10 Amanda Meszaros – Human-Animal Hierarchy in English Literature Through the 1800s
Amanda Meszaros is a senior at IUE. She will be graduating in May 2024 with a major in Professional and Technical Writing and a minor in Spanish. This paper is part of a final essay she completed for her English L-301 class. Professor Alisa Clapp-Itnyre notes, “This was a Herculean task I gave you: to get out not 1 but 3 subthemes for this paper, and you responded incredibly, weaving them through the paper clearly and effectively! Your conclusion well wraps up all themes in an articulate and smooth way. I’m very excited you did more with children and Bands of Mercy! And you have 10 outside sources which you used VERY well, too!”
Human-Animal Hierarchy in English Literature Through the 1800s
“If literature can give voice to animals, it can also record the violence that often befalls them” (Edwards et al. 8). For as long as humans have existed, they have used animals in many ways for personal gain. The earliest cave paintings of prehistoric humans depict the hunting of animals for food. The use of animals for basic nutrition evolved into hunting for sport in aristocratic English society. With the Industrial Revolution came a sharp and significant increase in the human population, a catalyst for the use of factory farming now seen in the twenty-first century. With the development of society comes a gradual change in how humans depict animals in poems, songs, and novels across the ages, from the beasts of battle in Anglo-Saxon tales such as “Brunanburh” to the first-person account of a fictional horse in the Victorian novel, Black Beauty. It is through the literary interactions between humans and animals that the reality of animal treatment can be witnessed through the perspectives of writers across these periods.
The earliest English literature can be dated back to the Anglo-Saxon era, after the island where the United Kingdom is today was taken from the Romans by the Anglos, Saxons, and Jutes in the late fifth century. While translations of the Old English battle epics exist today, the poems of this era were originally passed down through oral tradition and often performed alongside a harp accompaniment. Frequent alliteration was used to assist the memorization of lines. This tradition of oral literary performance shows a culture focused on connecting with each other directly through storytelling at group gatherings. Compared to literature in later eras, epic human stories and lineages are centered, with animals decentralized and depicted to be a very small part in Anglo-Saxon society.
Animals of Old English literature are treated as an afterthought or kept at an emotional distance, such as with the beasts of battle in “Brunanburh,” a poem based on the 937 AD Anglo-Saxon victory against the Vikings (Honegger 289). This final Old English battle poem has no animals appearing until the very end, after the battle has ended and there are no living people present. There is no live human and animal interaction; only the dead get to interact with the animals that scavenge the carnage left behind. The animals are called corpse-sharers and are depicted as such: “the black raven / with its horny beak; the brown eagle … to feast on the slain / and the grey one, the wolf of the weald” (Alexander 58-63). Carrion beasts such as ravens, eagles, and wolves are commonly included across Old English literature as death and war are an important theme of the era (Honegger 289).
According to the great chain of being philosophized by the ancient Greeks, God is at the top of the hierarchy and power descends to angelic beings, humans, and then animals. This human-animal hierarchy can be seen in early English literature, where there is a disconnect between humans and the animals perceived as beneath them. When considering the lives of Anglo-Saxon people, it makes sense that animals would be depicted in this way. The land in this time was heavily forested and the human population small, so wolves were a great threat to humans and domesticated animals, such as oxen, that were needed to sustain these vulnerable populations (Lambert). To Anglo-Saxon people, the beasts of battle were animals to be kept away because they represented the death of war, which was a constant concern as conflicts over land and religion were frequent.
In the late Medieval Age, the hunting and co-opting of animals for sport becomes a recurring theme. As distinct classes between humans become defined, the domestication of dogs used in hunts for entertainment is a pastime of the wealthy. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (late 14th century), dogs are trained to hunt alongside humans and are utilized as a status symbol for those wealthy enough to hunt for sport. Bertilak, Gawain’s host during the Christmas holiday, goes on a deer hunt and uses his greyhounds to assist in the hunt: “The deer that ‘scape the darts, they by the dogs are ta’en … The greyhounds were full swift to follow thro’ the wood, / They caught them ere the men with arrows, as they stood, / could smite” (Sir Gawain 89). This quote shows how dogs are co-opted for use by humans to aid in the hunt. Even if the men fail to catch the deer, the dogs are trained to hunt the animals down and, because these are greyhounds, the deer stand little chance of outrunning them. After the deer, two more hunts happen among Bertilak’s company, one to catch a boar, and another to catch a fox. These hunts take place in order of difficulty, with the deer being essentially defenseless, the boar being more aggressive and able to put up a fight, and the fox being the most cunning and difficult to catch. The escalating difficulty shows the cultural importance of chivalry in knighthood and proving one’s nobility through tests of physical strength and mental fortitude. What is not mentioned in this story is the suffering of the animals being hunted, which would not be explored in literature until later, during the seventeenth century. For now, animals of Middle English literature are simply there to serve man, following along with the order of the great chain of being.
