Claire Fuller’s Visions of Multispecies Justice

I reread “The Panther” by Rainer Maria Rilke quite often during the first couple years of the pandemic. Written in 1902, the poem describes a captive panther Rilke saw that year on exhibit at a menagerie in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. An otherwise powerful and graceful animal finds himself trapped, pacing tight circles in his cage (“der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht”). His world is just a thousand bars (“und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt”). A willful spirit has been paralyzed; his gaze has grown tired, hopeless.

I was drawn to this poem’s sense of paralysis and ennui during the pandemic, when many of us humans also felt trapped and bored. I’m certainly not comparing my experience of lockdown to that of Rilke’s panther, given that I, like many others, voluntarily distanced myself from the rest of the world to avoid catching or spreading the virus. By contrast, the panther is being held captive against his will.

However, I related to the captive animal in