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 1
... represented : an anxiety which was not about the animals . My attempt to read the Bear Garden revealed a strug- gle more significant than the one played out by the dogs and the bears , it revealed a struggle over the nature of being ...
... represented : an anxiety which was not about the animals . My attempt to read the Bear Garden revealed a strug- gle more significant than the one played out by the dogs and the bears , it revealed a struggle over the nature of being ...
Página 3
... represented sacrificing itself to humanity : The pheasant , partridge , and the lark Flew to thy house , as to the Ark . The willing ox , of himself came Home to the slaughter , with the lamb , And every beast did thither bring Himself ...
... represented sacrificing itself to humanity : The pheasant , partridge , and the lark Flew to thy house , as to the Ark . The willing ox , of himself came Home to the slaughter , with the lamb , And every beast did thither bring Himself ...
Página 4
... represent human power : their self - sacrifice is an image of man's control . The poems are not about animals but ... represented it often undercuts humanity as a separate category . More generally , in writings dealing with the animal ...
... represent human power : their self - sacrifice is an image of man's control . The poems are not about animals but ... represented it often undercuts humanity as a separate category . More generally , in writings dealing with the animal ...
Página 8
... represent the animal . The first chapter begins in the Bear 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 ...
... represent the animal . The first chapter begins in the Bear 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 ...
Página 9
... represent the qualities which , I argue , each area of thought pro- poses as specific to the human . In William Perkins ' Reformed ideas , for example , it is the operation of conscience which represents human - ness . Without ...
... represent the qualities which , I argue , each area of thought pro- poses as specific to the human . In William Perkins ' Reformed ideas , for example , it is the operation of conscience which represents human - ness . Without ...
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