All bark and no bite?
Dogs, cats and donkeys: Zoopoetic discourses in Franz Kafka, Maria Velho da Costa and Jerzy Skolimowski
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21814/2i.7043Keywords:
zoopoetics, representation, subjectivity, intermediality, languageAbstract
This article analyses the representation of animal subjectivity, starting with Franz Kafka’s Investigations of a Dog (1922), moving on to Myra (Maria Velho da Costa, 2008) and EO (a film by Jerzy Skolimowski, 2022), to comment on agency and multispecies interaction. The aim is to explore how each narrative constructs non-human perspectives, questioning anthropocentric hierarchies and promoting a relational ethic between humans and animals. The analysis highlights different strategies: Kafka gives the narrator dog a reflective and philosophical voice; in Myra, Rambo and the cat Brunilde participate polyphonically in the narrative, combining action, thought and dialogue; in EO, the donkey expresses interiority without verbalisation. Verbiage, silence and polyphony are read as critical instruments of the hegemony of logos, while aesthetics is seen as a sensitive experience. Over the course of a century, these works consolidate zoopoetic practices, decolonising perspectives, valuing multispecies perspectives and proposing innovative ways of understanding coexistence.
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