One or Several Literary Animal Studies?

Abstract

This article questions whether literary studies of animals can rely on a single perspective or must embrace multiple methods. McHugh argues that the rise of animal studies has pushed literary criticism beyond viewing animals merely as metaphors for humans, toward examining their historical, cultural, and ethical contexts. She traces how animal metaphors, from Romantic poetry to contemporary literature, have served aesthetic, sentimental, and political functions. Writers like T.S. Eliot and Marianne Moore have used animal imagery to challenge human knowledge structures or call for moral reform. Poststructuralist and deconstructive approaches further critique the reduction of animals to fixed meanings, highlighting how animal narratives complicate notions of species boundaries, human identity, and disciplinary authority. McHugh emphasizes that the lack of a unified method or consensus within literary animal studies is itself productive: it enables diverse critiques and enriches interdisciplinary scholarship. Rather than resolve the political and ethical challenges of human-animal relations, this plurality of approaches exposes the deep entanglements of language, representation, and power. Ultimately, literary animal studies open new possibilities for understanding how animals shape—and unsettle—the frameworks of literary and cultural knowledge.