“Was not their mistake once more bred of the life of slavery that they had been living?—a life which was always looking upon everything, except mankind, animate and inanimate—‘nature,’ as people used to call it—as one thing, and mankind as another, it was natural to people thinking in this way, that they should try to make ‘nature’ their slave, since they thought ‘nature’ was something outside them” — William Morris


Friday, November 2, 2012

Underground Ecocriticism Liveblog 10

Madeline Bassnett, “Becoming With, Becoming Worldly: The Human-Chicken Relationship in Prudent Choyselat's Discourse Of Housbandrie (1580).
Moral and ecological problems of the chicken industry of today. 
World War II stimulated chicken farming. 
War >> chickens. 
Modern commentators appear to resort to justifying raising animals for food
Medievals so no need for justifications. But they did identify animal-human relationships. 
Celebration of the chicken as a sentient intelligent member of the commonwealth. 
Male chicks >> capons through castration. 
Anthropomorphization of hen and idea that humans can learn something from her. 
The Chicken Book. Ordered world in which man and chicken both flourish. 
Rural experience >> understanding that domestic beasts are subsidiary members of the human community. 

No comments: