outside. At this moment, as the camera slowly zooms into the forest, a flashback sets in, recounting the tragic events that led up to this moment. While wandering through a forest many years ago, the young hero runs across a nest inhabited by insects of an undetermined species. Their unusual human-like appearance (Figure 4) prompts the teenager to capture one of the insects and bring it home to examine it more closely. The specimen eventually is lost and several years later the protagonist moves to a different city to begin his studies at a college. Eric eventually falls in love with a fellow student, Laura, and at some point sleeps with her on the same childhood-bed that he brought along when he moved into his new apartment. During that night, the protagonist realizes that the insect he once thought to be lost was in actuality hiding in a recess of his bed. As the scenes of the animation instruct us to believe, Eric was not the only one who interacted with Laura that night. The parasitic insect drilled its way into Laura's body, leaving a wound behind (Burns' characteristic vagina-looking cut), and from that point on it begins to control her mind. Laura, at the mercy of the parasite and slowly transforming into an insect (Figure 5), begins to dominate and terrorize Eric, forcing him to eat as much as possible. By the end of the story Eric's bloated body is used as a host in which the insects' larvae grow.

**Figure 4.** Burns, Charles. *Fear(s) of the Dark*. Animation. 2007.

**Figure 5.** Burns, Charles. *Fear(s) of the Dark*. Animation. 2007.

The animation bears a striking resemblance to Kafka's short story and the relationship between his work and the text upon which it is transplanted can be read as the outcome of a complex type of misreading that Harold Blooms terms "poetic misprision". Poetic misprision, according to Bloom, concerns the relation of an author to a celebrated forerunner and the efforts of the former to repudiate the power that the latter exerts over him or her. By misreading the precursor, the "ephebe", as Harold Bloom labels imitators of great poets (Bloom 1997, p. 10), attempts to overcome his or her influence and clear space for herself. This "anxiety of influence" is a considerable creative force that has given rise to works of unparalleled depth and scope, but in those works the voice of the forerunner, well hidden in the depths of the newly crafted work, is always active. Like a parasite turning a human body into its new domicile, the precursor comes to life through the agony and creative force of the ephebe, despite the efforts of the latter to deny the existence of the former or rather because of them. "[S]trong poems are always omens of resurrection. The dead may or may not return, but their voice comes alive, paradoxically never by mere imitation, but in the agonistic misprision performed upon powerful forerunners by only the most gifted of their successors" (Bloom 1997, p. xxiv). Whether the works of Burns' discussed here are the outcome of poetic misprision or not is open to debate. What is certain, though, is that the ground upon which his narratives grow is covered by Kafka's texts. In this sense, Kafka's "body of work" is akin to Eric's body. They both serve as a maternal womb out of which insects and insect-narratives ceaselessly hatch. Yet Kafka is by no means the only powerful precursor active in Burns' animation4. Every major work of art harbors more than just one "parasite" and the manner in which they inform and impact their "host" is considerable.

A central motif in both Kafka's *The Metamorphosis* and Burns' segment of *Fear(s) in the Dark* is "parasitism". Yet before I turn my attention to those works, it should be noted that the word "parasite" has two meanings in English: a biological and a social. In its social application, as a metaphor, a parasite designates a person who exploits the generosity of his or her benefactor without giving anything in return. The biological meaning of the word, on the other hand, refers to an organism that lives on or in another organism, feeding on it, and contributing nothing to its health and survival (Miller 1986, p. 453). In *The Metamorphosis*, the social meaning of the word "parasite", not the biological, is dominant. His transformation robs Gregor Samsa of the ability to interact with other people, and he soon realizes that his survival hinges upon the benevolence of his parents and his sister. Unable to offer anything in return, he finds himself in a state of absolute dependence. He has, in other words, not only been transformed into an insect but also into a parasite, at least in a social sense. The parents themselves, however, were parasitical on him before his transformation (Gregor was the sole provider of the entire family), and from that angle the metamorphosis marks an inversion in that relationship, turning the parasite into a host and vice versa. The parasite-metaphor in Kafka's *Letter to his Father* (1919) resonates with this notion too, although the German word that the author employs in that text is "Schmarotzer": a synonym of "parasite" ("Parasit" in German) that is more common in social contexts5. Bearing those references in mind, *The Metamorphosis* story appears to be a fictional version of Kafka's relationship to his father, and it should not come as too much of a surprise that many critics interpret *The Metamorphosis* as an elaborate metaphor. It is hard to tell, though, who is the parasite of who the host in both the real and the fictional version of that relationship.

<sup>4</sup> William S. Burroughs' novels, Lynd Ward's woodcut novels, and David Cronenberg's films, to name just those hypotexts that are known to me, are all at work in Burns' oeuvre.

<sup>5</sup> Towards the end of *Letter to His Father*, Kafka speculates how his father would respond to his long letter and sets out to write down that response on behalf of his father. The following passage from the text is written from the imaginary point of view of Kafka's father: "Im Grunde aber hast Du hier und in allem anderen für mich nichts anderes bewiesen, als daß alle meine Vorwürfe berechtigt waren und daß unter ihnen noch ein besonders berechtigter Vorwurf gefehlt hat, nämlich der Vorwurf der Unaufrichtigkeit, der Liebedienerei, des Schmarotzertums. Wenn ich nicht sehr irre, schmarotzest Du an mir auch noch mit diesem Brief als solchem" [Basically, however, in this as in everything else you have only proved to me that all my reproaches have been justified, and that one reproach in particular was still missing, namely the charge of insincerity, fawning, and parasitism. If I am not very mistaken, you are parasitical on me even with this letter] (Kafka 1995, p. 58).

In Burns' animation, the relationship between parasite and host is more straightforward given the biological implications. Apart from the references to Kafka's stories, the work clearly alludes to several parasitic species that use their host's body as a habitat and even engage in mind control. The behavior of the parasitic barnacle sacculina, for instance, is reminiscent of the insects that have parasitized Eric's body. The female sacculina larva colonizes a crab by plunging its way into the crab's exoskeleton through a soft chink on the arm. The crab's immune systems cannot fight off the intruder, and the parasite slowly grows inside the crab. Once a male sacculina larva joins the host, it endlessly fertilizes the female's eggs, and together they produce thousands of Sacculina larvae every few weeks. In *Parasite Rex* (Zimmer 2000), Carl Zimmer describes in detail how the parasite affects the crab's physiology and behavior: "The crab begins to change into a new sort of creature, one that exists to serve the parasite ... And while other crabs mate and produce a new generation, parasitized crabs simply go on eating and eating. They have been spayed. The parasite is responsible for all these changes" (Zimmer 2000, p. 81). Following up on that observation, Zimmer goes on to remark: "But parasites such as *Sacculina* do more: they control their hosts, becoming in effect their new brain, and turning them into new creatures. It is as if the host itself is simply a puppet, and the parasite is the hand inside" (Zimmer 2000, p. 82). In Burns' animation, the insectoid parasites have turned Eric's body into their new home, but they have not taken over his mind. They do, however, control the mind of his girlfriend, Laura, who is apparently changing into an insect herself (Figure 5). Similar to the cabbage worm caterpillar that a species of parasitic wasp turns into a bodyguard (Zimmer 2000, p. 84), Laura assumes her new role as a guardian, protecting the insects' larvae and making sure that Eric gets all the "care" that he needs. The themes of mind control, bodily deformity, hybridity, and animalistic impulses that reverberate throughout the animation hint at another powerful precursor at work here on whose works Burns draws: the auteur David Cronenberg. His film *Shivers* (1975) takes advantage of the deep-seated human fear of parasites, presenting phallic creatures that drastically increase the sexual desire of their human hosts. The film, however, that can be read in relation not only to Burns' but also to Kafka's texts is Cronenberg's *Naked Lunch*.

#### **4. "Exterminate all rational thought": David Cronenberg's** *Naked Lunch*

It's like an agent. An agent who's come to believe his own cover story. But who's in there, hiding in a larval state . . . just waiting for the proper time to hatch out.

