Ostalo
https://doi.org/10.38003/ccsr.2.1-2.4
Virginia Woolf’s Fish: Animal Lives between Aesthetics and Ethics
Monika Bregović
orcid.org/0009-0003-5760-1966
; Sveučilište u Zadru
Sažetak
Aquatic creatures such as pikes, salmon and whales feature prominently in the poetry,
fiction and painting of the Modernist period. It should therefore come as no surprise
that water-dwelling animals, and fish especially, were fascinating to Virginia Woolf too.
Woolf’s interest in fish (among other animals) can be accounted for by the profound
changes in human-animal relations that mark the period of Modernism, and which
were brought about by the unyielding influence of taxonomy and Darwin’s theory of
evolution, but also new developments in ethology and ecology that appeared in early
20th century. This article addresses the significance of fish as both zoometaphor and
individual subject in the fiction and non-fiction of Virginia Woolf. First, I comment on
the significance of fishes in connection to Modernist ideas on beauty. Then, I analyze
fishing allegories and fish-related motifs in the context of Woolf’s own (feminist) poetics.
In the last part of the article I analyze the posthuman potential of animal consciousness
that could be regarded as superior to the human one.
Ključne riječi
Virginia Woolf, fish, natural sciences, posthumanism, écriture féminine
Hrčak ID:
328094
URI
Datum izdavanja:
1.1.2020.
Posjeta: 459 *