Transatlantic Romanticisms

Primary Sources

Argus, Arabella. The Adventures of a Donkey. London: William Darton, 1815. The page opposite to the title page of this book includes an engraved picture of a mother donkey and her foal and quotes four lines of Coleridge's "To a Young Ass." The book's epigraph also quotes from Coleridge's poem. Jemmy Donkey's opening narrative, which refers to "pride of ancestry . . . amongst bipeds" and mentions his own species' "feelings as a class" (1), suggests that Argus recognized the social allegory that informed Coleridge's poem.

---. Further Adventures of Jemmy Donkey. London: William Darton, 1821. This text is a comical tract written from the perspective of a retired donkey who has grown discontented with a life of pastoral ease. It is relevant to contemporary animal rights discourse.

Aristotle. The Politics of Aristotle. Trans. Ernest Barker. Ed. Ernest Barker. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1962. Artistotle's work contains important discussions of slavery and the status of humans versus that of animals.

Bentham, Jeremy. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legilslation. Ed. Laurence J. Lafleur. 1789. New York: Hafner, 1948. this text contains some brief remarks in favour of the rights of animals.

Cowper, William. The Task, a Poem in Six Books. London: Joseph Johnson, 1785. Book VI of this poem contains an extensive poetic treatment of the theme of cruelty to animals, including the origin of such treatment, its unlawfulness in scripture, and subtle distinctions posited between the lawful and unlawful destruction of animals. The British Library's copy (C.71.C.22) contains the signature "Anna Seward" and much marginalia and original poetry written in the same hand.

Drummond, William. The Rights of Animals, and Man's Obligation to Treat Them with Humanity. London: John Mardon, 1838. this book is addressed to the members of the SPCA, who in 1829 asked Drummond to advocate their cause. It contains, among other things, discussions of Biblical and scientific discourses on animals and their human significance, including two chapters devoted to the topic of "science perverted" (chapters 6 and 7).

Erskine, Lord Thomas. Cruelty to Animals: the Speech of Lord Erskine, in the House of Peers, on the Second Reading of the Bill for Preventing Malicious and Wanton Cruelty to Animals. Edinburgh: Alexander Lawrie, 1809. This is a transcript of the second reading of Lord Erskine's proposed bill against animal cruelty, which passed the House of Lords but failed to obtain approval in the Commons. Charles Lamb's brother, John Lamb, refers to this document (see Lamb below) as does Charles in an 1810 letter to Henry Crabb Robinson.

Lamb, John. A Letter to the Right Hon. William Windham, on His Opposition to Lord Erskine's Bill, for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. London: H. Teape (printer) for Maxwell and Wilson, 1810. This article portrays Windham's anti-animal rights argument as an irresponsible piece of metaphysical sophistry. Lamb (who is Charles Lamb's brother) quotes the Bible extensively (see page 19 ff.) to support his polemic.

Oswald, John. The Cry of Naturel or an Appeal to mercy and to Justice on Behalf of the Persecuted Animals. London: Joseph Johnson, 1791. On the title page, Oswald calls himself a "member of the Jacobines." In the wake of the French Revolution, and as a result of a rising tide of European republican sentiments, the author hopes to see his contemporary "circle of benevolence" expand to "embrace . . . the lower orders of life (ii). The book presents a radical endorsement of vegetarianism, arguing that humans were meant "to live entirely on the produce of the earth" (15).Primatt, Humphry. The Duty of Mercy and the Sin of Cruelty to Brute Animals 1776. Ed. Richard D. Ryder. Fortwell, Sussex: Centaur Press, 1992. Originally published in 1776, this is a foundational text of modern-day animal rights discourse. Primatt's book marks a historical convergence between Christian and secular or liberal approaches to the problem of cruelty to animals.

Saltzman, C. G. Elements of Morality, for the Use of Children, with an Introductory Address to Parents. Trans. Mary Wolstonecraft. Baltimore: Joseph Robinson, 1811. This book contains a brief section in which the topic of cruelty to animals is discussed. The thesis of the argument is that children who are allowed to mistreat animals will eventually come to abuse their fellow human beings.

Southey, Robert. The Life of Wesley; and the Rise and Progress of Methodism. 2nd ed. 2 vols. Vol. 2. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1820. Chapter XIX, entitled "Wesley's Doctrines and Opinions," contains a discourse on the "brute creation," in which Wesley famously argues that animals have immortal souls.

Trimmer, Sarah. Fabulous Histories Designed for the Instruction of Children, Respecting Their Treatment of Animals. t Bensley; for T Longman, G.G.J. and J. Robinson, and J. Johnson, 1791. Trimmer's book is an early educational work supporting the abolition of cruelty to animals.

Young, Thomas. An Essay on Humanity to Animals. London: T. Cadell, 1798. Although Young bases his argument for the humane treatment of animals primarily upon Biblical grounds, he also marshals secular logic to advocate the "Rights of Beasts," connecting animal rights discourse to the republican politics of the 1790s, including the Abolitionist movement.

Bergman, Charles. "Academic Animals: making Nonhuman Creatures Matter in Universities." ISLE 9.1 (2002): 141 - 147. Writing from an interdisciplinary perspective and combining insights from both naturalism and literary scholarship, Bergman argues for an approach to animals that considers their ontological, rather than merely their epistemological, import.

Chandler, David. "Coleridge's Address to a Young Jack-Ass: A Note on the Poetic and Political Context." Notes and Queries 240 (1995): 178 - 80. This article states that Coleridge's title "echoes and synthesizes two titles" from earlier addresses to an ass published in the Norfolk Chronicle and the Morning Chronicle. This article provides the full text from the former and part of the text from the latter.

