Perceiving Animals: Humans and Beasts in Early Modern English CultureUniversity of Illinois Press, 2002 - 233 páginas The boundaries between human and beast forged a rugged philosophical landscape across early modern England. Spectators gathered in London's Bear Garden to watch the callous and brutal baiting of animals. A wave of "new" scientists performed vivisections on live animals to learn more about the human body. In Perceiving Animals, the British scholar Erica Fudge traces the dangers and problems of anthropocentrism in texts written from 1558 to 1649. Meticulous examinations of scientific, legal, political, literary, and religious writings offer unique and fascinating depictions of human perceptions about the natural world. Views carried over from bestiaries--medieval treatises on animals-- posited animals as nonsentient beings whose merits were measured solely by what provisions they afforded humans: food, medicine, clothing, travel, labor, scientific knowledge. Without consciences or faith, animals were deemed far inferior to humans. While writings from the period asserted an enormous biological superiority, Fudge contends actual human behavior and logic worked, sometimes accidentally, to close the alleged gap. In the Bear Garden, even a man of the lowest social rank had power over a tortured animal, sinking him, though, below the beasts. The beast fable itself fails to show a true understanding of animals, as it merely attributes human characteristics to beasts in an attempt to teach humanist ideals. Scholars and writers continually turned to the animal world for reflection. Despite this, scientists of the period used animals for empirical and medical knowledge, recognizing biological and spiritual similarities but refusing to renege human superiority. Including an insightful reexamination of Ben Jonson's Volpone and fascinating looks at works by Francis Bacon, Edward Coke, and Richard Overton, among others, Fudge probes issues of animal ownership and biological and spiritual superiority in early modern England that resonate with philosophical quandaries still relevant in contemporary society. |
Dentro del libro
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Página
... Garden 11 2 Wild Beasts Making Havoc of the Soul : Animals , Humans and Religion 34 3 Judging Like a Malt - Horse : The Humanist Interpretation of Humanity 64 4 Seeing All Their Insides : Science , Animal Experimentation and Aesop 91 5 ...
... Garden 11 2 Wild Beasts Making Havoc of the Soul : Animals , Humans and Religion 34 3 Judging Like a Malt - Horse : The Humanist Interpretation of Humanity 64 4 Seeing All Their Insides : Science , Animal Experimentation and Aesop 91 5 ...
Página 1
... Garden in early modern London . In it the specta- tors watched a pack of mastiffs attack an ape on horseback and assault bears whose teeth and claws had been removed . People enjoyed the entertainment . We know this from the numerous ...
... Garden in early modern London . In it the specta- tors watched a pack of mastiffs attack an ape on horseback and assault bears whose teeth and claws had been removed . People enjoyed the entertainment . We know this from the numerous ...
Página 8
... Garden and offers a microcosm of the debates which the following chapters develop . The depth of the destruction of human as a species which stands alone , which can assert without problem its superiority , becomes clear through an ...
... Garden and offers a microcosm of the debates which the following chapters develop . The depth of the destruction of human as a species which stands alone , which can assert without problem its superiority , becomes clear through an ...
Página 9
... Garden and to Overton's Defyance of the Act of Pardon . What is revealed in this text is defeat and degrada- tion : the human is still animal and the baiting persists . The terms used in this book need some form of explanation . I ...
... Garden and to Overton's Defyance of the Act of Pardon . What is revealed in this text is defeat and degrada- tion : the human is still animal and the baiting persists . The terms used in this book need some form of explanation . I ...
Página 10
... Garden , the most explicit and spectacular arena of the abuse of animals . I begin with a reading of baiting which asserts the status of human as unproblematic - as always - already- and then show how such a reading fails to respond to ...
... Garden , the most explicit and spectacular arena of the abuse of animals . I begin with a reading of baiting which asserts the status of human as unproblematic - as always - already- and then show how such a reading fails to respond to ...
Otras ediciones - Ver todas
Perceiving Animals: Humans and Beasts in Early Modern English Culture Erica Fudge Vista previa limitada - 2002 |
Perceiving Animals: Humans and Beasts in Early Modern English Culture Erica Fudge Sin vista previa disponible - 1999 |
Perceiving Animals: Humans and Beasts in Early Modern English Culture Erica Fudge Sin vista previa disponible - 2000 |
Términos y frases comunes
Adam Aesop always-already anthropocentrism argues assertion baiting baptism Bear Garden bear-baiting beast Ben Jonson bestiality bestiary body Calvin Cambridge University Press Chapter Christian Christopher Hill Coke Coke's conscience creatures Discourse divine dogs dominion early modern England early modern period Edward Edward Coke Emblems emphasis English Revolution ESRO fable faith Francis Bacon George hath haue History human and animal human status humanist Ibid important interpretation John John Murton Jonson judgement London Lycanthropy monkey-baiting moral Mortallitie natural world notion Novum Organum Old Arcadia Oxford Pelagian political proposes Prynne Puritan reader reading reason recognises Reformed ideas Renaissance reprinted reveals Richard Overton Routledge salvation sense seventeenth century sheep Sidney Sidney's society soul speak species Spenser Stubbes term theatre theology thing Thomas thou thought tion traced translated true understanding Valentine and Orson vnto Volpone Volume vpon wild William Perkins writes wrote