Animal Poems

Animals have always appealed to the human imagination. This course provides basic a rubric for analyzing a variety of animal poems in order (1) to make you better readers of poetry and (2) to examine some of the most pressing philosophical questions that have been raised in the growing field of animal studies. The animals that concern us here are not allegorical - the serpent as evil, the fox as cunning, the dove as a figure for love. Rather, they are creatures that, in their stubborn animality, provoke the imagination of the poet.