Political Anthropology of Beast Epic

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The project focuses on medieval and early-modern beast epic, both in Latin and in the vernacular. The distinct discursive potential of the beast epic derives from the variable, not systematically determinable, interplay between specifically human features (intentionality, institutionality) on the one hand and animal instinct on the other. This enables beast epic to raise questions about widely accepted foundations of the political order in human nature. Thus, culturally central paradoxes in the foundation of social groupings, power structures, claims to power and the validity of legal rights appeared more clearly in the literary genre of beast epic than in medieval political theory. In the proposed second phase of the project the historical focus of our studies will be shifted from medieval to early-modern texts. Our attention will now be more closely directed at (1) the diachronic changes of the literary form in the context of a newly differentiated literary system and (2) the development of the specific beast epic discourses under the changed epistemic foundations in political theory. In addition, historicity as an intratextual dimension will also move more sharply into our focus. The ¿naturalizing¿ elements of the fictional arrangements, whereby the political order in the kingdom of animals remains unchanged, are sometimes modified by a reflection on the origins of political order, or by examining scenarios of its change and decay. The earlymodern texts we will study seem to put a greater emphasis on the historicity of political order. Another main research interest will be the narrative motif of the court hearing, a central feature of the early-modern fox-novel. Furthermore we will reconstruct in detail the presentation of social differences in beast epics, taking into consideration how arguments based on bodily features, genealogy, kinship or gender are adapted and transformed under the specific fictional and narrative conditions of these animal stories.