Political Anthropology of Beast Epic

该项目的重点是中世纪和现代早期的野兽史诗，无论是在拉丁语和白话。野兽史诗独特的话语潜力来自于特定的人类特征（意向性、制度性）与动物本能之间的可变的、非系统性的相互作用。这使得野兽史诗能够对人性中广泛接受的政治秩序基础提出质疑。因此，在社会群体的基础、权力结构、对权力的要求和法律的权利的有效性方面，文化中心的悖论在野兽史诗的文学体裁中比在中世纪的政治理论中表现得更明显。在项目的第二阶段，我们研究的历史重点将从中世纪转向早期现代文本。我们的注意力现在将更密切地指向：（1）在一个新分化的文学体系的背景下，文学形式的历时性变化;（2）在政治理论的认识基础发生变化的情况下，特定的野兽史诗话语的发展。此外，历史性作为一个文本内的维度也将更尖锐地进入我们的焦点。该归化动物王国的政治秩序保持不变，但小说安排的要素有时会因对政治秩序起源的反思或对政治秩序变化和衰退的考察而有所改变。我们将要研究的早期现代文本似乎更加强调政治秩序的历史性。另一个主要的研究兴趣将是法庭听证会的叙事母题，这是早期现代狐狸小说的一个中心特征。此外，我们将详细重构野兽史诗中社会差异的呈现，考虑到基于身体特征，家谱，亲属关系或性别的论点如何在这些动物故事的特定虚构和叙事条件下进行改编和转换。

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.