At the Borders of the Human: Beasts, Bodies and Natural Philosophy in the Early Modern Period by Erica Fudge , Ruth Gilbert , Susan Wiseman Perceiving Animals: Humans and Beasts in Early Modern English Culture by Erica Fudge (review)

Abstract

AttheBorders oftheHuman.Beasts, Bodies andNatural Philosophy intheEarlyModern Period. Ed. by ERICA FUDGE, RUTH GILBERT, and SUSAN WISEMAN. Basingstoke: Macmillan;New York:St Martin'sPress. I999. xii + 369 pp. ?42.50. Perceiving Animals:HumansandBeastsin EarlyModernEnglish Culture.By ERICAFUDGE. Basingstoke: Macmillan; New York: St Martin's Press. 1999. x + 232 pp. ?42.5o. Arguably, a mark of a good conference is the 'buzz' effect, by which every paper (including, naturally,one's own) seems linked in dynamic ways to every other, an amazing number of illuminating connections are made between sessions and papers, and no defence is needed for the conference theme, its statusbeing so selfevidentlybeyond doubt. All of which goes to prove exactly how importanta topic it is and how right one was to go along. With luck, such satisfyingeuphoria lasts one out of the conferencevenue and at leasthalfan hourinto thejourney home. Perhaps a collection of essaysthat requiressimilarconnective skillsof its readers should be effective likewise, but while it is possible to make links between the various contributionsto AttheBorders oftheHuman, I am less confidentof a resultantbuzz. According to the preface, this collection investigatesdefinitionsof 'the human' in the early modern period, focusing on three particular areas where the borders between human and non-human are most challenged: human/animal; organism/ machine; physical/non-physical. This is a wide and, it transpires, diffuse remit, resulting in a lack of conviction for the collection and a lurkingsuspicion that the attempt to bring several trendy but disparatetopics under the same umbrella has proved too much. A diffuse whole does not preclude good individual elements, however:therearecertainlysome good thingshere and some intriguingassociations for the reader to make. Brian Cummings reveals the flounderingat the borders of what is mental and what isphysical,exposed by discussionsof shame, which trouble the distinctionsbetween man and beast or Spaniard and Indian. Margaret Healy offers an interesting discussion of human/inhuman behaviour which reveals the porous natureof the body, liable to invasionby devilsor (ifone isverylucky)angels, but ends at the point where fuller discussion of effortsto control these boundaries would be appropriate.The resultantsense of curtailmentis also felt when reading Alan Stewart'sandJulie Sanders'scontributions.Stewart'sdiscussionof intellectual pursuit ('the humanities') as proof of proper human status, as opposed to the nobility's preferredpursuit of hunting, contains an interestingenough description of the one-upmanshipbetween Erasmusand Bude over poverty,but failsto develop its relation to the collection's theme. Sanders's piece on the role of the midwife suffers doubly. Not only it is abbreviated, but it also seems oddly out of place. Clearly there is something worthwhile to be said about the sleight of hand of Jonson's TheMagnetic Lady,by which the substitutionsof female control of the birth chamber and literal substitutionof children can be read as a commentary on the role of midwives and suspicion of male denigration of that role, but Sanders has neither the space not the context to develop it here and I was left wishing for the differentarenathatthisparticularpiece seems to deserve. Bacon's emphasison visualproof tenuouslylinksSanders'spiece to the restof the collection and is again exploited by Erica Fudge on vivisection, and Ruth Gilbert, who declares a focus on the anatomy/erotics boundary, but in fact more simply brings together a selection of hermaphroditetexts as viewing becomes voyeurism. Peter, the Wild Boy, is also subject to a gaze that hovers between voyeurism and scientific scrutinyas Michael Newton intelligentlypresents Defoe's intriguingand generallyoverlookedAlereNATUREDelineated and the questionof where the human begins is raised. SusanW^iseman and Mary Peace furtherexplore this topic in their 264 Reviews YES, 32, 2002 discussionsof apes and women respectively,both of which left me unsure.I am not convinced that for Tyson the 'fragileborders'and 'temporallyalterablegradations' between human and ape are 'at stake' exactly. There is clearly a fascination here, but confidence in mankind'sposition at the summit of the process emanates from Tyson and denies the phrase 'at stake'.In this the early modern outlooks seem free of the paranoia of the late twentieth century. When it comes to women, of course, there is an unease, which Peace traces in terms of sentimental discourse, but while her concluding assertionthatwomen can be regardedas bestial is credible, it is not secure and is untouched in the...