1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910162713903321

Autore

Kay Sarah

Titolo

Animal Skins and the Reading Self in Medieval Latin and French Bestiaries / / Sarah Kay

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Chicago : , : University of Chicago Press, , [2017]

©2017

ISBN

0-226-43687-X

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (244 pages) : illustrations

Classificazione

IB 5000

Disciplina

809/.93362

Soggetti

Bestiaries - History and criticism

Manuscripts, Medieval

Parchment

Animals in literature

Animals, Mythical, in literature

Animals in art

Animals, Mythical, in art

Human-animal relationships

Books and reading - History - To 1500

Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Previously issued in print: 2017.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Conventions Used in This Book -- Introduction: Skin, Suture, and Caesura -- 1. Book, Word, Page -- 2. Garments of Skin -- 3. Orifices and the Library -- 4. Cutting the Skin: Sacrifice, Sovereignty, and the Space of Exception -- 5. The Riddle of Recognition -- 6. Skin, the Inner Senses, and the Soul as "Inner Life" -- Conclusion. Reading Bestiaries -- Appendix. Chronology of Latin and French Bestiary Versions -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Just like we do today, people in medieval times struggled with the concept of human exceptionalism and the significance of other creatures. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the medieval bestiary. Sarah Kay's exploration of French and Latin bestiaries offers fresh insight into how this prominent genre challenged the boundary



between its human readers and other animals. Bestiaries present accounts of animals whose fantastic behaviors should be imitated or avoided, depending on the given trait. In a highly original argument, Kay suggests that the association of beasts with books is here both literal and material, as nearly all surviving bestiaries are copied on parchment made of animal skin, which also resembles human skin. Using a rich array of examples, she shows how the content and materiality of bestiaries are linked due to the continual references in the texts to the skins of other animals, as well as the ways in which the pages themselves repeatedly-and at times, it would seem, deliberately-intervene in the reading process. A vital contribution to animal studies and medieval manuscript studies, this book sheds new light on the European bestiary and its profound power to shape readers' own identities.