I don't feel like writing an update today. I am feeling too philosophical and lethargic. But I'm not going to go without posting, because that would be irresponsible!
So, as a compromise, I am reposting, from my Haiti blog, a little note that I wrote about Mandeville from my tent in Croix des Bouquets. In sum, I spent a few weeks in Haiti in June 2010, and aside from all the crushing sadness and beauty of the trip, one of my biggest challenges was settling on what I should bring to read. I settled for Cohen, Rilke and Borges, but I also brought my Mandeville. In the end, I'm glad I did, because I was actually very moved by the experience of reading travel literature while I was traveling and of encountering, understanding and communicating new things in much the same way that Mandeville does in the text.
I include this now because, having read and annotated the first half of the text while in Haiti, I intend to complete my work on that edition during my upcoming travels on the Big Island. So, more reflective drivel to come, I'm sure.
Anyway, from 15 June, my first full day in Haiti:
Mostly I brought poetry, things I can read and reread, but I also brought an old copy of Mandeville’s Travels. It was published in 1919 – so, ninety years ago – and though I didn’t realize it when I bought it, it’s never been read. It’s all in Middle English, which means that I am reading it slowly and savouring every sentence, but it’s also a neat and tactile interaction with my book because I’m sitting with a knife in my lap and cutting the sealed quartos of the book to turn the pages.
For those of you unfamiliar with my obsession of the last nine or ten months, Mandeville’s Travels is a thirteenth century travel narrative detailing the voyage of an English knight through the Holy Land to India and China and back to England again. Though the author adopted “Mandeville” as a pseudonym (pseudopersona?) and essentially plagiarized much of his account, it is rooted in a literary tradition spanning herbals, genuine travel accounts, encyclopedias, hagiography, and many other types of writing.
In his “travels” (or what he represents as his travels), Mandeville describes the places and people he encounters with incredible detail. What seduces me is the botanical narrative, and the rich vegetation that permeates the text. Often one reads descriptions of unusual fruits, plants, exotic animals – things modern travelers still encounter, and still struggle to describe. Now, as I am in a context where I’m doing the same thing – seeing sights I never could have imagined, and rediscovering things (like mangoes!) in their native environment only to realize how different they are...I feel even more of a kinship with Mandeville.
Initially, I found the Travels interesting because Mandeville seems in many senses to share my travel values. That is, the things I most appreciate about traveling and the things I tend to notice strike some people as unusual. I have a passing interest in monuments, historical places, beautiful architecture – but I am more allured by the idea of peoples, the rich variety of culture, and the incredible natural beauty all around me. I tend to spend most of my time examining native flora, overturning stones on the beach to pick out their different qualities, looking at how people interact with their environment in meaningful ways. The Mandevillean style of traveler, even if invented in this text, is totally sensible to me. Especially now, I enjoy vicariously experiencing the exotic, and exploring someone else’s attempt to define it and express it.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Mandeville's Thought of the Limit
Mandeville’s Thought of the Limit: The Discourse of Similarity and Difference in the Travels of Sir John Mandeville
By Sebastian Sobecki, for Review of English Studies (2002)
Any article which uses the word “epistemology” in every paragraph is guaranteed to give me a headache.
Okay, so Sobecki is concerned with Foucault and the term “transgression” as it applied to literature’s experience of Self and Other. For Sobecki’s purposes, “‘Transgression’ denotes the movement of crossing the limit between that which is known or familiar to us, the Same, and that which is unknown or does not want to be known, the Other” (330). By that definition, one might consider that “Travelling is transgression. A travel narrative, even if it portrays a purely imaginary voyage, is the verbalization and textualization of transgression, of the crossing of borders and limits” (330).
So, without getting into the questions of Mandeville’s identity or the truthfulness of the narrative, we can consider the Travels to be a transgressive act that brings readers into contact with critical questions of Selfhood – and of Otherness. Sobecki pays detailed attention to the ways in which Mandeville adheres to medieval conventions in this regard, and which aspects of his narrative mark important departures that signal the beginning of a cultural shift toward modern ideas of the Self/Other binary:
“. . . medieval writers’ categories of perception frequently reflect group values and group tendencies to assert auctoritas for themselves. Their so-called ‘lack of originality’ and their routine invocation of past masters are expressions of their own ‘anxiety of influence’” (331). This mentality is reflected in the understanding of the Other: “‘Originality’, the unorthodox, the new, the dangerous – all those are names for the Other, which poses a permanent threat to cultures still in the process of consolidating their identity” (331). Europe boasts just such a culture, especially since it is “organized by a superstructural ideology . . . religion” (331).
And so, we have Mandeville, and his voyage – and act of transgression – that causes his readers, wrapped comfortably in their selfhood, to butt up against the alarming Other. In this context, “Reading becomes the psychological medium for the complex encounter with one’s macrospatial world view” (331), and “the narrative persona [of Mandeville] experiences the Other representatively for the reader” (331).
“In the Travels, the secret limit at the heart of transgression is permeable from both sides of the divide. With astonishing ease, Mandeville presents the limit not as a border between the mutually exclusive ‘us’ and ‘them’, but as a point at which cultural exchange is possible” (334). This is one of the key points at which Mandeville departs from the conventions observed by his predecessors and contemporaries alike. “This cultural dialogue is grounded in Mandeville’s enormous talent for empathy with the heavily stereotyped and even imagined Other” (334).
Where does the Other exist? The cultures Mandeville encounters (and the spaces they inhabit) have been described by some scholars as ‘mirror societies’; however, this term is problematic, as it assumes “an inversion of one’s own society” (334). This is not what Mandeville presents. Rather, “They are by far more complex in structure in purpose, and they illustrate a whole range of theological and moral concerns immediate to Mandeville’s contemporaries rather than simply mirroring Western Christendom” (334).