Seventeenth century England was a time of religious tensions between the Puritan Church and Anglican monarchy that led to a civil war from 1642-1649, ending in the execution of King Charles I (Clapp-Itnyre). Puritan leader Oliver Cromwell led the new Commonwealth of England until monarchy was restored in 1660, and Charles II was brought to rule. Much of the literature of this century is religious-based poetry, but there are new innovations, such as poetry written compassionately from an animal’s point of view, as seen in the work of Margaret Cavendish. The portrayal and use of animals in society notably transformed through the 1600s–1700s as new ways of exploiting animals evolved from rising global colonialism. As the English began to sail around the world and colonize other continents, new species of animals were discovered. This increase in animal exploitation also brought increased sympathy for animals and advocacy for animal welfare began to be explored through literature.
Thus, a compassionate perspective on the use of animals is given in “Hunting of the Hare” (1653) by Margaret Cavendish. This poem gives another side to sport-hunting as it tells the story of a rabbit named Wat as he tries to escape the dogs set upon him for the entertainment of men. Cavendish gives a fresh take on animal welfare with how she names the rabbit, giving him an identity that capitalizes on the pathos of the reader to move them emotionally and create a sense of empathy toward the animals hunted for sport. The dogs in this poem are depicted as a terrifying enemy, working alongside men on horseback to chase down this one small rabbit. This moral poem is expressed dramatically through rhymed couplets to tell the tale of Wat and his eventual capture by the dogs. Cavendish discusses the immorality for humans to take the lives of animals with the line, “Destroy those Lifes that God saw good to make” (98). The poem expresses disgust towards the violence of sport-hunting and shows empathy for the animals that are killed. Cavendish expresses this in a way unlike others before her sharing a love for animals rather than capitalizing on how animals can serve.
Subsequently, animal welfare concerns continued to escalate during the eighteenth century when England met both the Age of Reason and the Industrial Revolution, causing a unique concern for animals. The Industrial Revolution accelerated human population growth and thus the decline of other species. Animal exploitation rose in new ways with the growth of heavily populated cities, drunken debauchery, desire for entertainment, and global colonization creating a rise in exotic species being exploited for Western society as early circuses and zoos emerged late in the century. A rise in concern for the treatment of animals grew because of industry and the Evangelical revival: “As people moved to towns as part of the Industrial Revolution, and thus were further removed from the harsh, day-to-day realities of agrarian life, their sympathy for animals increased” (Clapp-Itnyre 210). Some literary innovations of this century include the lapdog lyric, which is “a satiric genre of praise poetry about the lady’s love for her pet” (Brown 230) and the development of the novel and children’s hymns. Hymns were a way to instill empathy in children in the hope of creating moral, peaceful generations of humans in the future. Isaac Watts is one such creator of these animal hymns. Watts uses animals such as bees and ants to teach religious and moral ideals to children. Consideration for creatures even as tiny as ants is given in the lines, “We tread them to dust, and a troop of them dies…Yet, as wise as we are, if we went to their school…Some lessons of wisdom might [we] learn” (Watts 3-9). Watts shows that even the tiniest of insects have morals to teach and he implies that humans do not know all despite their ability to reason.
Human reason is explored through satire in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726). In the part “A Voyage to the Houyhnhnms,” the titled character, Gulliver, is exiled by his crew to an island that is inhabited by a society of rational, anthropomorphized horses. Swift creates an ideal race in the Houyhnhnms, guided by reason like humans but peaceful and without the barbaric tendencies of man. On the island, the roles between horse and man are reversed with the Houyhnhnms governing society, and a race of early-hominin-like creatures called Yahoos serving under them. The Yahoos depict the more barbaric traits of man and show the author’s disgust for the atrocities committed within human society, such as war, abuse to animals, and violence. These Yahoos do not use reason and show the reader how humans are, without reason, just one step away from being beasts. This story shows a challenge against the great chain with the human-animal hierarchy being reversed as it suggests that without the ability to reason, humans are on the same level as animals. As Swift reminds us, Equidae, such as horses, donkeys, and mules, have been domesticated and bred by humans to serve as means of travel and to bear heavy loads. These animals become increasingly prevalent in English literature because of their importance to the development of human society.
Poetry centered on the feelings of animals in their mistreatment and a reverence for nature are seen in the Romantic era, at the end of the eighteenth century and beginning of the nineteenth century. In Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem, “To a Young Ass” (1794), the author writes a compassionate view on how donkeys serve humans: “Poor little Foal of an oppressed race! / I love the languid patience of thy face / And oft with gentle hand I give thee bread, / And clap thy ragged coat, and pat thy head” (Coleridge 1-4). In the early eras of English literature, animals were generally depicted in a very objective way, as work objects there to serve humankind. As generations progressed, however, many people began to restructure their thinking to see animals as sentient beings and thus depicted them with greater empathy.
