Reading Divine Nature

Religion and Nature in English Animal Stories
Erscheinungsjahr 2017
ISBN: 978-3-86821-711-7
Verlag: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier

Buch, Englisch, Band 42, 284 Seiten, KART, Format (B × H): 148 mm x 210 mm, Gewicht: 469 g

Reihe: SALS

Stories about talking animals enjoy an exceptional popularity in English literature and in children’s fiction in particular. Animal stories of the final years of the twentieth and the first years of the twenty-first century often fuse motifs of nature with motifs of religion, and in doing so harness religious discourse to an environmental agenda. Examining a corpus of more than two dozen late twentieth century and early twenty-first century talking-animal stories, Anja Höing traces the manifold connections between nature and religion in talking-animal stories. These connections range from descriptions of natural spaces as mystical or spiritual to depictions of animate nature as a genuine deity, and they often include re-conceptualisations of religious motifs in environmental dimensions. Exploring motifs such as the saviour or the devil, the author argues that talking-animal stories construct ‘Nature’ as a quasi-religious entity and the animal protagonist as an environmental role model. Establishing links between literary texts and current conceptions of ecosystems as well as socio-cultural debates on the human place in nature, this study proposes that many animal stories simultaneously deconstruct and reinforce a human/nature dualism and in doing so reflect the very ideology they seek to challenge.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Höing, Anja

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents

1. Introduction    1

I. Pre-Texts    20
2. Neo-Pagan Talking-Animal Stories    20

II. Perceptions of Nature and the Animal    37
3. Spiritual and Mystical Dimensions of Inanimate Nature    37
   3.1 Preconceptions of Places and the Promised Land    37
   3.2 Patterns in Nature Description    42
   3.3 Supernatural Elements    50
   3.4 Emotional Responses and Belonging    52
   3.5 Dimensions of Inanimate Nature    56
4. Animate Nature    59
   4.1 Personifications of Nature    59
   4.2 Signs from Animate Nature    63
   4.3 Animate Nature as Reacting Entity    67
   4.4 Intervening Help from Animate Nature    71
   4.5 Talking Nature    74
   4.6 The Wind    77
   4.7 Nature: Animacy, Normativity, and Divinity    86
5. Animal Philosophy of Life    91
   5.1 Living for the Moment    91
   5.2 Playfulness    98
   5.3 Animal Joy    100
   5.4 Non-Questioning Attitudes    107
   5.5 The United Natural World    110
   5.6 Implications of the Animal Philosophy of Life    113

III. Animal Religion    118
6. Nature Religion    118
   6.1 Spiritualized Natural Forces    118
   6.2 Spiritualized Habitats    127
   6.3 Universal Energy 130
   6.4 The Experience of Pantheism in Death    134
   6.5 The Shifting Dimensions of Nature Religion    136
7. Animal Gods    139
   7.1 Attributes of Animal Gods    139
   7.2 Connection of Animal Gods to Natural Forces    155
8. Devil Figures    162
   8.1 Devils as “the Unnatural”    163
   8.2 Devils as Necessary Evil in a Balanced System    168
   8.3 Depictions of Hell    177
   8.4 The Function of Devil Figures in Talking-Animal Stories    179
9. Saviours and Religious Heroes    181
   9.1 The Christian Saviour    182
   9.2 The Animal Saviour Battling Intrinsic Contradictoriness    184
   9.3 The Trickster as Saviour    191
   9.4 Animal Saviours    198
   10. Religious Mythology    200
   10.1 Imagining Origins    201
   10.2 Imagining Afterlife    218
   10.3 The Functions of Religious Mythology    225

IV. At the Interface between Animal and Human    230
11. Aberrant Animal Societies and the Influence of Humans    230
   11.1 Aberrant Animal Societies    230
   11.2 A Return to Animal Religion    244
   11.3 Humans and Nature    251

Conclusion: Beyond the Animal Worlds    259

Works Cited    267