In bringing the reader to a point of exchange with Otherness, Mandeville employs the “brilliant stratagem of inverting the roles of reader and text” (338). Understanding the Other as represented in the text leads to an inevitable reflection on Self. “The result is a lateral shift in the experience of reading the text from ‘I read the text’ Mandeville takes his reader to ‘the text reads me’. This transition from reader-as-reader to reader-as-text forms part of the reversal of the subject (similarity) and the object (difference) of the intricate grammar of the Travels’ epistemological discourse” (338). The resulting intimacy of Self and Other creates a different space from that existing within other travel narratives.
Sobecki points to an important example that illustrates Mandeville’s means of approaching the Other which also happens to overlap with my botanical interest in the text. This relates to Mandeville’s language in the passage in which he introduces the reader to the concept of bananas. No term yet exists for this specific object, though obvious words suggest themselves that would give readers a simple understanding – for example, as Sobecki suggests, he might have referred to them as “yellow fruit”. However, rather than relating bananas in terms that embellish their strangeness or blandly generalize them, he seeks similarities between the known and the similar, and the exotic (in this case, the banana). So it is that he makes bananas into a Christian symbol, which displays in its center the Holy Cross. So it is than an exotic object, on the one hand representing the Other, becomes in Mandeville’s narrative a link to the Self as well.
This is consistent throughout the Travels: “Instead of propagating difference Mandeville stresses similarity. He draws a map of our limitations as every encounter with the Other generously contributes to more clarify on the mappa mundi of medieval epistemology” (342). Further, “This shift from the episteme of difference . . . to the new and more self-confident episteme of curiositas, which does not attempt to explain away the Other as a menace to religious and political stability, underlies Mandeville’s astonishing encounters with foreign cultures. Curiositas urges the traveller to explore the limits and to engage willingly with the Unknown” (342).
Today is no different, really. It’s the difference between a business trip, a package vacation, a “humanitarian holiday” and a solo backpacker setting out with a one-way ticket. Your purpose and your personal philosophy dictate, at least, what kind of traveller you become – though I’m not clever enough to say how they speak to our modern culture. At the end of the day, I hope I can be a Mandeville and not a Margery, and as I turn my thoughts to my next foray into new places, I hope my transgressive acts push the limits between Self and Other and allow me to feel out the shape of the Unknown – even if I secretly still believe it’s Unknowable.
By Sebastian Sobecki, for Review of English Studies (2002)
Any article which uses the word “epistemology” in every paragraph is guaranteed to give me a headache.
Okay, so Sobecki is concerned with Foucault and the term “transgression” as it applied to literature’s experience of Self and Other. For Sobecki’s purposes, “‘Transgression’ denotes the movement of crossing the limit between that which is known or familiar to us, the Same, and that which is unknown or does not want to be known, the Other” (330). By that definition, one might consider that “Travelling is transgression. A travel narrative, even if it portrays a purely imaginary voyage, is the verbalization and textualization of transgression, of the crossing of borders and limits” (330).
So, without getting into the questions of Mandeville’s identity or the truthfulness of the narrative, we can consider the Travels to be a transgressive act that brings readers into contact with critical questions of Selfhood – and of Otherness. Sobecki pays detailed attention to the ways in which Mandeville adheres to medieval conventions in this regard, and which aspects of his narrative mark important departures that signal the beginning of a cultural shift toward modern ideas of the Self/Other binary:
“. . . medieval writers’ categories of perception frequently reflect group values and group tendencies to assert auctoritas for themselves. Their so-called ‘lack of originality’ and their routine invocation of past masters are expressions of their own ‘anxiety of influence’” (331). This mentality is reflected in the understanding of the Other: “‘Originality’, the unorthodox, the new, the dangerous – all those are names for the Other, which poses a permanent threat to cultures still in the process of consolidating their identity” (331). Europe boasts just such a culture, especially since it is “organized by a superstructural ideology . . . religion” (331).
And so, we have Mandeville, and his voyage – and act of transgression – that causes his readers, wrapped comfortably in their selfhood, to butt up against the alarming Other. In this context, “Reading becomes the psychological medium for the complex encounter with one’s macrospatial world view” (331), and “the narrative persona [of Mandeville] experiences the Other representatively for the reader” (331).
“In the Travels, the secret limit at the heart of transgression is permeable from both sides of the divide. With astonishing ease, Mandeville presents the limit not as a border between the mutually exclusive ‘us’ and ‘them’, but as a point at which cultural exchange is possible” (334). This is one of the key points at which Mandeville departs from the conventions observed by his predecessors and contemporaries alike. “This cultural dialogue is grounded in Mandeville’s enormous talent for empathy with the heavily stereotyped and even imagined Other” (334).
Where does the Other exist? The cultures Mandeville encounters (and the spaces they inhabit) have been described by some scholars as ‘mirror societies’; however, this term is problematic, as it assumes “an inversion of one’s own society” (334). This is not what Mandeville presents. Rather, “They are by far more complex in structure in purpose, and they illustrate a whole range of theological and moral concerns immediate to Mandeville’s contemporaries rather than simply mirroring Western Christendom” (334).
In bringing the reader to a point of exchange with Otherness, Mandeville employs the “brilliant stratagem of inverting the roles of reader and text” (338). Understanding the Other as represented in the text leads to an inevitable reflection on Self. “The result is a lateral shift in the experience of reading the text from ‘I read the text’ Mandeville takes his reader to ‘the text reads me’. This transition from reader-as-reader to reader-as-text forms part of the reversal of the subject (similarity) and the object (difference) of the intricate grammar of the Travels’ epistemological discourse” (338). The resulting intimacy of Self and Other creates a different space from that existing within other travel narratives.
