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Victorian Animals in Literature and Culture

By: Deborah Morse, The Great Courses
Narrated by: Deborah Morse
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About the Creator and Performer

Deborah Denenholz Morse is the NEH Eminent Chair of English at The College of William & Mary. Professor Morse was the inaugural Sara E. Nance Eminent Professor of English from 2017-24 and is a Plumeri Faculty Excellence Scholar. She received her BA from Stanford University and her MA and PhD from Northwestern University. In 2007, she coedited Victorian Animal Dreams with Professor Martin Danahay, a volume long recognized as groundbreaking. Her scholarship in literary animal studies has continued with a 2018 Cambridge article on Black Beauty and other published work, lectures, reviewing, and teaching in the field. Professor Morse has published widely on Anthony Trollope, including two monographs, and has also published many articles and coedited books on the Brontës and Elizabeth Gaskell. In recent years, her teaching and publications have focused on Victorian social justice issues, including articles on women’s rights, abolition, and animal rights. Professor Morse has received many teaching awards at William & Mary, including the Phi Beta Kappa, the Devin & Jennifer Murphy inaugural award for Outstanding Integration of Research and Teaching, and the Thomas A. Graves Award for Sustained Excellence.

What listeners say about Victorian Animals in Literature and Culture

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Highly recommended

This scholarly, illuminating and heartfelt offering will captivate anyone who loves animals and literature. It is beautifully narrated by the author, who clearly brings to the project a deep love of animals and an impressive knowledge of the works explored. Very affecting and informative!

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Excellent Series

Morse's voice is warm and welcoming. Her historical overview of animal representation and animal rights is masterful. Her close reading of the texts she ably chooses for this journey that precedes Victoria's rise to the throne and takes us into early 20th-century modernism is illuminating.

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Black Beauty and more, beautifully explained

With explanations both historical and literary, Professor Morse adeptly weaves threads of Darwinism, Christian witnessing, and the anti-slavery, women’s rights, and especially animal rights movements in England to explain Black Beauty, Beautiful Joe, and other Victorian era writings. With my new understanding, I, for one, am determined to read Black Beauty again. I particularly loved the lecture on Beatrix Potter and Edward Lear, with its fanciful characters and lovely ending, imagining Lear and his beloved cat, “….hand in hand, dancing to the light of the moon.” A great listen—both fun and educational!

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Wildly Fascinating, Beautifully Told

A beautiful, thought-provoking, and masterful series, narrated with great warmth and care. Deborah Morse illuminates beloved novels and forgotten stories in new and vital ways, expertly revealing how concerns of animal treatment at the heart of these texts intersect with questions of class, religion, race, gender, and disability. I found Morse’s reflections on care communities and disability in Sewell’s Black Beauty and Saunder’s Beautiful Joe particularly poignant. I highly recommend this series to students and scholars working across fields, and to any lover of animals or literature. Much like the novels Morse explores, her series will leave you informed, enriched, and moved.

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An Amazing Analysis of the Role of Animals in Victorian Literature!

As a small animal veterinarian with a life-long love of both animals and literature, this is a fascinating, thorough analysis of how even in the Victorian Era, how animals were treated extends to how we treat people of races and classes other than our own. I particularly loved the sections on Black Beauty. Dr Morse’s love for her chosen area of focus is evident in both her writing and her reading, and with her voice and intonation, she is an impeccable narrator! I highly recommend - brava!

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A Must-Listen

In this illuminating and insightful series, Victorian Animals in Literature and Culture showcases Professor Morse’s expertise in Victorian and early modern literature. Morse warmly invites her listeners to reimagine many well-loved stories through her artful exploration of animals and their representations in both Victorian literature and the era at large. Listening to this series transports listeners to a seminar room at William & Mary, where she continues to inspire her students with the same passion and knowledge evident in these lectures. Anyone interested in animals and literature would absolutely adore this series. As a former student, I have found it wonderful to dive back into Professor Morse’s eye-opening interpretations of the novels and stories that will always have a special place on my bookshelf.

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Brilliant look at Victorian animal welfare

Prof. Morse's lucid history of the treatment of animals in Victorian England -- and the birth of the animal welfare movement -- is a crucial series of lectures. Drawing on her deep knowledge and research of Victorian culture and literature, and delivered with warmth and understanding, her lectures always engaged this listener. They are often profoundly moving, as she surveys the casual cruelty towards animals as reflected in texts such as Black Beauty. Morse highlights an important shift in human consciousness that we now, perhaps, take for granted -- our awareness of animals as sentient beings deserving of respect, humane treatment, and love.

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Enchanting and enlightening

In this warmly read and thoughtfully crafted lecture series, Morse seamlessly weaves anecdote with analysis as she pours a career’s worth of passion and research into a beautiful and moving series. Listeners will love the journey through the Victorian era and into the modern day as Morse engages with current literature and issues in the context of the historical. Morse’s reading of this undoubtedly great course makes her vast knowledge of the overlap between Victorian literature and animal welfare both accessible and enjoyable. “Victorian Animals…” is a must-listen for scholars, readers, and animal lovers alike!

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