Animal Bodies, Renaissance Culture (Haney Foundation Series)

244 Pages·2013·8.063 MB·English

by  Karen Raber

Animal Bodies, Renaissance Culture
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Haney Foundation SerieS

a volume in the Haney Foundation Series,
established in 1961 with the generous support
of dr. John Louis Haney
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Animal Bodies,
Renaissance Culture
Karen raber
university of pennsylvania press
philadelphia
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Copyright © 2013 university of Pennsylvania Press

all rights reserved. except for brief quotations used for
purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book
may be reproduced in any form by any means without
written permission from the publisher.

Published by
university of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112
www.upenn.edu/pennpress

Printed in the united States of america on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data
raber, Karen, 1961–
animal bodies, renaissance culture / Karen raber. —
1st ed.
p. cm. — (Haney Foundation series)
includes bibliographical references and index.
iSbn 978-0-8122-4536-3 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. animals (Philosophy)—europe—History—16th
century. 2. animals (Philosophy)—europe—History—
17th century. 3. animal intelligence—Philosophy—
History—16th century. 4. animal intelligence—
Philosophy—History—17th century. 5. Human-animal
relationships—europe—History—16th century.
6. Human-animal relationships—europe—History—
17th century. 7. Human beings—animal nature—
History—16th century. 8. Human beings—animal
nature—History—17th century. i. title. ii. Series: Haney
Foundation series.
b105.a55r33 2013
113'.8—dc23
2013004238
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Contents
introduction: absent bodies 1
Chapter 1. resisting bodies: renaissance animal anatomies 31
Chapter 2. erotic bodies: Loving Horses 75
Chapter 3. Mutual Consumption: the animal Within 103
Chapter 4. animal architectures: urban beasts 127
Chapter 5. Working bodies: Laboring Moles and Cannibal Sheep 151
Conclusion: Knowing animals 179
notes 189
bibliography 219
index 231
acknowledgments 235
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Animal Bodies, Renaissance Culture
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Introduction
Absent Bodies
Giovanni Battista Gelli’s Circe of 1549 recounts Ulysses’ efforts to convince
a variety of beasts, transformed from men by Circe, that they should return
to their human form and leave her island with him. Ulysses begins with the
humblest of creatures, the oyster and the mole (also the simplest and hum-
blest of humans, a fisherman and a ploughman respectively), but upon being
soundly rejected, decides to move on to other creatures more likely to under-
stand his appeal to reason: “Thou shalt find some [men] of such knowledge
and wit,” he remarks to Circe, “that they are almost lyke unto the goddes, and
some others of so grosse wytte, and small knowledge, that they seme almost
bestes.” Assuming he has met only men who were dull witted in their human
forms, or “whiles they were men, never knew themselves, nor never knewe
their own nature, but they attended onely to the bodye,”1 Ulysses keeps trying
new tacks with new interlocutors. Moving through his own version of a great
chain of being to a snake, a hare, a lion, a horse, a goat, a hind, a dog, a calf,
and an elephant, Ulysses proposes different arguments in support of human
superiority. But in each debate, the famous orator’s persuasion returns again
and again to the idea that reason is the basis of human excellence; so he tells
the lion that animals cannot claim true virtues because “amongst beastes there
is no fortitude at all, but onle amonge menne,” since fortitude “is a meane,
determined with reasonne, betwene boldenes and feare . . . because you have
not the discourse of reason, whereby you might eyther knowe the good or the
honest, and by occasion thereof, onely you put your selves in daungers; but
you do it eyther for profyte or for pleasure, or to revenge some injurie. And
this is not fortitude” (sig. l4r). Again, he tells the horse, “temperance is an
elective habit, made with a right discourse of reason; howe can you then have
this virtue in you?” (sig. n4r). However, each and every animal rejects Ulysses’
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