1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910463373303321

Autore

Boehrer Bruce Thomas

Titolo

Animal characters [[electronic resource] ] : nonhuman beings in early modern literature / / Bruce Thomas Boehrer

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Philadelphia, : University of Pennsylvania Press, c2010

ISBN

1-283-88998-6

0-8122-0136-1

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (245 p.)

Collana

Haney Foundation Series

Haney Foundation series

Disciplina

820.9/374

Soggetti

Animals in literature

Characters and characteristics in literature

English literature - Early modern, 1500-1700 - History and criticism

European literature - Renaissance, 1450-1600 - History and criticism

Symbolism in literature

Animals, Mythical, in literature

Animals in art

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [209]-227) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction: animal studies and the problem of character -- Baiardo's legacy -- The cardinal's parrot -- Ecce feles -- The people's peacock -- "Vulgar sheepe" -- Conclusion: O blazing world.

Sommario/riassunto

"Our 2500-Year-Long Fascination with the World's Most Talkative Bird Bruce Thomas Boehrer" "'As both a fiction writer and a lover of parrots, I was delighted and enlightened by Parrot Culture. This is an enchanting book."---Robert Olen Butler, author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain" "'Engrossing ... Bruce Thomas Boehrer concentrates his well-stocked mind on what over the centuries we humans have done to, and done with, parrots."---Times Literary Supplement" "During the Renaissance, horses---long considered the privileged, even sentient companions of knights-errant---gradually lost their special place on the field of battle and with it their distinctive status in



the world of chivalric heroism. Parrots, once the miraculous, articulate companions of popes and emperors, declined into figures of mindless mimicry. Cats, which were tortured by Catholics in the Middle Ages, were tortured in the Reformation as part of the Protestant attack on Catholicism. And sheep, the model for Agnus Deiimagery, underwent transformations at once legal, material, and spiritual as a result of their changing role in Europe's growing manufacturing and trade economies. While in the Middle Ages, these nonhumans were endowed with privileged social associations, personal agency, even the ability to reason and speak, in the early modern period they lost these qualities at the very same time that a new emphasis on, and understanding of, human character was developing in European literature."