Sobecki points to an important example that illustrates Mandeville’s means of approaching the Other which also happens to overlap with my botanical interest in the text. This relates to Mandeville’s language in the passage in which he introduces the reader to the concept of bananas. No term yet exists for this specific object, though obvious words suggest themselves that would give readers a simple understanding – for example, as Sobecki suggests, he might have referred to them as “yellow fruit”. However, rather than relating bananas in terms that embellish their strangeness or blandly generalize them, he seeks similarities between the known and the similar, and the exotic (in this case, the banana). So it is that he makes bananas into a Christian symbol, which displays in its center the Holy Cross. So it is than an exotic object, on the one hand representing the Other, becomes in Mandeville’s narrative a link to the Self as well.
This is consistent throughout the Travels: “Instead of propagating difference Mandeville stresses similarity. He draws a map of our limitations as every encounter with the Other generously contributes to more clarify on the mappa mundi of medieval epistemology” (342). Further, “This shift from the episteme of difference . . . to the new and more self-confident episteme of curiositas, which does not attempt to explain away the Other as a menace to religious and political stability, underlies Mandeville’s astonishing encounters with foreign cultures. Curiositas urges the traveller to explore the limits and to engage willingly with the Unknown” (342).
Today is no different, really. It’s the difference between a business trip, a package vacation, a “humanitarian holiday” and a solo backpacker setting out with a one-way ticket. Your purpose and your personal philosophy dictate, at least, what kind of traveller you become – though I’m not clever enough to say how they speak to our modern culture. At the end of the day, I hope I can be a Mandeville and not a Margery, and as I turn my thoughts to my next foray into new places, I hope my transgressive acts push the limits between Self and Other and allow me to feel out the shape of the Unknown – even if I secretly still believe it’s Unknowable.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Science and the Sense of Self (article)
Science and the Sense of Self: The Medieval Background of a Modern Confrontation
By Lynn White Jr., for Daedalus (1978)
This article is a bit heady, but is mostly comprised of a discussion of the medieval conceptions of nature, the individual and the sacred, and the origins of scientific thought in Europe. It makes some interesting notes on the desacralization of nature that speak to the world culture inherited by Mandeville.
One of the early interesting discussions concerns the Law of Nature as articulated by Roger Bacon. This Law is “inherent in God’s purpose for all his creatures” (48) and “God is chiefly praised by the perfection with which his creatures exist according to the laws that he has established for and in them” (48). This may be a stretch, but I think that the mark of Christ on pre-Christian nature and peoples may be evidence of the same.
White marks a cultural shift from pagan to Christian values as they prevail in wider society, a shift that dramatically changes how people conceive of nature. While it forms the foundation of pagan beliefs, which celebrate the spirits of place and animistic power, nature is desacralized through “belief in an all-powerful and absolutely transcendent God” (49). In Judaism and, later, Christianity, nature is mastered – not worshipped.
As White notes, “Since they awaited the end of the world momentarily, the early Christians had little interest in science, the study of something that would shortly turn to ashes” (49). However, this thought is part of an interesting sequence. Though the lasting import of science is undermined, it remains a marker, in some sense, of Christ’s presence in the world (through study of nature). A false dichotomy is created between the natural and the sacred. Or, nature and natural objects are not permitted to be sacred in themselves – only in the degree to which they manifest Christ within them.
But as nature is desacralized, and natural spaces and wilderness, the desecration of what is pristine and wild is normalized through essentially violent and disruptive acts such as pilgrimage and crusades and expansion of civilization. Intrusion into wilderness, which has been robbed of its animistic power, becomes a means of empowering (falsely but demonstratively) the Christian faith.
This weird suspension between the sacred and profane in the power granted to nature creates an uncomfortable space for Mandeville to inherit in his discussion of nature and natural objects in the Travels. He is, in effect, a secular traveler (though he does discuss pilgrimage and revelation); his purpose is not to edify but delight, and many of the most compelling elements of his narrative are natural ones. He is not part of “the great waves of pilgrims . . . who swept eastward to experience for themselves the dust and heat and thirst of the roads of Palestine, and who walked the Via Dolorosa on bloody knees” (52).
He is not clearly part of the crowed who asserted that “Piety demanded empirical experience” (52). But he walks a fine line between reason and revelation that serves as an early enough marker of an important schism in Western thought and culture. One could locate that schism earlier in the works of philosophers, theologians and scientific thinkers, but I think its clear manifestation in literature is more telltale of its prevalence in the wider culture.
Shit, this makes my head hurt.
By Lynn White Jr., for Daedalus (1978)
This article is a bit heady, but is mostly comprised of a discussion of the medieval conceptions of nature, the individual and the sacred, and the origins of scientific thought in Europe. It makes some interesting notes on the desacralization of nature that speak to the world culture inherited by Mandeville.
One of the early interesting discussions concerns the Law of Nature as articulated by Roger Bacon. This Law is “inherent in God’s purpose for all his creatures” (48) and “God is chiefly praised by the perfection with which his creatures exist according to the laws that he has established for and in them” (48). This may be a stretch, but I think that the mark of Christ on pre-Christian nature and peoples may be evidence of the same.
White marks a cultural shift from pagan to Christian values as they prevail in wider society, a shift that dramatically changes how people conceive of nature. While it forms the foundation of pagan beliefs, which celebrate the spirits of place and animistic power, nature is desacralized through “belief in an all-powerful and absolutely transcendent God” (49). In Judaism and, later, Christianity, nature is mastered – not worshipped.
