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Monsters and the Exotic in Early Medieval England

Monsters and the Exotic in Early Medieval England

By Asa Simon Mittman and Susan M. Kim

Literature Compass, Vol. 6:2 (2009)

Marvels of the East, opening, fol. 039v-040r, early twelfth century, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
Marvels of the East, opening, fol. 039v-040r, early twelfth century, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford

Abstract: The dominant literate culture of early medieval England – male, European, and Christian – often represented itself through comparison to exotic beings and monsters, in traditions developed from native mythologies, and Classical and Biblical sources. So pervasive was this reflexive identification that the language of the monstrous occurs not only in fictional travel narratives, but at the heart of constructions of the native hero as well as the Christian saint. In these constructions we read the central contradiction in this literature: the monster must be ‘other’ and yet cannot be absolutely so; on the contrary, the monster remains recognizable, familiar, seductive, and possible.

In this essay, we discuss textual sources for the early medieval monstrous, sources ranging from Pliny to Augustine and Isidore. As we survey early medieval texts dealing with the monstrous in genres including catalog, epic, and hagiography as well as visual depictions in manuscript illustration and the mappaemundi, we consider historically particular cultural and political motivations for the representation of the monstrous in these texts, among them the early Christian conversions and shifting national boundaries.

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Introduction: Societies, medieval as well as modern, define themselves not only through introspection but through an outward gaze toward what they perceive as other cultures, other races, or other species. Through representation of and comparison to these ‘others’, societies and the subjects who comprise them can attempt to establish those qualities by which they wish to be defined.

medieval mag 39In the early Middle Ages, the dominant literate culture – male, European, and Christian – often represented itself through its comparison to exotic, fantastic beings, monsters, and monstrous humans. So pervasive was this fascination with and reflexive identification through the literally monstrous other that when experientially real and known cultural and religious others, such as Jews and Muslims, were evoked in early medieval Christian literature, they were often rendered in precisely the language of the monstrous.

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