As the Romantic era transitioned to the Victorian era, literature saw an even greater rise in promotion of animal welfare. Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty (1877) is one such story, narrated from the perspective of the titled horse. The reader experiences Black Beauty’s thoughts and feelings from foalhood throughout his life and gets to imagine firsthand both the struggles and joys these animals experience as being bred and put to work by humans. Another important work of this era is “The Cry of the Animals,” a poem by Victorian poet Mary Howitt advocating for animals. Both literary works are written from the first-person perspective of animals that serve humans and the works give an anthropomorphized account of their thoughts and feelings regarding how they are used by mankind. These works were written to advocate for beings without voices so that the reader would empathize more with animals and change their actions to show more compassion for all living beings. The animals in Howitt’s poem beg for understanding with the lines, “Oh, that they had pity, the men we serve so truly! / Oh, that they had kindness, the men we love so well!” (Howitt 1-2). The poem continues by giving examples of ways that humans use and mistreat animals, such as with branding, labor, and abuse of power. It ends with a peaceful solution to this treatment: If they would but teach their children to treat the subject creatures. As humble friends, as servants who strive their love to win, Then would they see how joyous, how kindly are our natures, And a second day of Eden would on the earth begin. (29-32)
Howitt pleads for people to teach their children kindness towards animals so that further generations will exhibit more compassion and heal the relationship between humans and animals for a more peaceful world. This use of children to promote animal welfare became very prominent in this era, building from the hymns of the eighteenth century.
Anna Sewell similarly advocates for animals in Black Beauty, which is now greatly considered to be a children’s novel, though Sewell did not intend to write for a child audience. The story is a bildungsroman autobiography told from the perspective of the horse named in the title. It is told in an episodic way, with each chapter representing a different event in Beauty’s life. Many of Sewell’s values on the welfare of horses are explained through the characters of this story. One such value is the cruelty of bearing reins, a type of strap that would hold up the head of the horse against its will and was frequently used throughout the nineteenth century because it was fashionable for the upper class to have their horses’ heads raised as highly as possible, a living symbol of their own pride in their aristocracy. Beauty expresses the pain and health issues caused upon him through one of his owner’s overuse of the bearing rein: “…there was a pressure on my windpipe, which often made my breathing very uncomfortable; when I returned from my work, my neck and chest were strained and painful, my mouth and tongue tender, and I felt worn and depressed” (Sewell 116). The feelings of the animal characters in this story are emphasized, while humans play a much smaller emotional role in the story, the roles being like how Swift switched the human-animal hierarchy in Gulliver’s Travels over a century earlier.
While English literature from the Anglo-Saxon to the Victorian eras featured a large assortment of animals that were culturally important, the ways in which these animals were portrayed and the roles they played within the human-animal hierarchy shifted across the millennium. A shift can be seen in English literature as Anglo-Saxon animals were held at a distance to human society, such as with the beasts of battle, transitioned to a focus on domesticated dogs and the woodland animals that they hunted, and finally to farm animals, in particular horses, as transportation and increased agriculture became important during the Industrial Revolution. In many ways, as the human need for animals increased, so did the ways in which animals suffered at the hands of humans. However, with an increase in animal cruelty came greater advocacy for the welfare of animals, particularly through literature, that helped more people see animals as being equally deserving of life and happiness. It is especially children who were used for the promotion of animal welfare with the teaching of hymns and poetry at a young age that allowed for generations of kinder, more compassionate humans. There is still a lot of work to do before animals truly have peaceful lives, but it is partly because of the great work done through literature that there are so many organizations helping to protect animals today.
Works Cited
Alexander, Michael. The Earliest English Poems. “Brunanburh.” Penguin Classics, 1992.
Brown, Laura. “Animal Intimacies, Cross-Species Affect and the Lapdog Lyric.” Reading Literary Animals: Medieval to Modern. Routledge, 2020, pp. 229-244.
Cavendish, Margaret. “Hunting of the Hare.” London: Printed by T.R. for J. Martin, and J. Allestrye, 1653.
Clapp-Itnyre, Alisa. British Hymn Books for Children, 1800-1900: Re-Tuning the History of Childhood. Routledge, 2016.
Clapp-Itnyre, Alisa. 17th Century History & Lyric Poetry, 2023. https://iu.instructure.com/courses/2129077/pages/read-17th-century-history-and-lyric-poetry?module_item_id=28502528
Honegger Thomas. (1998) “Form and function: The beasts of battle revisited,” English Studies, 1998. vol.79, iss.4, pp.289-298, DOI: 10.1080/00138389808599134.
Howitt, Mary. “Cry of the Animals.”
Lambert, Tim. “Life in Anglo-Saxon England – Local Histories.” Local Histories, 2022, localhistories.org/life-in-anglo-saxon-england.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Translated by Jessie L. Weston, Dover Publications, 2018.
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver’s Travels. Oxford University Press, 2008.
Sewell, Anna. Black Beauty. Puffin Books, Penguin Group, 2008.
Watts, Isaac. “Moral Song V, The Ant.”