Sidney and Animals

Abstract The recent ‘animal turn’ in literary studies has inspired the articulation of the concept of zoopoetics, described by Aaron Moe as the idea that animals ‘dwell imaginatively, rhetorically and culturally on the earth’ and that poetry can be understood as a ‘multispecies event’. As Derrida observes, in The Animal That Therefore I Am the question of ‘the animal’ has always been a question of language: who claims possession of it, who practises recognisable versions of it, who is language’s ‘prey’, and who or what is inscribed by it. Through an analysis that focuses on Kalander’s hunt and Philisides’ ‘Ister Bank’ eclogue in the Arcadia, the chapter argues that Sidney practises a version of zoopoetics: his works demonstrate that—while metaphor and symbolism may be the primary and problematic processes by which animals are made present in poetic discourse—forms of poetic language can emerge from and among animals and poets in acts of co-creation.