As White notes, “Since they awaited the end of the world momentarily, the early Christians had little interest in science, the study of something that would shortly turn to ashes” (49). However, this thought is part of an interesting sequence. Though the lasting import of science is undermined, it remains a marker, in some sense, of Christ’s presence in the world (through study of nature). A false dichotomy is created between the natural and the sacred. Or, nature and natural objects are not permitted to be sacred in themselves – only in the degree to which they manifest Christ within them.
But as nature is desacralized, and natural spaces and wilderness, the desecration of what is pristine and wild is normalized through essentially violent and disruptive acts such as pilgrimage and crusades and expansion of civilization. Intrusion into wilderness, which has been robbed of its animistic power, becomes a means of empowering (falsely but demonstratively) the Christian faith.
This weird suspension between the sacred and profane in the power granted to nature creates an uncomfortable space for Mandeville to inherit in his discussion of nature and natural objects in the Travels. He is, in effect, a secular traveler (though he does discuss pilgrimage and revelation); his purpose is not to edify but delight, and many of the most compelling elements of his narrative are natural ones. He is not part of “the great waves of pilgrims . . . who swept eastward to experience for themselves the dust and heat and thirst of the roads of Palestine, and who walked the Via Dolorosa on bloody knees” (52).
He is not clearly part of the crowed who asserted that “Piety demanded empirical experience” (52). But he walks a fine line between reason and revelation that serves as an early enough marker of an important schism in Western thought and culture. One could locate that schism earlier in the works of philosophers, theologians and scientific thinkers, but I think its clear manifestation in literature is more telltale of its prevalence in the wider culture.
Shit, this makes my head hurt.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
A Fifteenth Century Botanical Glossary (article)
A Fifteenth Century Botanical Glossary
By Jerry Stannard, for Isis (1964)
In this article Stannard discusses “a glossary of plants, minerals, and animal products used as drugs plus a few miscellaneous items denoting pharmaceutical equipment and other matters of interest to the physician and apothecary” (353-4). This glossary, contained in a manuscript dating to 1475, takes the form of columned entries that name and describe specific items (for example, a plant, and its corresponding medicinal properties, means of identification, provenance, synonyms, and other information).
Says Stannard, “Of the 309 entries, the majority, some 278, refer to plants” (354). Stannard then goes on to discuss some of the sources for the information contained in the botanical glossary and a brief timeline of the native Anglo-Saxon botanical tradition.
What interests me about this article is the mentions it makes of culture. For example, Stannard writes:
“To the rustic or to those who looked for edification from a world endowed with moral reminders, the shape of the leaves often suggested animal, bird, or human forms. From these resemblances, usually quite fanciful, moral allegories were often developed” (360).
I think we see this to some extent in the Travels, at least in the instances of moral nature that occur at reasonably frequent intervals. This explains, for example, the supposed cross-shape visible in the center of a banana cut cross-wise, which points us to the readiness of people in the region to receive the Christian faith.
Stannard also discusses “the doctrine of signatures. According to this belief, a plant indicates by its mere external appearance the disease or portion of the body for which it was intended and for which it was, for that reason, of special therapeutic value” (361). I’m not sure this has specific application to Mandeville, but it does give a name to a phenomenon of which I was already aware and struggled to communicate clearly on the surprisingly frequent occasions on which it arises in daily conversation. No, really – you’d be surprised how often I’ve discussed “the doctrine of signatures” and didn’t know what the hell to call it.
Later in the article, Stannard mentions analogy:
“The use of analogy in plant description is as old as Theophrastus and is a particularly common device in nonbotanical writings when mention of a plant is required, but where science can be, momentarily at least, ignored or subordinated to poetry” (362). Again, of no specific application to Mandeville (or at least nothing obviously striking), but I think this idea is present in the Travels: though SJM sometimes plays the naturalist, he plays just as often the poet and storyteller. Plants often become cultural objects, not scientific specimens.
Lastly, Stannard points to the medieval “belief that by examining the etymology of the name of a drug, something of value might be learned concerning its medicinal uses” (365). Such a practice might not point to the modern, scientifically proven properties of the plant, but it might well point to how the plants were received as useful, practicable cultural objects.
So, A Fifteenth Century Botanical Glossary. Though it is an examination of a primary text with no relation to the Travels, still it contains some interesting tools for thinking about how plants are given over to the audience by Mandeville.
By Jerry Stannard, for Isis (1964)
In this article Stannard discusses “a glossary of plants, minerals, and animal products used as drugs plus a few miscellaneous items denoting pharmaceutical equipment and other matters of interest to the physician and apothecary” (353-4). This glossary, contained in a manuscript dating to 1475, takes the form of columned entries that name and describe specific items (for example, a plant, and its corresponding medicinal properties, means of identification, provenance, synonyms, and other information).
Says Stannard, “Of the 309 entries, the majority, some 278, refer to plants” (354). Stannard then goes on to discuss some of the sources for the information contained in the botanical glossary and a brief timeline of the native Anglo-Saxon botanical tradition.
What interests me about this article is the mentions it makes of culture. For example, Stannard writes:
“To the rustic or to those who looked for edification from a world endowed with moral reminders, the shape of the leaves often suggested animal, bird, or human forms. From these resemblances, usually quite fanciful, moral allegories were often developed” (360).
I think we see this to some extent in the Travels, at least in the instances of moral nature that occur at reasonably frequent intervals. This explains, for example, the supposed cross-shape visible in the center of a banana cut cross-wise, which points us to the readiness of people in the region to receive the Christian faith.
