From sentiment to sagacity to subjectivity: dogs and genre in nineteenth-century British 【翻译】

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My first and greatest debt is to my director Teresa Mangum, who provided as
much moral support and encouragement as she did careful feedback on every draft of
every component of the project. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for making me a
better writer, not to mention a calmer human being.
For thoughtful feedback on almost every component of my dissertation, I want to
thank Andrew Stauffer. It was so wonderful to have someone to meet with regularly while
I was away from Iowa City. I couldn’t have done this without your help.
My other committee members were also responsible for wonderful feedback at
various junctures. Florence Boos and Matthew E. Hill both provided feedback on parts of
Chapter 1, and Garrett Stewart on Chapter 3. For this I thank you.
My family provided constant moral, financial, and sometimes even intellectual
support. It’s not easy to watch a family member struggle through an endeavor as
challenging as a dissertation, and yet they always had the right thing to say. Thank you for
all the ways you’ve made this dream of mine possible.
I owe much to Brian Harvey, whose dog book collection inspired part of Chapter
2 and all of Chapter 3. Thank you for sharing your collection with me and for becoming
my friend in the process. I also want to thank Greg Prickman and the staff at the
University of Iowa Special Collections for making it so easy for me to use Mr. Harvey’s
materials.
I have had many great teachers along the way who have taught me how to read
better, think critically, research, and improve my writing. This started at my time at Miami
University, where I enjoyed working with Amanda Adams, Katharine Gillespie, Laura
iv
Mandell, and Patrick Murphy. At the University of Virginia I was fortunate enough to
work with Stephen Arata, Alison Booth, Karen Chase, Jerome McGann, and the
aforementioned Andrew Stauffer. At the University of Iowa, I had the honor of working
with Matthew P. Brown and Eric Gidal in addition to all of my wonderful committee
members.
My graduate student friends—now my lifelong friends—at both the University of
Virginia and the University of Iowa were instrumental in my ability to complete my
project. They offered never-ending support, both intellectually and emotionally. Kirsten
Anderson, Kyle Barton, and Sarah Storti all deserve special mentions.
My friend Dan Smith deserves a special thank you for his willingness to talk me
through my ideas late at night when dissertation brain was preventing me from sleeping.
Many of the key ideas of Chapter 2 were formulated with his help.
My coterie of scholar friends on Facebook was invaluable in crowdsourcing
research questions I had, locating quotations, providing translations, and helping with
whatever else I needed. Their knowledge and their generosity with their time never ceased
to amaze me.
Last but never least, I must thank my two dogs and my best friends, Libby and
Link. More than anyone, they were the ones by my side through all of the research and
writing, absorbing and yet relieving my stresses. As my research aims to demonstrate, the
world—literary and otherwise—would not be the same without dogs.
v
ABSTRACT
My dissertation takes as its guiding principle that the animals in literature are
significant in and of themselves and should be read and studied accordingly, as subjects.
To that end, I consider three genres and genre clusters from the Romantic and Victorian
eras—epitaphs and elegiac poetry; detective and sensation fiction; and dog
autobiographies—in which dogs in particular are mourned, become characters, or become
protagonists/narrators. In each case, I examine how the addition of the canine as the
subject affects the literary traditions of the genres in which s/he appears (or, in the case of
detective and sensation fiction, how the dog plays a formative role in the creation of a
new genre). These shifting generic conventions dissolve one or more of the alleged
dividing lines between dogs and humans at the same time as those separations were being
questioned by cultural and scientific forces in the nineteenth century. The genres I
examine, in particular, challenge the ideas that humans were the unique possessors of
souls; the sole owners of intelligence and morality; and the only beings with complex
emotions capable of experiencing trauma. Told together, the stories of these genres over
time illustrate a shift in attitudes about animals from objects of sentimental attachment, to
creatures with useful knowledge complementary to humans intelligence, to beings with
subjectivities as rich as our own. In doing so, this literature demonstrates the pressures
that animals put on generic convention to become less anthropocentric.
vi
PUBLIC ABSTRACT
My dissertation examines the ways that canine roles affect genre—the categories
into which we place works of literature, which shape their forms and which in turn shape
our expectations of what we read. For instance, if epitaphs and elegies are at least
partially meant to usher the dead into heaven and praise the dead’s suitability for a
Christian afterlife, what happens when the subject is a dog denied a soul by Christianity?
These are the kinds of questions I address. In addition to epitaphs and elegies, I consider
detective and sensation fiction as well as dog autobiographies—works of fiction written
from the dog’s perspective—to explore how taking the dog as a subject forced the
conventions of certain genres to change, or in the case of detective and sensation fiction,
how dog-like ways of knowing helped to birth a new genre altogether. In either case,
what is important is that the generic changes signal a less human-centered approach to
literature: one which opens animals up to be the possessors of souls, intelligence, and
subjectivity. These changes paved the way for the Victorians to consider animals as
beings worthy of compassion and respect.
vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES…………………………………………………………………..viii
INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………....1
CHAPTER 1: FROM PAGE TO GRAVE: MEMORIALIZING DOGS IN ENGLAND,
1648-1914……………………………………………………………………………….15
CHAPTER 2: “DOGS DON’T MAKE MISTAKES”: MORALITY, SAGACITY,
AND THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF INSTINCT IN DETECTIVE AND SENSATION
FICTION………………………………………………………………………………74
CHAPTER 3: “GIVING TONGUE” TO CANINE TRAUMA IN NINETEENTHCENTURY
DOG AUTOBIOGRAPHIES…………………………………………...122
CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………….....171
viii
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Byron’s monument to Boatswain……………………………………………..46
Figure 2: Scott’s effigy of Maida……………………………………………………….63
Figure 3: The soldiers’ dog cemetery at Edinburgh Castle……………………………..65
Figure 4: Statue of Greyfriars Bobby…………………………………………………..66
Figure 5: Hyde Park Pet Cemetery……………………………………………………..68
Figure 6: Whym Chow, Flame of Love ………………………………………………...69
Figure 7: “The Dog Detective”………………………………………………………...115
Figure 8: Edwin Landseer, There’s No Place Like Home……………………………..144
Figure 9: Edwin Landseer, A Jack in Office…………………………………………..144

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