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. |
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Página 6
... notion of ' hunger ' to an anemone ? Is this basic organism really feeling some- thing akin to what we feel ? The questions might sound ridiculous , but the answers they elicit raise important and complex problems . If we say no , the ...
... notion of ' hunger ' to an anemone ? Is this basic organism really feeling some- thing akin to what we feel ? The questions might sound ridiculous , but the answers they elicit raise important and complex problems . If we say no , the ...
Página 7
... notion that cows may think but also the far more disarming possibility that thinking may itself be a bovine activity ? '14 If thinking , reasoning , the thing which is so often used to distinguish the human from the animal , is bovine ...
... notion that cows may think but also the far more disarming possibility that thinking may itself be a bovine activity ? '14 If thinking , reasoning , the thing which is so often used to distinguish the human from the animal , is bovine ...
Página 8
... notion of the human and of what constitutes being human . The organisation of the book around these different stages of life moves chronologically through the period 1558-1649 . After beginning with a visit to the Bear Garden in 1562 in ...
... notion of the human and of what constitutes being human . The organisation of the book around these different stages of life moves chronologically through the period 1558-1649 . After beginning with a visit to the Bear Garden in 1562 in ...
Página 9
... notion never disappears . Similarly , I often use the term ' man ' , not as an unthought shorthand for human , but as a deliberate reminder of the gendering of even the most general invocations of the species in this period . An ...
... notion never disappears . Similarly , I often use the term ' man ' , not as an unthought shorthand for human , but as a deliberate reminder of the gendering of even the most general invocations of the species in this period . An ...
Página 10
... notion but reflects , I suggest , the ways in which writers were distinguishing between themselves and beasts . But the starting - point is in the Bear Garden , the most explicit and spectacular arena of the abuse of animals . I begin ...
... notion but reflects , I suggest , the ways in which writers were distinguishing between themselves and beasts . But the starting - point is in the Bear Garden , the most explicit and spectacular arena of the abuse of animals . I begin ...
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