Overview
- Explores a broad range of animal welfare themes in fiction
- Examines a number of well-loved animal characters including Black Beauty, Doctor Rat and Beautiful Joe
- Highlights the unique contributions creative writers make toward animal welfare efforts
Part of the book series: The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series (PMAES)
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Table of contents (8 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
This book examines animal welfare themes in fiction, and considers how authors of the last two centuries undermine dominative attitudes toward the nonhuman. Appearing alongside the emerging humane movements of the nineteenth century and beyond is a kind of storytelling sympathetic to protectionist efforts well-described as a literature of protest. Compassion-inclined tales like the Dolittle adventures by Hugh Lofting educate readers on a wide range of ethical questions, empathize with the vulnerable, and envision peaceful coexistence with other species. Memorable characters like Black Beauty and Beautiful Joe, Ivan the gorilla and Louis the trumpeter swan, Hazel and Cheeta, Mr. Bultitude and Doctor Rat do not merely amuse. They are voices from the margins who speak with moral urgency to those with ears to hear. This broad survey of ethical themes in animal fiction highlights the unique contributions creative writers make toward animal welfare efforts.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Michael J. Gilmour is Associate Professor of English and biblical literature at Providence University College, Canada. He is a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics and the author of Eden’s Other Residents: The Bible and Animals and Animals in the Writings of C. S. Lewis.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Creative Compassion, Literature and Animal Welfare
Authors: Michael J. Gilmour
Series Title: The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55430-9
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-55429-3Published: 28 October 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-55432-3Published: 28 October 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-55430-9Published: 27 October 2020
Series ISSN: 2634-6672
Series E-ISSN: 2634-6680
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVII, 254
Topics: Aesthetics, Animal Welfare/Animal Ethics, Twentieth-Century Literature