Animal Bodies, Renaissance Culture (Haney Foundation Series) PDF
Preview Animal Bodies, Renaissance Culture (Haney Foundation Series)
Animal Bodies, Renaissance Culture Raber_AnimalBodies_FM.indd 1 21967 5/22/13 10:34 AM Haney Foundation SerieS a volume in the Haney Foundation Series, established in 1961 with the generous support of dr. John Louis Haney Raber_AnimalBodies_FM.indd 2 21967 5/22/13 10:34 AM 2211996677 Animal Bodies, Renaissance Culture Karen raber university of pennsylvania press philadelphia 21967 Raber_AnimalBodies_FM.indd 3 2211996677 5/22/13 10:34 AM 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 Raber_AnimalBodies_FM.indd 4 21967 5/22/13 10:34 AM 2211996677 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 21967 Raber_AnimalBodies_FM.indd 5 2211996677 5/22/13 10:34 AM This page intentionally left blank Animal Bodies, Renaissance Culture 21967 Raber_AnimalBodies_FM.indd 7 2211996677 5/22/13 10:34 AM This page intentionally left blank 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’ Raber_AnimalBodies_TX.indd 1 21967 5/22/13 10:15 AM
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