#### (*NakedLunch* 1991)

Taking into consideration the vast discrepancies between David Cronenberg's film *Naked Lunch* and William S. Burroughs' novel of the same name on which the film is based, one can hardly speak of a conventional adaptation. The director takes the liberty to utilize facts from Burroughs' life and fuses them with the distinct trademarks of his own films, including transformation (*The Fly*) and hybridity (*eXistenZ*, *Videodrome*) among many others. The main story line centers on William (Bill) Lee, an alter ego of Burroughs played by Peter Weller, his struggles with drugs, the hallucinations that they induce, and his efforts to complete the book that will establish him as one of the most intriguing writers of the twentieth century: *Naked Lunch*. The first few scenes of the film, aside from establishing the mood, setting, and philosophy of the work, contain a treatise on the theme of re-writing presented in the form of a dialogue between Bill, Hank (the alter ego of Jack Kerouac played by Nicholas Campbell), and Martin (the alter ego of Alan Ginsberg played by Michael Zelniker). The dialogue will be quoted in full because of its great importance:

Hank: So you can't rewrite, 'cause to rewrite is to deceive and lie, and you betray your own thoughts. To rethink the flow, and the rhythm and the tumbling out of the words ... is a betrayal. It's a sin, Martin. It's a sin.

Martin: I don't accept your Catholic interpretation of my compulsive necessity to rewrite every single word at least a hundred times. Guilt is ... Guilt is the key, not sin. Guilt re not writing the best that I can. Guilt re not considering everything from every possible angle. Balancing everything.

Hank: Well, how about guilt re censoring your best thoughts? Your most honest, primitive, real thoughts. Because that's what your laborious rewriting amounts to, Martin.

Martin: Is rewriting really censorship, Bill? Because I'm completely fucked if it is.

Bill: Exterminate all rational thought. That is the conclusion I have come to. (*NakedLunch* 1991)

The dialogue conveys the writing philosophy of Kerouac and Ginsberg, referring particularly to Kerouac's *Essentials of Spontaneous* Prose (1958) and the improvisational fluidity of his works (his most famous novel *On The Road* was written in just three weeks). Burroughs' "cut-up technique", which is a type of montage that Burroughs used to rearrange his texts by cutting them up and creating new units out of them—a technique that undermines any attempt to extract a stable meaning from them—is at play here as well. Beyond those references, the above-cited dialogue reads as a sophisticated metatextual elaboration of re-writing procedures. Hank's position touches upon the traditional dichotomy between speech and writing, what Derrida names "logocentrism", according to which writing is subordinate to speech because speech, so goes this line of thinking, produces writing and not the other way around6. Hank (that is Kerouac) thus seeks to establish a mode of writing that is as close to his thought as is speech. In addition, his reluctance to rewrite i.e., refine the already written entails a refusal to delve into a palimpsestuous activity by imitating, for example, an author's style.

The repeated re-occurrence of the word "re" as both a prefix and a preposition in the dialogue is relevant here as well. As a preposition, and according to the online *Oxford Living Dictionaries*, "re" signifies "in the matter of" and/or "about; concerning" (Online Oxford Living Dictionaries 2017a) and as a prefix, among other things: "1. once more; afresh; anew, 1.1 With return to a previous state" (Online Oxford Living Dictionaries 2017b). "Re", in other words, signals a backward movement, a circling-back-to something, a re-turn to something previously established with the intention of either preserving its current state, improving, or altering it. The prefix "re" also implicates imitation and forgery; a proliferation, re-appearance, and repetition of something original by means of re-production, which helps explain Hank's unwillingness to indulge in similar endeavors. Seeking to access the spontaneity and purity of his thoughts in order to create a work of sheer originality, Hank condemns re-writing as a sin. Ginsberg's alter ego (Martin), on the other hand, desires a perfectly balanced form that can only be achieved, as he argues, through an act of "compulsive" rewriting. By constantly going back to his own writings, by ceaselessly polishing their shape and balancing their rhythm, he hopes to produce a form as close to perfection as possible. The backward motion that Martin foregrounds here is crucial, for re-writing i.e., imitating are marked by the same impulses: going back to the source and re-writing it so as to (allegedly) improve it. Bill's, that is Burroughs' (or is it Cronenberg's?) answer to this "anxiety of influence" is very simple and direct: "Exterminate all rational thought". Said definition perfectly captures the film's "logic", which strategically defies logic, and can be applied to Kafka's texts as well given the notions of absurdity that both works have in common.

