Phoenix, Turtle, Upstart Crow: Animals and Early Modern Literature (050629-SS 2024)

Phoenix, Turtle, Upstart Crow: Animals and Early Modern Literature

Early modern English literature teems with animals. On pages and stages, dogs return to their vomit, kingdoms are offered for horses, turtle doves are the truest of lovers, and the (supposed) animal attributes given to characters include, but are by no means limited to, the slyness of foxes, the audacity of corvids, and the regality of lions. The early modern literary imagination, moreover, can make a poet of a parrot and send a single soul wandering from plant to animal to human notwithstanding the firm rejection of the notion of reincarnation in contemporary theology and natural philosophy. Certainly, most of the fowl, fish, and four-footed beasts that appear in early modern literature carry symbolic meaning informed by classical and Christian traditions, but sometimes actual, literal animals also leave their imprints on texts. At the same time, the pervasive use of animal symbolism and metaphor is itself significant and reveals a need for an animal foil, and mirror, in the construction of the human. Over the course of the semester, we will examine how meaning is created through animal appearances and/or animal imagery in a selection of early modern poetry, prose, and drama, and consider what this may reveal about the material and philosophical relationships between early modern humans and their non-human fellow creatures.

Assessment/requirements: Übung: active participation, thorough preparation of the assigned reading, intermittent minor tasks; Seminar: active participation, thorough preparation of the assigned reading, 8-10-page term paper in combination with a short presentation.