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 1
... 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 human itself . Achieving human status has never been easy . The ways in which being human is ...
... 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 human itself . Achieving human status has never been easy . The ways in which being human is ...
Página 4
... reveal the frailty of the supremacy which is being asserted . Paradoxically , humans need animals in order to be human . The human cannot be separated because in separation lies unprovability . In The Gay Science Friedrich Nietzsche ...
... reveal the frailty of the supremacy which is being asserted . Paradoxically , humans need animals in order to be human . The human cannot be separated because in separation lies unprovability . In The Gay Science Friedrich Nietzsche ...
Página 8
... reveal an image of a changing 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 ...
... reveal an image of a changing 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 ...
Página 9
... reveal so acutely , that the destruction of humanity finds its true end . But it is also through politics that an ... reveals the divisions which exist between being a human and possessing human qualities . ' Humanity ' is an even ...
... reveal so acutely , that the destruction of humanity finds its true end . But it is also through politics that an ... reveals the divisions which exist between being a human and possessing human qualities . ' Humanity ' is an even ...
Página 10
... miniature some of the problems with which the rest of the book deals and to reveal the depth to which the category human was under threat between 1558 and 1649 . 1 Screaming Monkeys : The Creatures in the Bear Garden 10 Perceiving Animals.
... miniature some of the problems with which the rest of the book deals and to reveal the depth to which the category human was under threat between 1558 and 1649 . 1 Screaming Monkeys : The Creatures in the Bear Garden 10 Perceiving Animals.
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