“Mark Payne has crafted a durable, thoughtful, short book, one that those interested in the writers he views should amble, swim, hike, or navigate a long way in order to read.”

Rain Taxi

"There is much to treasure and mull over in this book—it is a brave contribution to an exciting body of work and a stimulating assertion of the continued rewards of studying classical literature, even, and especially, in a post-humanist era."

Bryn Mawr Classical Review

“A powerful and very individual exploration of how ancient and modern authors have used the relationship between humans and animals as a central part of their art-works.”

Classics for All Reviews

“Eclectic and intriguing, The Animal Part urges us to take seriously literary works that create imaginative identifications of staged encounters with the nonhuman world. Considerations of human relations to animals could not be more timely, and Mark Payne adds a powerful and original voice to the discussion.”

Robert Pogue Harrison, Stanford University

“The Animal Part is like a conversation with a learned and perceptive friend. In a very original manner, Mark Payne contemplates human beings’ engagement with their own status as animals among other animals and considers the ways in which poetry enables a privileged access to an imaginative, imaginary inhabiting of the species being of others. I enjoyed this moving and powerful meditative essay on human being immensely.”

Page duBois, University of California, San Diego

“A fascinating and very well-written book on aspects of representations of animal/human relations that have been little studied.”

Susan Stewart, Princeton University