The first scene of the film establishes Bill's profession and sets the plot in motion. Bill is a bug-exterminator who runs out of bug-powder in the middle of a job. Being unable to explain the shortage of bug-powder to his employer and puzzled by the incident, he meets his friends Hank and Martin at a dinner and tells them about the incident (the dialogue cited above has been taken from the same scene). Hank hints that the missing powder might be a "domestic problem", indicating that Bill's wife, Joan, could be involved in its disappearance. In the following scene, Bill enters his apartment and finds his wife injecting bug-powder into her breast. Joan7, slightly shaken by the bug-drug she just injected into her body, explains to Bill what makes bug-powder so special:

<sup>6</sup> Derrida goes on to take that notion apart in his *Of Grammatology* (1967).

<sup>7</sup> Joan was the name of Burroughs' real wife whom he accidently shot during a William Tell game.

Joan: It's . . . It's a very literary high. Very literary.

...

Bill: What do you mean it's a literary high?

Joan: It's a Kafka high. You feel like a bug. Try some.

Bill: Well, I don't know. I don't know. I think our metabolisms are very different.

Joan: Whose? Yours and Kafka's? (*NakedLunch* 1991)

Bill, intrigued by his wife's statement, injects the Kafka-powder into his veins so as to experience himself what a literary high really feels like. The drug induces a series of hallucinations that manifest themselves in the following scenes in a series of hybrid, insectoid creatures, revealing to the spectator what a Kafka-high feels like or rather what it looks like (Figures 6 and 7). A Kafka-high (another intriguing synonym/neologism of the Kafkaesque?) signifies not as much feeling like a bug but rather seeing hybrid bugs on the screen. The events that follow after the injection of the Kafka-drug set the driving philosophy of the film ("exterminate all rational thought") in motion, and Bill proceeds to exterminate reason with the same passion that he used to exterminate bugs. The moment Bill consumes the bug-powder is also the moment that the film injects a powerful amount of Kafka-drug into its own veins. Hybrid insects and insectoid devices take over, transforming the film into a monstrous, Frankensteinian artwork. Kafka's texts, especially his *Metamorphosis*, and Burroughs' life and writings, the two major hypotexts of the film, reveal themselves and merge with Cronenberg's vision of insectuous re-writing.

**Figure 6.** Cronenberg, David. *Naked Lunch*. Film. 1991.

**Figure 7.** Cronenberg, David. *Naked Lunch*. Film. 1991.

If we take the metaphor of the bug-powder as a highly addictive Kafka-drug a step further, we can conclude that Kafka's writings in general and *The Metamorphosis* in particular have caused a serious addiction in our culture. It is an epidemic that has spread through a wide array of visual and audiovisual media in which hybrid insects ceaselessly multiply. And the infestation cannot be contained. The field of literary studies has not been spared either. As critics and Kafka aficionados, we all need our daily Kafka-dose to get through the day. The Kafka-drug runs through our veins, but it is also inscribed on the DNA of readers that have not yet had the pleasure of reading any of Kafka's texts, for the Kafka-substance can be obtained in a variety of media today in which *His* presence and influence is omniscient.

#### **5. On Fathers and Forefathers**

Shakespeare did not think one thought and one thought only; rather scandalously, he thought all thoughts, for all of us ... The issue is not belief but our human nature, so intensified by Shakespeare as to be his re-invention. How can we historicize Shakespeare if we are children of Shakespeare, mapping our origins and our horizons in his diction, in his astonishing vocabulary of some 22,000 separate words?