Stannard also discusses “the doctrine of signatures. According to this belief, a plant indicates by its mere external appearance the disease or portion of the body for which it was intended and for which it was, for that reason, of special therapeutic value” (361). I’m not sure this has specific application to Mandeville, but it does give a name to a phenomenon of which I was already aware and struggled to communicate clearly on the surprisingly frequent occasions on which it arises in daily conversation. No, really – you’d be surprised how often I’ve discussed “the doctrine of signatures” and didn’t know what the hell to call it.
Later in the article, Stannard mentions analogy:
“The use of analogy in plant description is as old as Theophrastus and is a particularly common device in nonbotanical writings when mention of a plant is required, but where science can be, momentarily at least, ignored or subordinated to poetry” (362). Again, of no specific application to Mandeville (or at least nothing obviously striking), but I think this idea is present in the Travels: though SJM sometimes plays the naturalist, he plays just as often the poet and storyteller. Plants often become cultural objects, not scientific specimens.
Lastly, Stannard points to the medieval “belief that by examining the etymology of the name of a drug, something of value might be learned concerning its medicinal uses” (365). Such a practice might not point to the modern, scientifically proven properties of the plant, but it might well point to how the plants were received as useful, practicable cultural objects.
So, A Fifteenth Century Botanical Glossary. Though it is an examination of a primary text with no relation to the Travels, still it contains some interesting tools for thinking about how plants are given over to the audience by Mandeville.
Monday, December 13, 2010
The Lemon in China and Elsewhere (article)
The Lemon in China and Elsewhere
By Berthold Laufer, for Journal of the American Oriental Society (1934)
Okay, let me preface this (because I can never focus, damnit) by saying that I have a few articles by Laufer on a variety of topics and I quite like him.
The Lemon in China and Elsewhere: this article is mostly irrelevant, but it presents a discussion of the earliest records of lemons as a medicinal and edible resource in Indian, Chinese, Arabic and European literature. It makes useful reference to Friar Odoric and Ibn Battuta.
(Speaking of which, votes: should I re-read Ibn Battuta? His travel narrative was assigned to me by an enthusiastic art history professor who was teaching a class on Islamic art that I ended up dropping like acid. But I still read Ibn Battuta, because he seemed cool, and my vague, useless recollection of the text is positive. Thoughts?)
I’m skipping over the majority of the article and jumping to the last few pages, where Laufer brings in some of the later European threads of the lemon story. If it becomes important later, note to self: the majority of the article is a detailed chronicle of the lemon as it moves through Eastern literature.
On to Europe: “The earliest references to lemons in India on the part of European travelers are by the two friars, Odoric of Pordenone and Jordanus” (157). Arabic writers note the fruit much earlier (lemons make frequent appearances in Arabian Nights) and Ibn Battuta, like Odoric, details their use in deterring and removing stubborn leeches. Jordanus speaks to the diversity of lemons – some sweet, some sour. Eventually, as Laufer notes, the lemon migrates to Europe and becomes well established in Italy and then Germany and France. It is not until the reign of James I that lemons are definitely cultivated in England.
Is Laufer still alive? He might document the migration of lemons to North America, right to the point that coastal eccentric Jean-Marc planted a huge organic fruit garden/grove in his greenhouse on Denny Island, across the channel from Bella Bella.
By Berthold Laufer, for Journal of the American Oriental Society (1934)
Okay, let me preface this (because I can never focus, damnit) by saying that I have a few articles by Laufer on a variety of topics and I quite like him.
The Lemon in China and Elsewhere: this article is mostly irrelevant, but it presents a discussion of the earliest records of lemons as a medicinal and edible resource in Indian, Chinese, Arabic and European literature. It makes useful reference to Friar Odoric and Ibn Battuta.
(Speaking of which, votes: should I re-read Ibn Battuta? His travel narrative was assigned to me by an enthusiastic art history professor who was teaching a class on Islamic art that I ended up dropping like acid. But I still read Ibn Battuta, because he seemed cool, and my vague, useless recollection of the text is positive. Thoughts?)
I’m skipping over the majority of the article and jumping to the last few pages, where Laufer brings in some of the later European threads of the lemon story. If it becomes important later, note to self: the majority of the article is a detailed chronicle of the lemon as it moves through Eastern literature.
On to Europe: “The earliest references to lemons in India on the part of European travelers are by the two friars, Odoric of Pordenone and Jordanus” (157). Arabic writers note the fruit much earlier (lemons make frequent appearances in Arabian Nights) and Ibn Battuta, like Odoric, details their use in deterring and removing stubborn leeches. Jordanus speaks to the diversity of lemons – some sweet, some sour. Eventually, as Laufer notes, the lemon migrates to Europe and becomes well established in Italy and then Germany and France. It is not until the reign of James I that lemons are definitely cultivated in England.
Is Laufer still alive? He might document the migration of lemons to North America, right to the point that coastal eccentric Jean-Marc planted a huge organic fruit garden/grove in his greenhouse on Denny Island, across the channel from Bella Bella.
Friday, December 10, 2010
European Voyages in the Indian Ocean and Caspian Sea (article)
European Voyages in the Indian Ocean and Caspian Sea (12th – 15th Centuries)
By Jean Richard, for Iran (1968)
Lord, is this article in rough shape. I read it during one of the moment where I gave in to my base urges: I dragged my ridiculously comfortable second-hand recliner in front of my woodstove, poured myself a glass of wine, and did my reading curled up like a cat in front of the fire. A spark burned a hole through the first three pages of the article, and there are enthusiastic wine stains on most of the pages too. Sorry, Jean Richard.
