PIERRE BOAISTUAU - eTheses Repository - University of Birmingham

made a lasting impression on sixteenth-century people. Boaistuau noted that such
creatures generated ‘grande admiration, ou terreur’ in his readers. 948 As Lorraine
Daston and Katharine Park have suggested, depictions of monstrosity generated
feelings of fear, repugnance, but also pleasure. 949 Their purpose was not only to
provide texts with credibility, but also to warn readers of the consequences of
immorality. This use of monsters in a scheme of fear, sin and punishment was central
to Boaistuau’s project. 950
Fig. 18: A man out of whose belly issued Fig. 19: Two maidens joined together in one
the body of another man, taken from body, taken from Histoires prodigieuses (Paris,
Histoires prodigieuses (Paris, 1560) 1560)
Amongst the examples presented in Histoires prodigieuses, was a man out of whose
belly issued the body of another man (see figure 18), seen in France in 1530, a child
whose entrails were visible, two girls joined together at their backs, seen in Italy in
948 Boaistuau, P., Histoires prodigieuses, Salutation.
949 Daston, L., Park, K., Wonders and the Order of Nature, p. 176. See also Kristeva, J., Powers of
Horror: An Essay on Abjection (New York, 1982) on a more general level.
950 On this subject see Baltrusaitis, J., Réveils et prodiges: le gothique fantastique (Paris, 1960).
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