(Bloom 1997, pp. xxvii–xxviii)

Harold Bloom's *The Anxiety of Influence* (1973) can be read as a reaction to Barthes' hugely influential essay *The Death of the Author* (1967), in which the latter proclaims the end of the author's tyranny over literary criticism. In his essay, Barthes exterminates the author-instance with the agency of a performative utterance, by simply proclaiming the author's death in the title of his essay. While John L. Austin's work *How to Do Things with Words* (1962), to which Barthes alludes in his text, is focused on speech and speech acts Barthes addresses the performative properties of writing when he notes that it "designates exactly what linguists ... call a performative, a rare verbal form ... in which the enunciation has no other content (contains no other proposition) than the act by which it is uttered—something like the *I declare* of kings or the *I sing* of very ancient poets" (Barthes 1977, pp. 145–46). Barthes does not directly declare the death of the author ("I sentence you to death" would be a typical performative sentence), but his essay can be viewed as a written declaration that does perform an action inasmuch as it changes a given social reality. By applying the performative properties of writing, in other words, Barthes brings an end to the reign of the author and raises the status of the reader by simply announcing the death of the former and the birth of the latter: the author is dead. Long live the reader. It is important to note here that the new established rule of the reader is also the rule of the critic who is a reader herself. Bloom's anxiety on the other hand strives to resurrect the author and restore *His* authority by regarding Shakespeare as the personification of the Author-God whom Barthes sought to cast out. By utilizing the same performative properties of writing as Barthes, Bloom declares Shakespeare the ultimate Origin and his texts as having no other source other than themselves. "Shakespeare has influenced the world far more than it initially influenced Shakespeare" (Bloom 1997, p. xvi). In this sense, Shakespeare's texts gain the same status as the Bible or any other religious text. They originate from a source beyond our grasp. Shakespeare, as Bloom writes, "invented us, and continues to contain us" (Bloom 1997, p. xvi), which amounts to: the (short) reign of the reader is over. Long live Shakespeare.

A response to Barthes' essay came from Michel Foucault too who, as we already saw, was more concerned with the function of the author's name. His equally influential essay *What Is an Author?* (1969) and the arguments that he lays out in it are less performative in nature and purport to be more substantial and practical than the ones put forth by Barthes. Foucault does not attempt to resurrect the author as Bloom does, but he does raise the status of selected authors above the rest when he introduces the term "initiators of discursive practices". An initiator of said practices is an author who produces not only their own work, as Foucault asserts, "but the possibility and the rules of formation of other texts. In this sense, their role differs entirely from that of a novelist, for example, who is

basically never more than the author of his own text" (Foucault 1980, p. 131). The authors Foucault designates as initiators are Freud and Marx and he goes to great lengths to substantiate his claim that literary authors are excluded from this equation (Foucault 1980, pp. 132–33). In his analysis, only theorists and critics can become initiators of discursive practices, not authors of fiction or the founders of a science, a point that aligns him with Barthes who refers to the rise of the critic when he announces the birth of the reader at the cost of the author. And let us not forget that Foucault, the founder of discourse analysis, can be considered an initiator himself. Foucault's essay can also be seen as a partial influence study. This reality becomes evident when he stresses the importance of the "origin" and the necessity to go back to the source: "it is inevitable that practitioners of such discourses must 'return to the origin'" (Foucault 1980, p. 134). Towards the end of his essay, he follows up on his previous thought with the following statement: "These returns, an important component of discursive practices, form a relationship between 'fundamental' and mediate authors, which is not identical to that which links an ordinary text to its mediate author" (Foucault 1980, p. 136). The returns Foucault is referring to presuppose a re-writing of the source, at least in terms of imitation. In order to remain within the contours of a recently established discourse, a "practitioner", imitator, or descendant has to follow the rules and norms established by the initiator and that can only be achieved through an act of imitation: by going back to the source and re-writing it.