Most of the research I did over the summer was conducted in my tent, which was pitched at the edge of a cliff overlooking Fitzhugh and Hakai Pass, or on thumping, cacophonous boat rides between Bella Bella and far-flung coastal wilderness gems like Koeye and Goose Island. My copy of the Metrical Version of the Travels spent a brief moment in the sea (I caught it before it sank over the side of the boat) and some of my books still carry a lingering wisp of driftwood firesmoke, splashes of single malt, and the fresh scent of big wilderness.
It’s okay. In a way, it’s like field research. Parts of my thesis will be written while I am in transit, a road- (or ocean-) weary traveler reflecting (with some fondness for embellishment) on matters of dubious import and relevance.
Anyway, on to the European Voyages. This article provides a brief catalogue and discussion of the European presence in the Indian Ocean and Caspian Sea during the period mentioned in the title. It also makes interesting notes on European use of indigenous trade routes in the area.
Of momentary interest to my research is Richard’s thought on William of Rubruck’s contributions to geography and cartography: Rubruck is the first to note that the Caspian Sea is not, in fact, a gulf leading to the “Oceanic Sea” but a sea itself. Also, Richard makes some brief remarks about the center of the pepper trade on the Malabar coast, “a place where there had lived a rich and influential Christian community since the sixth century” (47).
It’s official: my completely useless preamble is significantly longer than my reflections on the article I’m meant to be discussing. I should probably send a fruit basket or a sorry bundle of posies to my unwitting committee. I’m fun to talk to, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the first draft on my thesis is primarily comprised of an enthusiastic attempt to phonetically transcribe the amazing sounds the ravens make on my roof to wake me up every morning.
By Jean Richard, for Iran (1968)
Lord, is this article in rough shape. I read it during one of the moment where I gave in to my base urges: I dragged my ridiculously comfortable second-hand recliner in front of my woodstove, poured myself a glass of wine, and did my reading curled up like a cat in front of the fire. A spark burned a hole through the first three pages of the article, and there are enthusiastic wine stains on most of the pages too. Sorry, Jean Richard.
Most of the research I did over the summer was conducted in my tent, which was pitched at the edge of a cliff overlooking Fitzhugh and Hakai Pass, or on thumping, cacophonous boat rides between Bella Bella and far-flung coastal wilderness gems like Koeye and Goose Island. My copy of the Metrical Version of the Travels spent a brief moment in the sea (I caught it before it sank over the side of the boat) and some of my books still carry a lingering wisp of driftwood firesmoke, splashes of single malt, and the fresh scent of big wilderness.
It’s okay. In a way, it’s like field research. Parts of my thesis will be written while I am in transit, a road- (or ocean-) weary traveler reflecting (with some fondness for embellishment) on matters of dubious import and relevance.
Anyway, on to the European Voyages. This article provides a brief catalogue and discussion of the European presence in the Indian Ocean and Caspian Sea during the period mentioned in the title. It also makes interesting notes on European use of indigenous trade routes in the area.
Of momentary interest to my research is Richard’s thought on William of Rubruck’s contributions to geography and cartography: Rubruck is the first to note that the Caspian Sea is not, in fact, a gulf leading to the “Oceanic Sea” but a sea itself. Also, Richard makes some brief remarks about the center of the pepper trade on the Malabar coast, “a place where there had lived a rich and influential Christian community since the sixth century” (47).
It’s official: my completely useless preamble is significantly longer than my reflections on the article I’m meant to be discussing. I should probably send a fruit basket or a sorry bundle of posies to my unwitting committee. I’m fun to talk to, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the first draft on my thesis is primarily comprised of an enthusiastic attempt to phonetically transcribe the amazing sounds the ravens make on my roof to wake me up every morning.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Interlude
Reflective Interlude (because sometimes your stomach twists in a knot when you look at the daunting stack of articles on your desk, and you have to take a deep breath and dig down to find the roots of your interest and passion).
Throughout my childhood, I spent a lot of time with an amazing man by the name of Ed (“Pops”) Martin. Pops was a community icon, well known for his incredible ability as a master storyteller.
When my father migrated to Bella Bella thirty-five years ago from his home in Ontario, Pops was one of his first friends in this small indigenous community. In fact, Pops took him in and adopted him, under Heiltsuk law, as his son.
In our culture and under our law, the family links you forge through traditional adoption are strong as blood ties, and weave you into a whole family. So, Pops took in my brother and I, when we came along, as his grandchildren. I grew up listening to his stories.
Pops had a rough go under the residential school system, and when he returned to Bella Bella to pick up the pieces of his life, he put away our culture and our language in a place far from his daily life. Throughout most of his adulthood, he repressed them. It wasn’t until late in his life that he let them back in, and to everyone’s amazement (and joy), his powerful grasp of our traditional language and the First Generation stories that tell our history as a people remained intact.
Woven together with his own life’s story – his experience on the land as a trapper and in the variety of occupations he adopted in his life – his recollections of family moments and the history of our community – the traditional narratives and oral historical methods that helped him to preserve a piece of our culture we nearly lost – the greater story that Ed told, piece by piece, throughout his life, was compelling and beautiful to say the very least.
I remember him admonishing me, when I asked him why he was telling me the same traditional story he’d told me the day before, that we learn by repetition and reinvention. He never told stories the exact same way, though he told them dozens and hundreds of times in his old age. Sometimes an image or a phrase or an event would migrate from one story to another. Sometimes the sequence of events would change. Sometimes the raven would transform into a loon or a deer or a wolf. Sometimes the moral would be located in a different moment, a different sentiment, a different sentence.
