Emasculation as empowerment
Lessons of beaver lore for two Italian humanists
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12529314 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kenneth Gouwens (University of Connecticut, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 536-562 |
| Publication date | 2015-07-04 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | European Review of History Revue européenne d histoire (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1350-7486 • E-ISSN: 1469-8293 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13507486.2015.1028339 |
| OpenAlex | W1855695554 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 23 |
In the sixteenth century, two Italian humanists, Paolo Giovio and Giovanni Bernardino Bonifacio, included in their imprese (personalised emblems) a portrayal of a beaver gnawing off its testicles. Since the impresa was intended to express something distinctive about its bearer, their choice of the beaver suggests that they conceived of their own masculinity in ways that seem counterintuitive. The present essay traces the story of the beaver's sacrifice to Antiquity, both classical and early Christian, and surveys the diverse interpretations of it up through the early-modern period. It details the wide constellation of meanings attached to the beaver in influential compendia of knowledge written around the time that Giovio and Bonifacio flourished, including Conrad Gesner's History of Quadrupeds and Pierio Valeriano's Hieroglyphica. Finally, it assesses how the appropriation of the beaver may have made particular sense, for different reasons, to Giovio and to Bonifacio. While these cases exemplify how animals served as enabling devices for portraying one's masculinity, the appropriation of the beaver in particular challenges historians today to reconsider what constituted acceptable masculine performance in early-modern Europe. It also serves as a caution against attributing a constant gendered meaning to even the most quintessentially male of organs
Aesthetics · Appropriation · Archaeology · Art · Beaver · Epistemology · Humanism · Ideology · Literature · Masculinity · Meaning (existential · Political science · Politics · Sacrifice · Sociology · Theology · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · Gender Studies · History · Law · Linguistics and language evolution · Medieval Literature and History · Philosophy
Historiae naturalis de quadrupedibus libri
Metaphors We Live By
The Italian Reformers 1534–1564
Potency in Fortunatus
The Body in Early Modern Italy
Pierio Valeriano on the Ill Fortune of Learned Men
Taking Positions
The Manly Masquerade
The Egyptian Renaissance
Masculine hierarchies in Roman ecclesiastical households
Meanings of Masculinity in Paolo Giovio’s “Ischian” Dialogues
The Logic of Life
Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things
The etymologies of Isidore of Seville
Myths of Renaissance Individualism
| Citations per year | 0.36 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2015 - 2026 (12) |
| Highly cited | No |