Beastly Modernisms: The Question of Animal Speech and Psychology in James Joyce and Virginia Woolf

This essay analyses the ways in which James Joyce and Virginia Woolf addressed from a very early stage key issues related to contemporary posthumanist theories such as the question of animal speech and psychology. Both Joyce’s description of human-animal encounters in Ulysses and Woolf’s depiction...

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Autor principal:	Annalisa Federici
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN ES FR IT
Publicado:	Università degli Studi di Milano 2021
Materias:	James Joyce; Virginia Woolf; posthumanism; animals; language; psychology Language and Literature P Literature (General) PN1-6790
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/204bde48db7b41948aeedcc60c60e227
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:204bde48db7b41948aeedcc60c60e2272021-11-30T09:18:56ZBeastly Modernisms: The Question of Animal Speech and Psychology in James Joyce and Virginia Woolf10.54103/2035-7680/167992035-7680https://doaj.org/article/204bde48db7b41948aeedcc60c60e2272021-11-01T00:00:00Zhttps://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/AMonline/article/view/16799https://doaj.org/toc/2035-7680 This essay analyses the ways in which James Joyce and Virginia Woolf addressed from a very early stage key issues related to contemporary posthumanist theories such as the question of animal speech and psychology. Both Joyce’s description of human-animal encounters in Ulysses and Woolf’s depiction of a sentient animal subject in Flush: A Biography at first present, and then subvert, the idea of the use of language as evidence of a human surpassing of the animal. By challenging preconceived notions of species distinctions, these authors ultimately decenter the human to focus instead on the centrality of animal subjectivity and sensory experience. While the question of a sharp divide between human and nonhuman animals along the axis of speech can be traceable to the anthropocentric tradition of western humanism and not least to such a possible source as Cervantes (whose novella “The Dialogue of the Dogs” is listed as part of both Joyce’s Trieste library and the library of Leonard and Virginia Woolf), the idea of expanding the typically modernist focus on inner life by also including other forms of subjectivity may have derived from the coeval, burgeoning fields of zoology, ethology and comparative psychology. Drawing from these sources and popular areas of knowledge which formed part of the cultural climate of the time, both Joyce and Woolf explore cross-species intersubjectivity in ways that shift the terms of representation away from anthropocentric views in order to affirm, blur and deny the boundaries between the human and the non-human. Annalisa FedericiUniversità degli Studi di MilanoarticleJames Joyce; Virginia Woolf; posthumanism; animals; language; psychologyLanguage and LiteraturePLiterature (General)PN1-6790ENESFRITAltre Modernità, Iss 26 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN ES FR IT
topic	James Joyce; Virginia Woolf; posthumanism; animals; language; psychology Language and Literature P Literature (General) PN1-6790
spellingShingle	James Joyce; Virginia Woolf; posthumanism; animals; language; psychology Language and Literature P Literature (General) PN1-6790 Annalisa Federici Beastly Modernisms: The Question of Animal Speech and Psychology in James Joyce and Virginia Woolf
description	This essay analyses the ways in which James Joyce and Virginia Woolf addressed from a very early stage key issues related to contemporary posthumanist theories such as the question of animal speech and psychology. Both Joyce’s description of human-animal encounters in Ulysses and Woolf’s depiction of a sentient animal subject in Flush: A Biography at first present, and then subvert, the idea of the use of language as evidence of a human surpassing of the animal. By challenging preconceived notions of species distinctions, these authors ultimately decenter the human to focus instead on the centrality of animal subjectivity and sensory experience. While the question of a sharp divide between human and nonhuman animals along the axis of speech can be traceable to the anthropocentric tradition of western humanism and not least to such a possible source as Cervantes (whose novella “The Dialogue of the Dogs” is listed as part of both Joyce’s Trieste library and the library of Leonard and Virginia Woolf), the idea of expanding the typically modernist focus on inner life by also including other forms of subjectivity may have derived from the coeval, burgeoning fields of zoology, ethology and comparative psychology. Drawing from these sources and popular areas of knowledge which formed part of the cultural climate of the time, both Joyce and Woolf explore cross-species intersubjectivity in ways that shift the terms of representation away from anthropocentric views in order to affirm, blur and deny the boundaries between the human and the non-human.
format	article
author	Annalisa Federici
author_facet	Annalisa Federici
author_sort	Annalisa Federici
title	Beastly Modernisms: The Question of Animal Speech and Psychology in James Joyce and Virginia Woolf
title_short	Beastly Modernisms: The Question of Animal Speech and Psychology in James Joyce and Virginia Woolf
title_full	Beastly Modernisms: The Question of Animal Speech and Psychology in James Joyce and Virginia Woolf
title_fullStr	Beastly Modernisms: The Question of Animal Speech and Psychology in James Joyce and Virginia Woolf
title_full_unstemmed	Beastly Modernisms: The Question of Animal Speech and Psychology in James Joyce and Virginia Woolf
title_sort	beastly modernisms: the question of animal speech and psychology in james joyce and virginia woolf
publisher	Università degli Studi di Milano
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/204bde48db7b41948aeedcc60c60e227
work_keys_str_mv	AT annalisafederici beastlymodernismsthequestionofanimalspeechandpsychologyinjamesjoyceandvirginiawoolf
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Beastly Modernisms: The Question of Animal Speech and Psychology in James Joyce and Virginia Woolf

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