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Animal Characters : Nonhuman Beings in Early Modern Literature / Bruce Thomas Boehrer.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: Haney Foundation SeriesPublisher: Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2011]Copyright date: ©2010Description: 1 online resource (256 p.) : 8 illusContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780812242492
  • 9780812201369
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 820.9/374 22
LOC classification:
  • PR149.A7 B64 2010
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction. Animal Studies and the Problem of Character -- Chapter 1. Baiardo's Legacy -- Chapter 2. The Cardinal's Parrot -- Chapter 3. Ecce Feles -- Chapter 4. The People's Peacock -- Chapter 5. "Vulgar Sheepe" -- Conclusion. O Blazing World -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index -- Acknowledgments
Summary: During the Renaissance, horses-long considered the privileged, even sentient companions of knights-errant-gradually lost their special place on the field of battle and, with it, their distinctive status in the world of chivalric heroism. Parrots, once the miraculous, articulate companions of popes and emperors, declined into figures of mindless mimicry. Cats, which were tortured by Catholics in the Middle Ages, were tortured in the Reformation as part of the Protestant attack on Catholicism. And sheep, the model for Agnus Dei imagery, underwent transformations at once legal, material, and spiritual as a result of their changing role in Europe's growing manufacturing and trade economies. While in the Middle Ages these nonhumans were endowed with privileged social associations, personal agency, even the ability to reason and speak, in the early modern period they lost these qualities at the very same time that a new emphasis on, and understanding of, human character was developing in European literature.In Animal Characters Bruce Thomas Boehrer follows five species-the horse, the parrot, the cat, the turkey, and the sheep-through their appearances in an eclectic mix of texts, from romances and poetry to cookbooks and natural histories. He shows how dramatic changes in animal character types between 1400 and 1700 relate to the emerging economy and culture of the European Renaissance. In early modern European culture, animals not only served humans as sources of labor, companionship, clothing, and food; these nonhuman creatures helped to form an understanding of personhood. Incorporating readings of Shakespeare's plays, Milton's Paradise Lost, Margaret Cavendish's Blazing World, and other works, Boehrer's series of animal character studies illuminates a fascinating period of change in interspecies relationships.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780812201369

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction. Animal Studies and the Problem of Character -- Chapter 1. Baiardo's Legacy -- Chapter 2. The Cardinal's Parrot -- Chapter 3. Ecce Feles -- Chapter 4. The People's Peacock -- Chapter 5. "Vulgar Sheepe" -- Conclusion. O Blazing World -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index -- Acknowledgments

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

During the Renaissance, horses-long considered the privileged, even sentient companions of knights-errant-gradually lost their special place on the field of battle and, with it, their distinctive status in the world of chivalric heroism. Parrots, once the miraculous, articulate companions of popes and emperors, declined into figures of mindless mimicry. Cats, which were tortured by Catholics in the Middle Ages, were tortured in the Reformation as part of the Protestant attack on Catholicism. And sheep, the model for Agnus Dei imagery, underwent transformations at once legal, material, and spiritual as a result of their changing role in Europe's growing manufacturing and trade economies. While in the Middle Ages these nonhumans were endowed with privileged social associations, personal agency, even the ability to reason and speak, in the early modern period they lost these qualities at the very same time that a new emphasis on, and understanding of, human character was developing in European literature.In Animal Characters Bruce Thomas Boehrer follows five species-the horse, the parrot, the cat, the turkey, and the sheep-through their appearances in an eclectic mix of texts, from romances and poetry to cookbooks and natural histories. He shows how dramatic changes in animal character types between 1400 and 1700 relate to the emerging economy and culture of the European Renaissance. In early modern European culture, animals not only served humans as sources of labor, companionship, clothing, and food; these nonhuman creatures helped to form an understanding of personhood. Incorporating readings of Shakespeare's plays, Milton's Paradise Lost, Margaret Cavendish's Blazing World, and other works, Boehrer's series of animal character studies illuminates a fascinating period of change in interspecies relationships.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2022)