Animetaphors as Political Tools in Volpone by Ben Jonson, Macbeth by William Shakespeare and The Bird in a Cage by James Shirley

Abstract

The study of animals in literature and culture has always been a subject approached by many scholars from varying disciplines; yet now the animals are subject of a close scholarly investigation, delving into the deeper human connection to the animal world and calling attention to the ideas on both anthropocentrism and anti-anthropocentrism. Accordingly, when the plays of English Renaissance drama are examined in detail, it appears that it was quite popular among the then dramatists to use animal imageries to express their judgement on the political issues of state, class, and gender. In this way, while the plays offer a historical account of the understanding of the human and the animal in the Renaissance period, they also display the dramatists’ use of animetaphors to reflect their ideas on the political agenda of their age. That being the case, this dissertation sets out to examine first Volpone (1606) by Ben Jonson (1572-1637), then Macbeth (1606) by William Shakespeare (1564-1616), and lastly The Bird in a Cage (1632) by James Shirley (1596-1666), which illustrate the affinity between the use of animal imagery and political discourse. Through the close analysis of these plays, the present dissertation aims to show that the mentioned playwrights’ use of animetaphor enables their plays to be scrutinised in accordance with some of the principles of posthumanism, for a close analysis of the plays makes it clear that the playwrights, in fact, challenge the dogmatic ideals of Renaissance humanism, and the legacy of antiquity fundamentally based on the supremacy of human beings over the world of animals. Thus, this study, which has an original approach to English Renaissance drama, aims to show that powerful animal imageries in the selected plays are characterised by their obvious implication of sharp criticism of the political discourses of the Renaissance such as gender politics, economic politics, and politics in terms of domestic, national and international aspects. By doing so, this study points to, rather than a hierarchical order between human and animal, intermingled common bonds existing between them.