Ferguson, Moira. Animal Advocacy and Englishwomen, 1780 - 1900: Patriots, Nation, and Empire. An Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998. This book provides critical insight into works by women authors of the early and late Romantic period in Britain. Focusing on non-canonical authors such as Frances Power Cobbe, Elizabeth Heyrick, and Anna Sewell, Ferguson draws a connection between the subjugation of certain human communities and the practice of cruelty to animals. She argues that animal narratives were subversive texts responding to "issues of domesticity, gender, empire, and national identity."

Fosso, Kurt. "Sweet Influences: Animals and Social Cohesion in Wordsowrth and Coleridge."ISLE 6.2 (1999): 1 - 20. Examining texts by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Fosso considers some of the ways in which human responses to animals provided the basis for an ethics of community in Romantic society.

Kenyon-Jones, Christine. Kindred Brutes: Animals in Romantic Period Writing. Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing, 2001. Kenyon-Jones examines the impact of philosophy and religion on perceptions and treatment of animals, providing a detailed study of the status of animals in Romantic-era thought and providing a detailed study of the status of animals in Romantic-era thought and poetry. Her book contains chapters on pets, animal stories for children, baiting, food, Wordsworthian naturalism, and science. Kenyon-Jones conducts an insightful analysis of the relationship between the discourses of animal rights and abolition (39 - 44).

Mackenzie, John M. The Empire of Nature: Hunting, Conservation, and British Imperialism. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1988. Mackenzie's book examines the politics of hunting in the British Empire, analyzing the anthropological, economic, sociological, and cultural dimensions of human-animal relationships. The book considers both British and colonial legislation, as well as the development of zoology and conservation in the colonial context.

Midgley, Mary. "The Significance of Species." The Animal Rights / Environmental Ethics Debate: The Environmental Perspective. Ed. Eugene C. Hargrove. Albuany, NY: State U of New York P, 1992. 121 - 136. In this chapter, Midgley examines and problematizes the concept of "speciesism" (the human preference for some non-human species over others).

Morton, Timothy. Shelley and the Revolution in taste: The Body and the Natural World. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994. Morton discusses the significance of diet for Shelley and his circle during the period of Revolution. Examining the rhetoric of vegetarianism, Morton argues that Shelley refashioned taste in reaction to the politics of consumption, production, and power.

Palmer, Clare. "Colonization, Urbanization, and Animals." Philosophy and Geography 6.1 (2003): 45 - 58. Employing Foucauldian theories of governance and resistance, Palmer considers human-animal relations in terms of human anxiety concerning animals and the concomitant "policing of animal spaces" (54). The essay explores significant parallels between colonial power relations in the cultural sphere and the human desire to dominate animals.

Perkins, David. "Animal Rights and 'Auguries of Innocence.'" Blake: An Illustrated Quarterly 33.1 (1999): 4 - 11. Perkins examines the symbolism assocaited with animals portrayed in Romantic literature, drawing attention to how a literary mythology of animals assisted the animal rights movement. Examining Blake's animal imagery, Perkins draws parallels between the treatment of subordinated animals and marginalized peoples.

---. "Compassion for Animals and Radical Politics: Coleridge's 'To a Young Ass.'" ELH 4.65 (1998): 929 - 44. This article begins by addressing the ass's role in Romantic society, suggesting that in "To a Young Ass" Coleridge establishes an allegorical connection between the plights of lower-class Briton and African slaves, and abused beasts of burden. In a general sense, Perkins sees the poem as an allegory of human social oppression

---. "Human Mouseness: Burns and Compassion for Animals." Texas Studies in Literature and Language 42.1 (2000): 1 - 15. Perkins discusses the establishment of animal rights in the mid-eighteenth century, using Burns' "To a Mouse" and Bardbauld's "The Mouse's Petition" to query human-animal relations as well as the politics of race.

Primatt, Humphry. The Duty of Mercy and the Sin of Cruelty to Brute Animals. 1776. Ed. Richard D. Ryder. Fortwell, Sussex: Centaur Press, 1992. Originally published in 1776, this is a foundational text of modern-day animal rights discourse. Primatt's book marks a historical convergence between Christian and secular or liberal approaches to the problem of cruelty to animals.

Singer, peter. The Expanding Circle: Ethics and Sociobiology. Oxford: Clarendon, 1981. This book attempts to situate altruistic and ethical behaviour in biology, arguing that such behaviour has a genetic rather than cultural basis and that natural selection has caused humans and other animals to develop non-self-interested and cooperative traits. Singer's argument considers the crucial role played by the French Revolution in the historical development of an expansive discourse of "universal rights."

Tannenbaum, Jarrold. "Animals and the Law: Property, Cruelty, Rights." Social Research 62.3 (1995): 539 - 608. This article examines the history of animal rights legislation in America, considering in particular the status of animals as property. The author concludes that blaming legal history for the mistreatment of animals is not only inaccurate but also unproductive.

Wood, Marcus. "William Cobbett, John Thelwall, Radicalism, Racism, and Slavery: A Study in Broken Parodies." Romanticism on the Net 2003 (1999). Wood argues that Cobbett and Thelwall, in spite of holding opposing views on human rights, employed political rhetoric similarly influenced by the writings of Edmund Burke. This essay examines Cobbett's and Thelwall's discourses on the rights of slaves, labourers, and animals.