The Indistinct Human in Renaissance Literature

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

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2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • Jean E. Feerick, Vin Nardizzi

      Pages 1-12

3. The Head-Piece

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 13-13

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   2. The Eight Animals in Shakespeare; or, Before the Human

      • Laurie Shannon

      Pages 15-25

4. Modes of Indistinction

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 27-27

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   2. “Half-Fish, Half-Flesh”: Dolphins, the Ocean, and Early Modern Humans

      • Steve Mentz

      Pages 29-46

   3. Royal Fish: Shakespeare’s Princely Whales

      • Dan Brayton

      Pages 47-65

   4. You Are What You Eat: Cooking and Writing Across the Species Barrier in Ben Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair

      • Jay Zysk

      Pages 67-84

   5. “A Bett’ring of Nature”: Grafting and Embryonic Development in The Duchess of Malfi

      • Erin Ellerbeck

      Pages 85-99

   6. Bastard Grafts, Crafted Fruits: Shakespeare’s Planted Families

      • Miranda Wilson

      Pages 101-117

   7. The Wooden Matter of Human Bodies: Prosthesis and Stump in A Larum for London

      • Vin Nardizzi

      Pages 119-136

5. Indistinct Bodies

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 137-137

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   2. Vegetable Love: Botany and Sexuality in Seventeenth-Century England

      • Marjorie Swann

      Pages 139-158

   3. On Vegetating Virgins: Greensickness and the Plant Realm in Early Modern Literature

      • Hillary M. Nunn

      Pages 159-177

   4. A Heart of Stone: The Ungodly in Early Modern England

      • Tiffany Jo Werth

      Pages 179-203

   5. Of Stones and Stony Hearts: Desdemona, Hermione, and Post-Reformation Theater

      • Jennifer Waldron

      Pages 205-227

   6. Groveling with Earth in Kyd and Shakespeare’s Historical Tragedies

      • Jean E. Feerick

      Pages 229-252

   7. The Politic Worm: Invertebrate Life in the Early Modern English Body

      • Ian MacInnes

      Pages 253-273

6. Back Matter

   Pages 275-292

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Argues for the necessity of a re-articulation of the differences that separated man from other forms of life. The essays in this collection argue for recognition of the persistently indistinct nature of humans, who cannot be finally divided ontologically or epistemologically from other forms of matter.

• Early Modern Literature
• England
• reformation
• Renaissance

'The Indistinct Human in Renaissance Literature is a brilliantly conceived collection that challenges the apparent stability of categories we have come to assume are fundamental to the ordering of the cosmos animal, vegetable, mineral, and, most of all, human. Its individual essays are scintillating: on every page we find a new revelation, a fresh reading of an old standard, a surprising juxtaposition, an original, and provocative argument. These essays will profoundly influence how Renaissance scholars perceive relationships between culture and environment in the period.' Karen Raber, professor of English, University of Mississippi

'A wonderfully deep and diverse collection on what may be the most important problem ecocriticism can now address: the culturally constructed boundary between human and other forms of life. With insightful essays on sea-creatures, plant-grafting, wooden legs, stony hearts, and many other topics, The Indistinct Human in Renaissance Literature

deploys Renaissance literature to recover valuable lost perspectives on the collective vitality of our planet.' Robert Watson, Distinguished Professor of English, UCLA and author of Back to Nature: The Green and the Real in the Late Renaissance

Jean E. Feerick is an assistant professor of English at Brown University. Vin Nardizzi is an assistant professor of English at the University of British Columbia.

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