The bestiaries' sources are disparate, and it can seem that no governing principle was shaping the natural lore they drew from classical writers including Aris- totle (through intermediaries) on the one hand, and on the other, the mystical and didactic readings of nature they adapted from Physiologus and Ambrose's Hexameron. A farther second-family source, Isidore's Etymologies, inspired their organization of entries on more than a hundred animals into larger groups and subgroups on wild beasts, tamed and unthreatening wild animals, birds, fish, and serpents. . ... What are these works aiming to accomplish? We might solve the puzzle of their disparate materials by proposing that the second-family bestiaries are no more than compendia of useful material for diverse purposes. Scholars are increasingly aware, however, that medieval creativity should not be equated with original composition: literary forms such as the translation and the compendium can be interpretive works that communicate a new vision of their materials. Returned to the question of purpose, scholars have tended to pose it in dichotomous terms, assuming that the preoccupation with animal characteristics and the preoccupation with figurative meaning are competing interests in the bestiaries. - [Author]

Language: English