Good, Common, Regular, and Orderly

Early Modern Classifications of Monstrous Births

Bibliographic Data

ID12209043
AuthorsAlan W Bates
Year2005
Volume18
Issue2
Pages141-158
Publication date2005-07-11
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial History of Medicine (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0951-631X • E-ISSN: 1477-4666
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/sochis/hki029
OpenAlexW1987633696
LanguageEN
Citations received4

In the early modern period, monstrous births were described in both popular and scholarly publications. Their interpretation as signs from God, often in response to perceived lapses in moral order, is a well-recognized aspect of the use of wonders as evidence of divine providence. This article considers an alternative reading of monsters as signs of complexity and order in the natural world. In sixteenth- and seventeenth-century France, Italy, Switzerland, and Germany, natural philosophical writers classified monsters according to their causes and morphology. These classifications implied that monsters were part of the plenitude of creation, and it is argued that they were presented to the reader as part of an exemplary order that glorified its creator. In the eighteenth century, the concept of orderly monsters, based on internal anatomy as well as external form, was used in support of the preformation hypothesis

Aesthetics · Ancient history · Art · Early modern period · Interpretation (philosophy · Linguistics · Literature · Moral order · Natural (archaeology · Order (exchange · Period (music · Reading (process · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · Gothic Literature and Media Analysis · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices · History · Philosophy

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