According to Monika Schmitz-Emans, the significance of an author's work is not limited to the influence that s/he has on subsequent generations of writers but should also be measured against the backdrop of works that have influenced the author in question as well (Schmitz-Emans 2008, p. 273), and the list of writers that have impacted Kafka's texts, as Emans demonstrates, is very long. This notion is refuted by Bloom, however, at least when it comes to Shakespeare who did far more than just that: "Shakespeare is the largest instance in the language of a phenomenon that stands outside the concern of this book: the absolute absorption of the precursor" (Bloom 1997, p. 11). While Bloom categorically dismisses any connection between his and Freud's theory and refuses to see his study in terms of an oedipal conflict, his remarks on Shakespeare suggest otherwise. Shakespeare commits parricide in Blooms account, killing his forefather, Christopher Marlow, and consuming him, not unlike the sons of the primal horde to whom Freud refers to in *Totem and Taboo* (1913). The father/king of the ancient primal horde, as Freud argues in his book, kept all women of the tribe for himself and oppressed his sons. Then, one day, his sons forged an alliance, plotted against him, and eventually killed him. Shortly thereafter, they consumed the corpse of their father in order to appropriate his powers (an interesting although somehow morbid case of re-writing). After the dreadful act, however, they soon realized that their feelings towards their now deceased father were more ambivalent than they originally thought. The sons hated their father, but they also loved and admired him, and those feelings gave rise to a powerful sensation of remorse: "Es geschah in der Form der Reue, es entstand ein Schuldbewußtsein, welches hier mit der gemeinsam empfundenen Reue zusammenfällt. Der Tote wurde nun stärker, als der Lebende gewesen war; [It took the form of remorse; a guilty conscience came about that coincided with the overall felt remorse. The dead now became stronger than the living had been;]" (Freud 1974, p. 427). The dead father becomes more powerful now than he ever was during his lifetime, and this unspecified moment in the timeline of human history, as Freud "declares", marks the birth of human "Schuldbewußtsein" (guilty conscience).

The cannibalistic relationship between father and son(s) in Freud's account is not very different from Bloom's concept of "poetic misprision"8 (to say nothing of the Christian rite of the Eucharist). In an act of cannibalistic re-reading and re-writing, the ephebe devours/rewrites the hated but also admired great forerunner so as to appropriate his prowess and take his place. The consumption of the

<sup>8</sup> In contrast to the sons of the primal horde that Freud mentions in his narrative, and barring a "case of indigestion that Marlowe caused the Moby-Dick of all playwrights" (Bloom 1997, p. xxi), Shakespeare did not develop any guilty conscience after devouring Marlowe. In Blooms account, Shakespeare is the conscience of all son-authors who, eagerly and ceaselessly, feed on his body.

forefather, however, comes at price: the authority of the father-author, already overwhelming before the attempt at imitation, becomes all-encompassing now. The son-writer ceases to be the "master in its own house",9 to use a Freudian catchphrase, given the dominant influence that the dead forefather now exerts on him. The parricide creates a parasite. By consuming the "body of work" of a major poet, the ephebe becomes "infected" by the precursor's ideas, thoughts, motifs, and techniques, and contributes, unwillingly, to their dissemination.

In her essay "The Medium is the Message: Cronenberg 'Out-Kafkas' Kafka", Iris Bruce makes two central observations. Firstly, she establishes a connection between Cronenberg's and Kafka's narratives by highlighting the motif of the "open wound" in Kafka's short story *A Country Doctor* (Ein Landarzt, 1917) and relating it to the open wounds that many Cronenbergian characters have on their bodies. The same motif is also the visual trademark of Burns' oeuvre, especially in *Fear(s) of the Dark* and *Black Hole* in which it often appears in the form of a cut of the skin that resembles a vagina. Bruce's second observation concerns the physiology of the oversized beetle in *Naked Lunch* and its hybrid version, a creature half-beetle, half-typewriter, with which the protagonist communicates. The creature, as Bruce notes, "speaks through a hole in his back, which in 'The Metamorphosis' was caused by the wound created by the apple which his father threw at Gregor. Here, however, Cronenberg has transformed Gregor's wound into a Burroughesque anus: the bug talks through his asshole" (Bruce 2016, p. 226). Bruce goes so far as to claim that Gregor actually appears "in flesh" in the scenes that feature the anus-beetle. Regardless if one agrees with that claim or not, the beetle-hybrid acts as an intertextual cursor in the film, pointing unmistakably to *The Metamorphosis*.

