The Animal Claim

This “passionately eloquent” study shows the influence of eighteenth-century poetry on political theory, philosophy, and early discourse on animal rights (Helen Deutsch, University of California, Los Angeles). During the eighteenth century, some of the most popular British poetry showed a responsiveness to animals that anticipated the later language of animal rights. Such poems were widely cited in later years by legislators advocating animal welfare laws. In The Animal Claim , Tobias Menely lin