IN THE SKIN OF A BEAST by Peggy McCracken ( 9780226458922 ) - Books & Audio Books at Pickabook.co.uk

Item Details

Title:

IN THE SKIN OF A BEAST
SOVEREIGNTY AND ANIMALITY IN MEDIEVAL FRANCE

By:

Peggy McCracken

Format:

Hardback

List price:

£39.00

Our price:

£35.10

Discount:

10% off

You save:

£3.90

ISBN 10:

022645892X

ISBN 13:

9780226458922

Availability:

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Stock:

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Publisher:

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS

Pub. date:

17 May, 2017

Pages:

240

Synopsis:

In medieval literature, when humans and animals meet whether as friends or foes issues of mastery and submission are often at stake. In the Skin of a Beast shows how the concept of sovereignty comes to the fore in such narratives, reflecting larger concerns about relations of authority and dominion at play in both human-animal and human-human interactions. Peggy McCracken discusses a range of literary texts and images from medieval France, including romances in which animal skins appear in symbolic displays of power, fictional explorations of the wolf's desire for human domestication, and tales of women and snakes converging in a representation of territorial claims and noble status. These works reveal that the qualities traditionally used to define sovereignty lineage and gender among them are in fact mobile and contingent. In medieval literary texts, as McCracken demonstrates, human dominion over animals is a disputed model for sovereign relations among people: it justifies exploitation even as it mandates protection and care, and it depends on reiterations of human-animal difference that paradoxically expose the tenuous nature of human exceptionalism.

Illustrations:

16 color plates

Publication:

Imprint:

University of Chicago Press

Returns:

Returnable

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MARIE DE FRANCE: A CRITICAL COMPANION (HB)