Keywords: Human-animal hybrids; Monstrous Races; Monstrous Births; Wild Man; Werewolves Representations of human-animal hybrids and the concept of shape-shifting in both literary sources and the visual arts captured the early modern European imagination. This is particularly evident in the prevalence of pictorial prints featuring these creatures dated in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that… Continue reading Representations of Monsters in German Renaissance Prints
Germany was increasingly referred to in nationalistic terms during the Renaissance by using phrases such as ‘we Germans’, ‘all of Germany’, and ‘common German fatherland’, even though German nationalism remained largely cultural rather than political until the nineteenth century.[i] The growing nationalistic sentiment during early modern Germany created a romanticised vision of German heritage and… Continue reading Rise of Nationalism and the Othering of Perceived Outsiders in Sixteenth-Century Germany
The concept of shape-shifting and representations of human-animal hybrids in both literary sources and the visual arts captured the early modern European imagination. This phenomenon is particularly evident in the prevalence of pictorial prints featuring these creatures dated in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, produced in the regions of Germany, around the time of… Continue reading Monstrous Women: Hair, Gender, and Sexuality in Early Modern German Prints
Old Norse literature is filled with stories of shape-shifting transformation of humans and gods alike, reflecting oral traditions of several hundred years.[i] These transformations were either voluntary, hereditary, or the result of a curse.[ii] They include The tale of Ulf (‘Wolf’), which is described in Egil’s Saga, written in Iceland in 1000 A.D., in which… Continue reading Germanic Warrior Wolf Tribes: Werewolves, Shamanism, and Outlaws
The sixteenth century was marked by a period of significant change from the Renaissance, Age of Discovery, and the Reformation that created instability and anxiety. Together with the popularity of prints and superstitious beliefs fuelled by repeated war and death from disease and famine, sixteenth-century Germany was ripe for iconography of hybrid and shape-shifting creatures… Continue reading A Brief Historical Background to the Werewolf Myth in Sixteenth-Century Germany
