“Melodious Madrigals”: A Study of Animal Musicians in Early Modern England

Abstract

In early modern England, people believed in the music of the spheres, the notion that the foundations of cosmic order were a result of musical principles. The importance of music in early modern English society encouraged Renaissance thinkers to hear music in a variety of places, even within the noises of animals. I argue that numerous early modern literary texts, including works by Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Milton, indicate that animals are capable of hearing celestial music and that they are imitating the heavenly music through their own musical performance. Animals' imitation of celestial music raises the following questions: Could animal-created music be a kind of divine language? Do animals' natural musical capabilities indicate that they are more connected to the divine than human beings are? Such questions matter because animals were seen as expendable in early modern England and, therefore, this view of animals as possibly closer to the divine than human beings problematizes the widely held early modern belief that men are superior to beasts. This article contributes to the rapidly growing field of early modern animal studies by creating a connection between Renaissance views of animals and the conceptual basis for environmental stewardship in our own time.