Book

Figurations animalières à travers les textes et l’image en Europe

Fish climbing trees, storks taking care of their parents… Premodern textual and visual culture presents us with a fabulous bestiary that reveals ingenious and rich reflections on the animal kingdom.

Author: Alisa van de Haar and Annelies Schulte Nordholt
Date: 21 December 2021

The studies united in this volume will allow you to discover animals in all their possible states: are they simple anthropomorphic images of man? Models to follow? Or autonomous beings, equal or even superior to man? By exploring a large diversity of texts – fables, poetry, novels, travel narratives, emblematic works – and visual media – paintings, tapestries, jewelry, this richly illustrated volume displays the fruitful premodern exchanges between natural history and culture. It follows new trends in cultural criticism by implicitly interrogating the need to move beyond the reigning paradigms of anthropocentrism and anthropomorphism. This Festschrift in honour of emeritus professor Paul J. Smith was edited by Alisa van de Haar and Annelies Schulte Nordholt. Among its contributors are several members of LUCAS.