And sometimes, it was hard to discern where Pops’ life left off and the storytelling began. Sometimes, in his stories, he was the trickster raven. Sometimes his fishing buddies in a fond recollection of the cannery days seemed pretty similar to the figures of myth and legend. But what it taught me was that our identity as indigenous people is inextricably linked to place, and the stories associated with those places. I am the places my people come from, and I am the raven and the wolf and the deer and the First Woman. And in the end, what I amount to is just a story (I hope it’s a good one).
Maybe what appeals to me most about Mandeville is the space he creates to wear him like a garment. “He” is a fabrication. There is no Mandeville, and everyone is Mandeville. He is not rooted to just one place, one origin – he uproots, and transplants himself in a diverse range of wild and beautiful places. And in doing so – through inventing an identity that is inextricably linked with a rambling concept of nature and place – by inventing a self that is reflects a compelling impression of the exotic – by inventing a story that is many narratives, all of them invented and true even if they are not real – in doing all these things, if you read them just the right way, he teaches you how to invent yourself through storytelling.
It’s the same thing, really, that Pops used to do. In their way, they were both trickster-figures. They both blurred the boundaries between invention and recollection, roots and imagination, culture and perception. It’s not about fact or truth. It’s about how you receive the story, how you adopt it, and how you pass it on. That’s why I don’t care, frankly, who the “real” author of the Travels might be. That’s why I don’t mind that people have proven (Heavens, no!) that the narrative contains invention and plagiarism. At the end of the day, don’t you fall asleep imagining yourself traversing those incredible landscapes? Don’t you wish you could sit down across the table from Mandeville-the-imagined-figure, put down a bottle of bourbon, and start swapping stories like a couple of old soldiers – like a pair of old friends?
I miss Pops. He’s one of those people whose loss can never be reconciled. It’s been years since he passed away, but when I close my eyes, I can still see every wrinkle with perfect clarity. I can still see his twisted, arthritic hands gesturing wildly to punctuate an enthusiastic story. I can still hear every nuance of his cracking voice. I think he would have liked Mandeville. I think, next summer, that I’ll take a copy of the Travels to his mortuary pole with a bottle of bourbon and share some Mandeville stories with him. I’m not very good at compartmentalizing – I’ll probably end up weaving in some threads of Heiltsuk lore, and even some fond recollections of special moments I shared with my Pops. But that’s fitting, isn’t it?
The truth about stories, huh.
Throughout my childhood, I spent a lot of time with an amazing man by the name of Ed (“Pops”) Martin. Pops was a community icon, well known for his incredible ability as a master storyteller.
When my father migrated to Bella Bella thirty-five years ago from his home in Ontario, Pops was one of his first friends in this small indigenous community. In fact, Pops took him in and adopted him, under Heiltsuk law, as his son.
In our culture and under our law, the family links you forge through traditional adoption are strong as blood ties, and weave you into a whole family. So, Pops took in my brother and I, when we came along, as his grandchildren. I grew up listening to his stories.
Pops had a rough go under the residential school system, and when he returned to Bella Bella to pick up the pieces of his life, he put away our culture and our language in a place far from his daily life. Throughout most of his adulthood, he repressed them. It wasn’t until late in his life that he let them back in, and to everyone’s amazement (and joy), his powerful grasp of our traditional language and the First Generation stories that tell our history as a people remained intact.
Woven together with his own life’s story – his experience on the land as a trapper and in the variety of occupations he adopted in his life – his recollections of family moments and the history of our community – the traditional narratives and oral historical methods that helped him to preserve a piece of our culture we nearly lost – the greater story that Ed told, piece by piece, throughout his life, was compelling and beautiful to say the very least.
I remember him admonishing me, when I asked him why he was telling me the same traditional story he’d told me the day before, that we learn by repetition and reinvention. He never told stories the exact same way, though he told them dozens and hundreds of times in his old age. Sometimes an image or a phrase or an event would migrate from one story to another. Sometimes the sequence of events would change. Sometimes the raven would transform into a loon or a deer or a wolf. Sometimes the moral would be located in a different moment, a different sentiment, a different sentence.
And sometimes, it was hard to discern where Pops’ life left off and the storytelling began. Sometimes, in his stories, he was the trickster raven. Sometimes his fishing buddies in a fond recollection of the cannery days seemed pretty similar to the figures of myth and legend. But what it taught me was that our identity as indigenous people is inextricably linked to place, and the stories associated with those places. I am the places my people come from, and I am the raven and the wolf and the deer and the First Woman. And in the end, what I amount to is just a story (I hope it’s a good one).
Maybe what appeals to me most about Mandeville is the space he creates to wear him like a garment. “He” is a fabrication. There is no Mandeville, and everyone is Mandeville. He is not rooted to just one place, one origin – he uproots, and transplants himself in a diverse range of wild and beautiful places. And in doing so – through inventing an identity that is inextricably linked with a rambling concept of nature and place – by inventing a self that is reflects a compelling impression of the exotic – by inventing a story that is many narratives, all of them invented and true even if they are not real – in doing all these things, if you read them just the right way, he teaches you how to invent yourself through storytelling.
It’s the same thing, really, that Pops used to do. In their way, they were both trickster-figures. They both blurred the boundaries between invention and recollection, roots and imagination, culture and perception. It’s not about fact or truth. It’s about how you receive the story, how you adopt it, and how you pass it on. That’s why I don’t care, frankly, who the “real” author of the Travels might be. That’s why I don’t mind that people have proven (Heavens, no!) that the narrative contains invention and plagiarism. At the end of the day, don’t you fall asleep imagining yourself traversing those incredible landscapes? Don’t you wish you could sit down across the table from Mandeville-the-imagined-figure, put down a bottle of bourbon, and start swapping stories like a couple of old soldiers – like a pair of old friends?
