Imperfect Creatures : Vermin, Literature, and the Sciences of Life, 1550-1750 /

Plagues of pests have always been a part of recorded history, but they hold special significance in the early modern period. 'Imperfect Creatures' is the first full-length study to investigate the shifting, unstable, but foundational status of “vermin” as creatures and category in the early modern literary and scientific imagination.

Plagues of pests have always been a part of recorded history, but they hold special significance in the early modern period (1550-1750), when Western Europe confronted two related sets of challenges. Western Europe and its Christian natural philosophers were faced with reports of civilizations in South and East Asia who held decidedly different attitudes towards animals and the natural world from those in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Travel narratives, along with translations of classical texts, provoked passionate debate about differences between humans and animals. These debates took place within the Little Ice Age (c. 1350-1800), a period of historically lower temperatures and changing patterns of precipitation that brought with it food shortages, famine, disease, and inexplicable populations of hungry animals suddenly descending on cities and farms. A category that included, at different times, cats, dogs, rats, badgers, otters, frogs, insects, and wolves, “vermin” provoked anxious responses on the part of early modern peoples faced with a hostile natural environment. In marked contrast to pets, livestock, and exotic creatures from other lands—the subjects of recent animal studies scholarship—vermin were direct competitors with humans for food, even as they were scapegoated for the environmental pressures that included soil depletion, erosion, inclement weather, and decadal variations in climatological conditions. Choughs, rats, and caterpillars therefore occupy an especially problematical position in early modern writing, hovering on the edge between “animal” and “nature,” organic and inorganic, sentient being or God-given force, like the easterly wind. Beginning with scriptural and naturalistic accounts of “pestilence,” Imperfect Creatures: Vermin, Literature, and the Sciences of Life, 1550-1750 locates itself in the space between theology and an emergent empiricism. It is the first full-length study to investigate the shifting, unstable, but foundational status of “vermin” as creatures and category in the early modern literary and scientific imagination.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Plagues of pests have always been a part of recorded history, but they hold special significance in the early modern period. 'Imperfect Creatures' is the first full-length study to investigate the shifting, unstable, but foundational status of “vermin” as creatures and category in the early modern literary and scientific imagination.

Plagues of pests have always been a part of recorded history, but they hold special significance in the early modern period (1550-1750), when Western Europe confronted two related sets of challenges. Western Europe and its Christian natural philosophers were faced with reports of civilizations in South and East Asia who held decidedly different attitudes towards animals and the natural world from those in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Travel narratives, along with translations of classical texts, provoked passionate debate about differences between humans and animals. These debates took place within the Little Ice Age (c. 1350-1800), a period of historically lower temperatures and changing patterns of precipitation that brought with it food shortages, famine, disease, and inexplicable populations of hungry animals suddenly descending on cities and farms. A category that included, at different times, cats, dogs, rats, badgers, otters, frogs, insects, and wolves, “vermin” provoked anxious responses on the part of early modern peoples faced with a hostile natural environment. In marked contrast to pets, livestock, and exotic creatures from other lands—the subjects of recent animal studies scholarship—vermin were direct competitors with humans for food, even as they were scapegoated for the environmental pressures that included soil depletion, erosion, inclement weather, and decadal variations in climatological conditions. Choughs, rats, and caterpillars therefore occupy an especially problematical position in early modern writing, hovering on the edge between “animal” and “nature,” organic and inorganic, sentient being or God-given force, like the easterly wind. Beginning with scriptural and naturalistic accounts of “pestilence,” Imperfect Creatures: Vermin, Literature, and the Sciences of Life, 1550-1750 locates itself in the space between theology and an emergent empiricism. It is the first full-length study to investigate the shifting, unstable, but foundational status of “vermin” as creatures and category in the early modern literary and scientific imagination.

Mode of access: Internet.