Renaissance Naturalists and Animal Symbolism: Fact and Fantasy

2013

The description of exotic animals (African or Asiatic beasts as seen in European medieval context) is an interesting paradigm of otherness, especially in the construction of the image of the oriental world. Zoological marvels coming from India or Ethiopia were not imaginary beasts, but real animals that could be observed in nature or in Egyptian menageries. The paper studies three aspects of the description of foreign animals (especially elephants, giraffes, and other big animals) by occidental pilgrims: 1. The difficulty of describing the unknown, whether in zoological terms (detailing the external features of the animals), or in more affective terms (surprise, marvel, emotion); 2. The problem of naming unknown animals, whence the adoption of Arabic zoonyms; 3. The choice of species in the menageries selected for description in the travel account.

Early Modern Culture, 2016

This response argues that the four essays in the collection typify a change in the direction of Renaissance literary animal studies as it returns from an exclusive focus on living animals to reexamine animals that are symbolic, imaginary, emblematic, or already rendered into objects. Recent ecocriticism has encouraged us to think about humans' relationship with the natural world not only as a matter of our behavior toward individual living creatures but also as a larger system of exploitation in which animal products (literal and figurative) have both potential cultural agency and serious ethical implications.

Magikon Zōon: Animal et magie dans l’Antiquité et au Moyen Âge | Animal and Magic from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, 2022

The overlap of two marginal topics in history – magic and animals – may at first seem more marginal still, but the purpose of this volume is to demonstrate that from these vital margins we may find new perspectives on and understandings of ancient and mediaeval societies. Recent decades have seen increasing interest in magic and related topics. The publication of the corpus of Greek magical papyri by Karl Preisendanz and his collaborators (1928-1931), and the History of Magic and Experimental Science by Lynn Thorndike (1923-1958), marked a clear turning point. While the immediate impact of these publications was demonstrated by the increasing number of important works by authors such as E.R. Dodds (The Greeks and the Irrational, 1951) and A. Festugière (La Révélation d'Hermès Trismégiste, 1950-1954), the last thirty years have seen a resurgence of interest. Recent research has increasingly sought out new theoretical perspectives, focusing on the relationship between religion, ritual and magic, and on questions of materiality and transmission. The hitherto Eurocentric focus, influenced by Judeo-Christian conceptions of magic, has been thoroughly interrogated, leading to new approaches, and new vantage points from which to examine ancient and mediaeval societies. Similarly, animals have recently become important as subjects of history as part of the overall “animal turn” which has developed within several academic disciplines. Much of this interest stems from two works – Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation (1975) and Jacques Derrida’s L’Animal que donc je suis (2006). While these were works of philosophy, the increased attention they have brought to animals has encouraged several academics within the humanities and social sciences to re-evaluate the place of non-human animals within their research, studying them both in their interactions with humans and as worthy objects of inquiry in themselves. This volume thus brings together the contributions of a group of scholars invited to think about animals and the Animal through the texts and objects of magic and the other “occult sciences” in their respective geographical areas and chronological periods, in the Mediterranean basin and its surrounding regions, from the ancient world to the Middle Ages.

2016

Author(s): Sylvia, Olga | Advisor(s): Hampton, Timothy | Abstract: This dissertation discusses the status of animals in sixteenth century French texts of various literary and non-literary genres. It aims at demonstrating the significant shift from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance with regards to the literary portrayal of animals, which were no longer regarded in the allegorical tradition but rather as a subject matter. These changes in philosophers’ perceptions of animals were conditioned by the intersection of two major phenomena taking place at the time – geographical explorations exposing new knowledge about unknown animals and species, and a rediscovery of classical texts that challenged the Aristotelian vision of a hierarchy of species. As a result, scholars were urged to break the old tradition of animals’ representation as a vehicle of human flaws and social differences, and created instead a new role for animals for the first time in the history of Western civilization. Th...

Past research on animals in Renaissance art has indicated their functions as signifiers of human characteristics. This study demonstrates stages in developments of Renaissance art that illustrate transitions from anthropocentric to theriocentric approaches in animal symbolism, where animals are perceived and valued in their own right. Traditional negative animal symbolism was not relinquished, but new types of animal depictions have testified to new attitudes. Iconography of the dog and the ape, for example, represents two issues relating to human-animal relationships in the Renaissance. Changing conceptions of the dog, its function in artistic narrative, as related to the artist, his self-image and awareness of the spectator, are examined. The ape became a metaphor of the universal artist and clever imitator of nature. While late-sixteenth-and seventeenth-century illustrations referring to artistic imitatio were harshly judicial , the idea of animals as mediators is demonstrated by the artist who tends not only to empathize with animals but also to identify with them. Keywords animal symbolism – iconography of dogs – iconography of monkeys – human-animal relations – self-portraits The early Christian and medieval bestiary tradition promoted the use of animal imagery as metaphors and similes, based primarily on fundamental conceptions of human beastliness. In other words, humans and not animals were the ultimate object of the animal images adopted in stereotyped moralistic

Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, 2016

There has been a theory claiming that innovative artists have always created the appropriate atmosphere for forthcoming scientists to develop important hypotheses about the world. In this paper, the animal iconography of Franz Marc is discussed under the perspective of the achievements of modern ethology and its modified anthropomorphic approaches to animals that seem to have much in common with the empathetic attitudes of Marc, as shown both in his written texts and artworks. The basic argument presented is, however, that despite the interactions between art and science during history, it is of great importance to understand them as discrete rational fields with their own methods and expressive tools.

Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences, eds. D. Jalobeanu and C.T. Wolfe (Springer), 2022

What is a non-human animal? During the early modern period, definitions ranged from an ensouled creature that exists between humans and plants on the scale of nature to a soulless but finely constructed automaton. Particularly fierce disputes erupted over whether animals are rational, sensitive, or language-using, and the ascribed attributes were widely thought to have a bearing on ethical questions. Is it acceptable to hunt animals? To eat them? Kick them? Experiment on them for the amelioration of human health and knowledge? This entry delves into these issues. It begins with a brief overview of Renaissance perspectives on the status of animals and René Descartes’ attempt to upend them, then turns to Pierre Gassendi’s and Henry More’s head-on refutations of Descartes, and proceeds to the less direct responses of other major early modern philosophers including Kenelm Digby, Margaret Cavendish, Baruch Spinoza, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Finally, I look at debates about animal anatomy and their implications for attitudes towards consuming animals, with a focus on Gassendi and the responses to him from John Wallis and Edward Tyson, concluding with a broader overview of perspectives on animal ethics, with reference to Nicolas Malebranche, John Locke, and David Hume.