Second Glance at the Panther, or

What Does It Mean to Read Zoopoetically?

Authors

  • Kári Driscoll Utrecht University

Abstract

This essay conducts a zoopoetic reading of Rainer Maria Rilke’s iconic poem “Der Panther.” It proceeds in three stages: first, I show how the text itself is zoopoetic, that is, projects a model of poiesis that proceeds via embodied animality. Second, I show how it implicates the reader in the zoopoetic process. In this way zoopoetics becomes not only a mode of artistic production but also one of reception. Finally, I reflect on what it means to read zoopoetically in the age of the Anthropocene.

Author Biography

  • Kári Driscoll, Utrecht University

    Kári Driscoll is Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. He holds a PhD in German from Columbia University. He has published widely on zoopoetics, most recently in What Is Zoopoetics? – Texts, Bodies, Entanglement (Palgrave Macmillan 2018), which he co-edited with Eva Hoffmann. His current research project, entitled “Reading Zoos in the Age of the Anthropocene,” is supported by a three-year grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).

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Published

2026-05-04

Issue

Vol. 31 No. 1 (2018): Animal Studies

Section

Main Section

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Driscoll, K. (2026). Second Glance at the Panther, or: What Does It Mean to Read Zoopoetically?. FRAME, Journal of Literary Studies, 31(1), 29-47. https://platform.openjournals.nl/FRAME/article/view/27319