Howling Like Wolves, Bleating Like Lambs: Singers and the Discourse of Animality in the Late Middle Ages

Abstract

In 1247 Simon of Saint-Quentin compared Mongol song to the howling of wolves. Like Simon, authors writing about music from the late thirteenth to mid-sixteenth century often associate the singing of certain socio-linguistic groups with the vocalizations of animals. This article argues that these statements betray what Cary Wolfe has termed the discourse of animality. This discourse seeks through a process of alienation to define morally or theologically the Latin West's place in the world. Yet anthropomorphized animals in literature and song often instruct human readers/listeners in social and moral conduct. What might it mean when singers take on the voices of animals in Giovanni da Cascia's 'Agnel son bianco' and Donato da Cascia's 'Lucida pecorella'? By tracing metaphorical references to sheep, goats, and wolves in classical Roman and medieval literature, the article offers new social and political readings of these two madrigals.