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Avian Hybridity in “The Squire’s Tale”: Uses of Anthropomorphism

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Rethinking Chaucerian Beasts

Part of the book series: The New Middle Ages ((TNMA))

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Abstract

In recent years, anthropomorphism has received bad press, as a simplistic or excessively sentimental mode of thought. For purposes of animal studies, the error of anthropomorphism is the presumption inherent in attributing human attributes to animals. In so doing, we deprive animals of their own subjectivity and impose what Rosi Braidotti describes as an “asymmetric relation to animals” that is “framed by power relations biased in favor of human access to the bodies of animal others.”1

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Notes

  1. Rosi Braidotti, “Animals, Anomalies, and Inorganic Others,” PMLA 124.2 (2009): 526 [526-32].

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Carolynn Van Dyke

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© 2012 Carolynn Van Dyke

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Schotland, S.D. (2012). Avian Hybridity in “The Squire’s Tale”: Uses of Anthropomorphism. In: Van Dyke, C. (eds) Rethinking Chaucerian Beasts. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137040732_8

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