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

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kay, Sarah, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Bestiaries--History and criticism.

Bestiaries.

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.

Books and reading.

Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (244 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, [2017]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

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.

Contents:

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

Notes:

Previously issued in print: 2017.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 22. Okt 2019)

ISBN:

9780226436876

022643687X

OCLC:

970659200