Victorian Animals in Literature and Culture

by Deborah Morse

While the popular image of the Victorian world is one of stiff formality and old-fashioned values, it was an incredibly transformative time for many people who sought better protections, fairer wages, and greater freedom. And this included an increasingly popular and successful fight for animal welfare. Prior to the 19th century, the mistreatment of animals was rarely questioned, and sports like bullbaiting and dogfighting were common. So, what brought the plight of exploited and suffering animals to the attention of activists, politicians, and the public at large?

In the eight lectures of Victorian Animals in Literature and Culture, Professor Deborah Morse will take you back to the reign of Queen Victoria to explore the transformation of long-held ideas, beliefs, and fears concerning animals—and our own animal natures as well. Through novels such as Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty and Virginia Woolf’s Flush, as well as stories and books by Beatrix Potter, Arthur Conan Doyle, Ernest Thomas Seton, and many others, you will see how a developing kinship with animals in literature and art presented new perspectives that would inform more than just the cause of animal welfare. While many writers were directly concerned with the ethics of animal treatment and our coexistence with the animal kingdom, stories featuring animals often make resonant and vital observations about the human world, too.

As you will see, the ethical considerations that took root and grew in the 19th century still deeply inform the way we think today. Professor Morse brings your journey full circle by examining a 21st-century novel, Karen Joy Fowler’s We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, which shows how the ideas and explorations of the Victorians affect the present. Through this work and those that preceded it, you’ll see how our conception of the feelings, intelligence, and rights of animals has changed not only the way we think about them, but how we live together with them in our shared world.

Genres: Nonfiction, Audiobook, History, Literary Criticism, Animals

Audible Audio

Published August 22, 2024

Reviews

[Ariana Lipman · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read but hard to listen to for people who struggle with violence against animals. I hadn’t thought it was so heavily focused on brutality towards animals and Victorian literature as protest against that issue. This is an important part of the story but I was hoping for more exploration of other animal-human interactions in Victorian culture. Perhaps everything else is … as it was before the Victorian era? I skipped the last lecture on modern implications of Victorian animal rights activism because I’m using this for historical novel research and it’s irrelevant to me so I can’t speak to the last lecture.

[Justine · Rating 3 out of 5]

review to come

[Beatriz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not really about Victorian animals or "culture". More like lectures structured around particular works or authors, not necessarily Victorian.

[Katie Eller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid! I have never really linked the interaction of animal rights and the Victorian era so it was cool to discuss books like Black Beauty, and Fouts’ Next of Kin

[Antipoet · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't want to be That Guy, but I could have used a content note for animal cruelty. Sadly I was driving and was not able to skip over the parts I'd rather have skipped over. Still a good course all around, just know - it's not all Beatrix Potter.

[Gilbert Stack · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book about the birth of the animal rights movement in Britain. Its introductory chapter was the most informative and includes a wonderful line by a nineteenth century philosopher who essentially said, "When discussing the mistreatment of animals, the question is not whether or not they can reason, but whether or not they can suffer." The book goes on to spend two chapters analyzing Black Beauty and its impact. This is a novel that I've heard about all my life and it turns out that everything I thought I knew about it was wrong. Told from the horse's point of view, its author depicts the animal’s life as it moves from owner to owner and various types of mistreatment. A few voices speak up for the horse, but most of the cast thinks beating or starving or overworking the animal is completely fine. Apparently, the novel galvanized the nascent supporters of animal rights and helped to turn them into a movement. The other chapters look at different poems and novels that show a growing consciousness that animals should be treated well. It's a very informative Great Courses book.

[Cristiana · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first seven lectures about Victorian authors are excellent. But I'm not convinced at all by the last lecture entirely devoted to a very detailed discussion of Joy Fowler’s We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. I don't think that the lecturer brings "the journey full circle" by examining it "showing how the ideas and explorations of the Victorians affect the present". I beg to differ as Fowler's novel doesn't sound particularly interesting and the lecturer doesn't explain why she chose this American novel in particular. It would have been much better if she had devoted this lecture to another influential novel such as London's White Fang (which she doesn't even mention in passing) or to one by Kipling, or if she had devoted her last lecture to an overview of contemporary works in English that treat animal rights and/or animal sentience. There is too much of a discrepancy between the first seven lectures and the last. One last observation about Morse's students who, unlike mine, seem to be bright and curious: I'm terribly jealous!

[Lynnaurya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Certainly not what I was expecting but still quite informative nonetheless. My favorite part of the lecture was to learn more about Beatrix Potter who wrote some of my favorite stories as a child, Peter Rabbit and others. There is much about that I wish to learn about her and continue to learn still even after all these years.

Caution though that while these lectures are informative, they are not for the faint of heart; especially to those who love animals. Deborah goes into great detail on some of these novels that involve animals as the plot or central characters in them. Though it makes me glad to have only heard about some of these novels and not read them, not because they don't matter or that they weren't fantastic reads. It's because I most likely would be too sad and depressed to finish it. As an empath and animal lover, these kinds of topics hit hard for me but I commend anyone who is able to read them as they do sound fascinating and well known for their time.

[Erin Hall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, very interesting, but as many have warned: there is animal cruelty graphically described in at least 3 cases. It’s a bit much to take, though this is through no fault of the author/professor - she’s merely describing what the authors of Black Beauty, Beautiful Joe, and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves say was happening historically. It’s rough, but it’s rough for a reason and these authors utilized these descriptions to ensure that their readers saw the animals are sentient, feeling beings, which, in the Victorian period and before, they evidently did not much care or have such abuse and neglect exposed to the general public.

Also, because I had to take a long break from it, it took me several months. If our current world weren’t burning right now, I rather expect I’d have been better able to withstand it.

[Kristen · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The most important thing in our relation to animals is not whether we think their lives are important, but whether their lives are important to them, as anthropologist Barbara King argues”

• 11 min, 33 sec left of Lecture 8, “The Victorian Legacy in the 21st Century”
• The Great Courses: “Victorian Animals in Literature and Culture” by Deborah Morse


Especially loved:
• Lecture 5 - “Flush: A Biography: Inside a Dog’s Mind” re: Virginia Woolf’s book about Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s dog
• Lecture 6 - “Ernest Seton and Wild Animal Consciousness”
• Lecture 7 - “Potter and Lear, Story-Teller Naturalists”

Also excellent, though I cried too much to want to re-read:
• Lectures 2 - 4 re: Black Beauty + Beautiful Joe (mutilated dog)

[Christine]

This is an interesting look at how animals have been portrayed in literature throughout the ages, specifically in Victorian Times. The author makes several interesting points in how the animals reflect different aspects of the time. Often the animals are representative of something else. I believe that this might be of more interest to literature and history buffs. The depth is fascinating, just not my wheelhouse.

[Alex Shrugged · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am not a big fan of Victorian literature. Thus this look at how animals are treated in Victorian novels was not likely to excite me, but it wasn't as bad as I feared.

The author made a good case for animal rights and how some Victorian writers felt about it. I'm not convinced to the point that the Victorian authors mentioned seemed to be convinced, but the overall argument was made reasonably.

I doubt I will listen to this audiobook again.

[cypher · Rating 5 out of 5]

interesting book, discusses and brings more awareness to how people see animals. some of the stories described were quite sad.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting to see how the view of animals, how they experienced the world, and how they should be treated changed during the Victorian age and afterward, but I had only read one of these books (Black Beauty, many, many years ago) and I didn't feel compelled to seek out any of the others.