The Indistinct Human in Renaissance Literature ed. by Jean E. Feerick and Vin Nardizzi (review)

“What a piece of work is a man!” declares Hamlet, before locating him within a structure that, at first glance, seems hierarchical. He is situated below angels and gods, with whom he shares the qualities of “action” and “apprehension” only, and above the animals, as he is their “paragon.” However, Hamlet’s man can be compared to heavenly creatures and named the animals’ “paragon” because he contains within him aspects that are divine or bestial. If the boundary between the human and other entities is not rigid, then he is located not in a strict hierarchy but in a universe where the dividing lines do not fully separate one class of beings from another. It is the early modern perception of such porous borders between the human and what have traditionally been considered lower states of being – the animal, vegetable, or mineral – that this engaging collection of essays seeks to address. This permeability is marked by the figures of metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and analogy.

As Laurie Shannon’s chapter in the collection’s first part (of three total) notes, one of the eight uses of the word animal in Shakespeare is in Hamlet. Part 1, entitled “The Head-Piece,” consists solely of this clever essay, which sets the tone for the chapters that follow. It demonstrates that the word animal signals those moments when humanness blurs into other states of being and so can be likened to them.

The second part, “Modes of Indistinction,” incorporates three subdivisions. “Crossings,” comprising contributions from Steve Mentz and Dan Brayton, concentrates on the connections between humans and marine life in an age of expanding oceanic exploration. Mentz traces the literary similitude between two mammals, human and dolphin, which suggests the possibilities and limits of human life in or on the ocean. Brayton studies the relationship between whales and humans, particularly its political symbolism. Falling under the heading “Bodily Ingestion” is Jay Zysk’s chapter focusing on Ursula of Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair; Ursula’s designation as pig-woman reinforces, as do the title and epigraph, the statement “You are what you eat.” Paired with Zysk’s essay is Erin Ellerbeck’s, which looks at grafting, fertility, and pregnancy in The Duchess of Malfi. The third subdivision, “Technologies of Conjunction,” opens with another chapter centred on grafting, by Miranda Wilson, which explores its complexities as symbol and metaphor, as well as its utility in linking human with plant, and present with past and future. Vin Nardizzi finishes the collection’s second part with a flourish, using Stump from A Larum for London and the ways he might have appeared on the stage to investigate how wood is a constituent of the physical body and of the early modern theatre.

Six chapters also compose part 3, titled “Indistinct Bodies.” The two essays in the subsection “(Un)sexed Bodies” focus on the vegetable world. Marjorie Swann builds from the foundation of Marvell’s “vegetable love” to show its asexual implications, while Hillary M. Nunn demonstrates that the imagery of plants, frequently connected with sexuality and fertility, not only describes greensickness but also forecasts that the danger to the virgin suffering from this malady is her transformation into a plant. The final four chapters are inspired by the matter of the earth itself. Two chapters make up the section “Stony States,” discussing especially the image of the stony heart. Tiffany Jo Werth connects stone with ungodliness, and Jennifer Waldron interrogates the post-Reformation theatre in light of the blurring of the categories between stone and human. In “Soiled Bodies,” Jean E. Feerick reveals that the genre of tragedy coheres in destroying the traditional tie between aristocratic power and the land. Finally, early modern references to the lowly maggot and other insects suggest, in Ian MacInnes’s chapter, the contradictory forces of putrefaction and fertility.

Although there is repetition and only occasional glances at contemporary eco-criticism, this highly readable volume is significant in highlighting...