Given the multiple direct and indirect references to Kafka and the fact that the film claims to be an adaptation of Burroughs' most celebrated novel, the work can be viewed in terms of the relation that writers entertain with their precursors. Bill's first encounter with the typewriter-beetle (Figure 6) is particularly intriguing in this respect. At some point during the scene, the Kafkaesque Gregor-beetle asks Bill for a "favor" and prompts him to write something down: "I want you to type a few words into me. Words that I'll dictate to you." Bill reluctantly agrees and sets out to write the sentence that the creature "dictates" (an interesting synonym of "influence") to him by using the beetle's keyboard. In a scene that calls to mind the cruel execution-device of Kafka's Penal Colony (In the Penal Colony, 1918), the protagonist literally types into the Gregor-beetle. His writing is filtered through the Gregor-typewriter and emerges from it. The Burroughesque mugwump-typewriter (Figure 7) that secretes hallucinogenic substances when Bill composes his "reports" can be interpreted along similar lines10. Bearing in mind the fact that the protagonist of the film is actually writing a novel, if only unconsciously, the above scenes illustrate nicely the hypotextual ground upon which every important work of art grows.

As the analysis of the selected cartoons, graphic novels, and films has demonstrated, the visual presentation of unspecified (grotesque, oversized, hybrid) insects in visual narratives is a genuine Kafkaesque trait. Their proliferation in said media is proof of the continuous influence that Kafka's texts in general and *The Metamorphosis* in particular exert on contemporary illustrators and filmmakers to whose works this study was limited. Kafka and Ovid are after all the writers, as Monika Schmitz-Emans states, that have profoundly shaped the metamorphosis-trope (Schmitz-Emans 2008, p. 289). For Joan, moreover, the female character in *Naked Lunch*, "Kafka-high" means as much as feeling "like a bug". In her view, bugs operate as symbols that point to a representative work of Kafka's texts, *The Metamorphosis*, and as a consequence to Kafka himself. Bugs are Kafkaesque. As to the relationship

<sup>9</sup> "But the third and most irritating insult is flung at the human mania of greatness by present-day psychological research, which wants to prove to the "I" that it is not even master in its own home, but is dependent upon the most scanty information concerning all that goes on unconsciously in its psychic life." (Freud 1920, p. 247).

<sup>10</sup> The mugwump creature refers directly to Burroughs' source text *Naked Lunch* (1959): "Mugwumps have no liver and nourish themselves exclusively on sweets. Thin, purple-blue lips cover a razor-sharp beak of black bone with which they frequently tear each other to shreds in fights over clients. These creatures secrete an addicting fluid from their erect penises which prolongs life by slowing metabolism" (Burroughs 2001, p. 46).

between artists and their precursors, their "bodies" are both parasite and host at the same time. As J. Hillis Miller argues in his seminal essay *The Critic as Host* (1976): "The new poem both needs the old texts and must destroy them. It is both parasitical on them, feeding ungraciously on their substance, and at the same time it is the sinister host which unmans them by inviting them into its home" (Miller 1986, p. 456). What Miller notes with regard to new poems pertains to Kafka's body as well: his oeuvre is both the host that nurtures insectoid narratives but also the parasite that sneaks into an artist the moment the latter consumes his intoxicated texts.

A crucial point is still missing, though. From a biological point of view, a parasite has to make one last effort in order to come full circle, as Zimmer writes: "No matter how comfortable a parasite may make itself by altering its host, it has to leave sooner or later" (Zimmer 2000, p. 83). In works of art, that moment occurs when the precursor's ideas and motifs emerge, in disguised form, on the pages or the screen of the ephebe's work. In that work, however, the ephebe and precursor(s)'s thoughts coalesce, creating a hybrid artwork with multiple origins. With some luck, said artwork will find its way into a broad audience which will enable it to act as a parasite (precursor) itself in the perpetual inversion of parasite and host.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.

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Bruce, Iris. 2016. 'The Medium is the Message': Cronenberg 'Outkafkas' Kafka. In *Mediamorphosis: Kafka and the Moving Image*. Edited by Shai Biderman and Ido Lewit. London and New York: Wallflower Press.

Burroughs, William S. 2001. *Naked Lunch*. Edited by James Grauerholz and Barry Miles. New York: Grove Press.

Corngold, Stanley. 1973. *The Commentators' Despair: The Interpretation of Kafka's Metamorphosis*. Port Washington and London: Kennikat Press.


Freud, Sigmund. 1920. *A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis*. New York: Boni and Liveright.


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Žižek, Slavoj. 2008. *In Defense of Lost Causes*. London and New York: Verso.

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