The poetic construction of the self

Abstract

It is particularly appropriate that an introduction to my research into the poetic constitution of the Subject should begin with a reflection on the relationship between a cat and her keeper. The statement quoted above presents the cat as a subject with the capacity to think and comprehend equal to that of her human. In this example, the French philosopher Michel de Montaigne extends that proposition by suggesting that the cat’s consciousness might well lead her to perceive her owner as an amusement; “We entertain each other with reciprocal monkey tricks,” he says, “if I have my time to begin or refuse, so has she hers”. The chief philosophical question arising from Montaigne’s meditation on feline consciousness is why we so readily and forthrightly disregard the possibility that the philosopher should indeed be “a pastime” to his cat; why are so unwilling to bestow upon an animal a consciousness at ...