Renaissance beasts : of animals, humans, and other wonderful creatures

256 Pages·2004·4.488 MB·English

by  Fudge, Erica

R
ENAI S SANC E
B
EAST S
% %
Of Animals, Humans, and Other
Wonderful Creatures
Edited By Erica Fudge
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renaissance beasts
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r e na i s s a n c e
b e a s t s
Of Animals, Humans, and Other
Wonderful Creatures
(cid:1)
Edited by Erica Fudge
University ofIllinois Press
Urbana and Chicago
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© 2004by the Board ofTrustees
ofthe University ofIllinois
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States ofAmerica
c 5 4 3 2 1
∞ This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Renaissance beasts :ofanimals,humans,and other wonderful
creatures / edited by Erica Fudge.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn0-252-02880-5(cloth :alk.paper)
1.Animals and civilization—Europe—History—16th century.
2.Animals and civilization—Europe—History—17th century.
3.Animals (Philosophy)—Europe—History—16th century.
4.Animals (Philosophy)—Europe—History—17th century.
I.Fudge,Erica.
ql85.r455 2004
590′.9031—dc21 2003007986
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(cid:1)
contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
Erica Fudge
1. Unpicking the Seam:Talking Animals and Reader Pleasure
in Early Modern Satire 19
Kathryn Perry
2. “Bitches and Queens”:Pets and Perversion at the Court
ofFrance’s Henri III 37
Juliana Schiesari
3. Hairy on the Inside:Metamorphosis and Civility in English
WerewolfTexts 50
S.J.Wiseman
4. Saying Nothing Concerning the Same:On Dominion,
Purity,and Meat in Early Modern England 70
Erica Fudge
5. “Why should a dog,a horse,a rat,have life,and thou no
breath at all?”:Shakespeare’s Animations 87
Erica Sheen
6. Government by Beagle:The Impersonal Rule ofJames VI
and I 101
Alan Stewart
7. Reading,Writing,and Riding Horses in Early Modern
England:James Shirley’s Hyde Park(1632) and
Gervase Markham’s Cavelarice(1607) 116
Elspeth Graham
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8. “Can ye not tell a man from a marmoset?”:Apes and Others
on the Early Modern Stage 138
James Knowles
9. Pliny’s Literate Elephant and the Idea ofAnimal Language
in Renaissance Thought 164
Brian Cummings
10. Reading Vital Signs:Animals and the Experimental
Philosophy 186
Peter Harrison
11. The Ménagerie and the Labyrinthe:Animals at Versailles,
1662–1792 208
Matthew Senior
Contributors 233
Index 237
vi
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acknowledgments
Any collection ofessays is,by necessity,a collaborative enterprise,and I would
like first ofall to thank the contributors for their work.It has been a real plea-
sure bringing these essays together.Help has also come from Lawrence Nor-
mand,Patricia Parker,Jonathan Burt,and David Kastan,for which I am
extremely grateful.Tracey Hill and I co-organized a conference,“Animals in
History and Culture,” at Bath Spa University College in 1999at which a num-
ber ofthe contributors here first came together,and I am immensely grate-
ful to Tracey for all her work on the conference.Carol Anne Peschke copy-
edited the collection with precision,and the collection has also benefited
greatly from the work ofElizabeth Dulany at the University ofIllinois Press.
Her interest in and support ofall things animal is a gift to those ofus in the
field,and this collection is a tribute to her.
Throughout,early modern u,v,i,and jhave been silently modernized.
In some essays gendered terms such as man,mankind,and horsemanship
are used.Although these terms may cause discomfort to modern readers,
they reflect early modern usage,which prioritized the male over the female
and often (in relation to horsemanship,for instance) assumed a male sub-
ject.
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introduction
Erica Fudge
In 1634William Prynne was called before the Star Chamber for “writing
and publishinge a scandalous and a libellous Booke againste the State,the
Kinge,and all his people.” The book,Histrio-Mastix,was “condempneth...
to bee in a most ignominyous manner burnte by the hande of the hang-
man,” and Prynne himselfwas condemned,among other things,“to loose
an eare at eyther place.”1Three years later,after an apparent plot “to set up
the puritan or separatist faction,”2Prynne,with John Bastwick and Henry
Burton,was once again sentenced to have his ears clipped and to have his
cheek marked with the letters Sand L,for “a seditious libellour.” Because
ofthe previous punishment “the court examined whether Prin had any eares
left;they found they were cropt,soe they went to sentence.”3This time Prynne
lost his ears completely.
Nine years after the punishment ofPrynne,Bastwick,and Burton,protest
against which Christopher Hill has seen as one ofthe key starting points of
the English Revolution,4the birth ofa child with its “face upon the breast,and
without a head” in Lancashire put a new spin on the story.The mother ofthe
child,a Catholic,had been heard to declare,“I pray God,that rather than I
shall be a Roundhead,or bear a Roundhead,I may bring forth a Childe without
a head.” Her neighbors agreed that her words “might be a great meanes to
provoke God to shew such testimony ofhis displeasure against her,by caus-
ing her to bring forth this Monster.” But it was not only the woman’s words
that were at issue,according to the pamphlet that recorded the appearance of
this wonderful child.The actions ofthe woman’s mother were also presented
as part ofthe context for understanding the advent ofthe aberrant infant.The
pamphlet records,“amongst other scornes which her mother cast upon reli-
gious people she too her Cat;and said that it must be made a Roundhead like
Burton,Prinneand Bastwicke,and causing the eares to be cut off;called her
cat Prynn (instead ofPuffe).”5
This story,involving politics,religion,punishment,and justice,offers a
picture ofhuman-animal relations that is extreme,but that simultaneously