RLFR 302
Monsters of the Renaissance
Last Offered Spring 2020
Division I
This course is not offered in the current catalog

Where did monsters appear before comics and blockbusters? Before cinematic ghosts, vampires, and zombies, the French Renaissance popularized the Scythian Lamb, the Monk Fish, the Monopod, the Wind-Eaters from the Island of Ruach, and the mythic giants Gargantua and Pantagruel. The Latin word monstrum referred to a prodigy that did not fit the laws of nature. Thus, the monster not only generated wonder, curiosity, and fear, but both challenged and disrupted normative social values. In this course, students will analyze novels, travel narratives, medical treatises, essays, and epic poems from 16th-century France, when writers, doctors, and travelers developed a critical reflection on monstrosity in order to deal with otherness. This encompassed fantastic creatures, non-human beings, and natural phenomena, as well as people whose gender, race, religion, and bodies deviated from established norms. In this course, students will think critically about race, gender, and disability, and study the complexities of fear, disgust, wonder, and fascination. Readings to include classical texts by Homer and Ovid, medieval texts like the Legend of Saint George and the Dragon, and Renaissance texts by Francois Rabelais, Jean de Léry, Marguerite de Navarre, Ambroise Paré, Michel de Montaigne, and Agrippa d’Aubigné.