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‘I shall not ask Jean‐Jacques Rousseau’: Anthropomorphism in the Cowperian Bestiary
Author(s) -
BRUNSTRÖM CONRAD,
TURNER KATHERINE
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
journal for eighteenth‐century studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.129
H-Index - 11
eISSN - 1754-0208
pISSN - 1754-0194
DOI - 10.1111/j.1754-0208.2010.00317.x
Subject(s) - sympathy , fable , consciousness , poetry , bestiary , sensibility , literature , philosophy , aesthetics , value (mathematics) , representation (politics) , psychology , art , psychoanalysis , epistemology , social psychology , machine learning , politics , computer science , political science , law
This paper examines Cowper's beast fables within the contexts of eighteenth‐century poetry (for adults and children) and sensibility. Frequently subverting the didactic conventions of animal fable, Cowper's affectionate ventriloquising enables him to engage with contemporary debate concerning not only the heuristic role of animal fables and stories but also the nature of consciousness. His penchant for discontinuous role‐playing makes his poems peculiarly congenial to the representation of other modes of being and consciousness, yet his repeated mockery of the didactic impulse to interpret the natural world in human terms implies a radical questioning of the scope and value of sympathy.