Impressionable women : a case study on human-animal reproduction in medieval literature and science
(2019) XXXIIIrd Colloquium of the International Reynard Society — Location: Charles University, Prague (11.July.2019)
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- Authors
Sciancalepore, Antonella 
- Abstract
- Zoophilia and bestiality are reproached throughout medieval culture, in theological treatises, penitentials, and literary texts. Some scientific treatises, from Isidore (8th century) to Ambroise Paré (16th century) consider bestiality to be the cause of monstrous births, while others (Albert the Great, 13th century), sticking to Aristotelian biological knowledge, firmly deny the possibility that cross-species sex may produce offspring. However, there is a type of cross-species generation that appears in both scientific and literary texts: the idea that a woman's vision or the thought of an animal during human-with-human coitus will result in the generation of a hybrid. In this sense, therefore, imagination is considered to be a powerful genetic input to animal reproduction, so powerful to allegedly be able to overcome the natural sexual incompatibility between human and non-human species. Through a discussion of both types of cross-species generation in scientific texts (e.g. Albert the Great's De animalibus, the anonymous Placides et Timéo) and in literary narratives (Guerre d'Attile, Perceforest), this paper aims to demonstrate that, when transforming an act of human-animal coupling into an act of imagination, the texts discharge the humans of their responsibility and allow for a reflection on human-animal intimacy and on life created across the human-animal continuum.
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Sciancalepore, A. (2019). Impressionable women : a case study on human-animal reproduction in medieval literature and science. XXXIIIrd Colloquium of the International Reynard Society, Charles University, Prague. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/123805