Keywords
Hyena
Jeremiah
Bestiary
Sexuality
Gender
Jeremiah
Bestiary
Sexuality
Gender
How to Cite
Kraß, A. (2018). The Hyena’s Cave: ’Jeremiah’ 12.9 in Premodern Bestiaries. Interfaces: A Journal of Medieval European Literatures, (5), 111–128. https://doi.org/10.13130/interfaces-05-09
Received 2018-01-29
Accepted 2019-01-28
Published 2018-12-29
Accepted 2019-01-28
Published 2018-12-29
Abstract
The premodern bestiary tradition portrays the hyena as a creature that annually changes its sex. While the Greek Physiologus interprets it as an allegory of sexual aberration, the various versions of the Latin Physiologus read it as a symbol for religious duplicity. Since the late twelfth century, the bestiaries transform the hyena into a signifier of the abominable par excellence. Throughout the bestiary tradition, the interpretation of the hyena draws on a quotation from the Book of Jeremiah where God compares his land to a hyena's cave (Jer. 12.9).Except where otherwise noted, the content of this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Authors retain copyright of their work. The CC BY-SA 4.0 licence allows readers to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, and to remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially, as long as the original author is credited and as long as any works that are derived from the original are distributed under the same terms.
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