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Overview & Synopsis

The book Animals at a Crossroads by Beata Mytych-Forajter is an anthology of Romantic texts on the relationships of nineteenth-century humans with animals: admired, stirring fascination, as well as constituting a source of fear. Non-human companions are thought-provoking and surprising, they keep one company, or more so, they feed, clothe and transport humans. Romantic writings reveal a strong connection with today’s international tendencies and a growing ecological awareness, demonstrating that it was precisely then, in the nineteenth century, that the human outlook on the mutual dependencies and responsibilities ‘reached a crossroads’, where it remains today, in the grasp of contradictory forces. In reviewing the book, Professor Bachórz praised its selection of texts from beyond the literary canon: ‘Crossroads by Beata Mytych-Forajter manifestly does away with poetry, including omitting the Romantic masterpieces. The book is, however, tellingly unforgiving towards records of wealth and the various observations pointing to our ever-more-closely approaching ecological woes and our vegetarian longings’. (excerpt from the editorial review)