I miss Pops. He’s one of those people whose loss can never be reconciled. It’s been years since he passed away, but when I close my eyes, I can still see every wrinkle with perfect clarity. I can still see his twisted, arthritic hands gesturing wildly to punctuate an enthusiastic story. I can still hear every nuance of his cracking voice. I think he would have liked Mandeville. I think, next summer, that I’ll take a copy of the Travels to his mortuary pole with a bottle of bourbon and share some Mandeville stories with him. I’m not very good at compartmentalizing – I’ll probably end up weaving in some threads of Heiltsuk lore, and even some fond recollections of special moments I shared with my Pops. But that’s fitting, isn’t it?
The truth about stories, huh.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Presents to Princes (article)
Presents to Princes: A Bestiary of Strange and Wondrous Beasts, Once Known, for a Time Forgotten, and Rediscovered
By Helmut Nickel, for Metropolitan Museum Journal (1991)
For starters, how cool would it be to have a name like “Helmut Nickel”? I wonder if the department/my thesis committee would let me adopt a really amazing nom de plume for my thesis (if I ever finish the f-cking thing).
Okay, so this article is a discussion of some iconic creatures that persisted in the Middle Ages, appearing as heraldic beasts, features in bestiaries, pets of (and gifts to) people of rank, and through various other cultural conduits. The article is full of absolutely gorgeous illustrations, and I only wish I could see them in colour. I wish someone would make a picture book of medieval beasts. Maybe someone already has. Time to tackle AbeBooks…
I will keep my tongue between my clenched teeth and ignore the disparaging remarks that Nickel makes about Mandeville. Nickel discusses Mandeville briefly in terms of his “colourful account of the Great Khan’s court” (135), and the red skins that hang on the walls, from animals that Mandeville calls the “panters” (variously translated as “panthers” and “pandas”). Nickel notes a level of detail in Mandeville’s description of the skins that surpasses “the sources happily exploited by Sir John to flesh out his own stories” (135). As Nickel comments, this may be taken as an indication that “Sir John was not just a bald-faced liar but had some traveling experience of his own” (135). An unnecessary and unscholarly dig, and a pointless inclusion given that the extra details could just as easily be attributed to pure invention and imagination.
Okay, I didn’t keep quiet, so I might as well just say it: Nickel, I liked your article, but I think you should leave Mandeville alone. Human storytelling around the world is built on a rich foundation of loving plagiarism. Mandeville’s popularity attests to his incredible power as a storyteller. Don’t be jealous!
By Helmut Nickel, for Metropolitan Museum Journal (1991)
For starters, how cool would it be to have a name like “Helmut Nickel”? I wonder if the department/my thesis committee would let me adopt a really amazing nom de plume for my thesis (if I ever finish the f-cking thing).
Okay, so this article is a discussion of some iconic creatures that persisted in the Middle Ages, appearing as heraldic beasts, features in bestiaries, pets of (and gifts to) people of rank, and through various other cultural conduits. The article is full of absolutely gorgeous illustrations, and I only wish I could see them in colour. I wish someone would make a picture book of medieval beasts. Maybe someone already has. Time to tackle AbeBooks…
I will keep my tongue between my clenched teeth and ignore the disparaging remarks that Nickel makes about Mandeville. Nickel discusses Mandeville briefly in terms of his “colourful account of the Great Khan’s court” (135), and the red skins that hang on the walls, from animals that Mandeville calls the “panters” (variously translated as “panthers” and “pandas”). Nickel notes a level of detail in Mandeville’s description of the skins that surpasses “the sources happily exploited by Sir John to flesh out his own stories” (135). As Nickel comments, this may be taken as an indication that “Sir John was not just a bald-faced liar but had some traveling experience of his own” (135). An unnecessary and unscholarly dig, and a pointless inclusion given that the extra details could just as easily be attributed to pure invention and imagination.
Okay, I didn’t keep quiet, so I might as well just say it: Nickel, I liked your article, but I think you should leave Mandeville alone. Human storytelling around the world is built on a rich foundation of loving plagiarism. Mandeville’s popularity attests to his incredible power as a storyteller. Don’t be jealous!
Friday, December 3, 2010
Botanical Source Areas for some Oriental Spices (article)
Botanical Source-Areas for some Oriental Spices
By Robert M. Newcomb, for Economic Botany (1963)
This article is of only tangential interest to me in my research. It contains notes on the origins of a selection of spices, some of which are present in Mandeville’s travel narrative.
Newcomb speaks to a vagueness on the origin of many spices, which he argues is intentional, mostly to protect trade interests in the East. This leads to an interesting point on how merchants contributed to the obscurity around source areas:
“Tall tales and legends were promulgated as part of the camouflaging effort. Fire-breathing monsters, great carnivorous birds, perils and hardships of the sea, as well as strange and cruel tribes were supposed to isolate and guard the spice groves. Protection from the searching newcomer was thereby assured, assuming that he were not possessed of particular charms, incantations, route maps or commercial knowledge so vital for surmounting such obstacles” (127).
So, the invention (or popularization) or marvels was, served, among other things, to protect the interests of merchants in the East. This might bear in interesting ways on Mandeville’s discussion of pepper, the beasts that beset visitors to the pepper groves, and the charms (such as lemons) that will protect people who wish to harvest.
Beyond this, Newcomb maps three botanical regions as source areas for spices in Asia: India, Malaysia and South China (128). He also makes note of sources for the following spices, some of which occur in the Travels:
Anise (131)
Betel (130)
Cardamom (130)
Cassia (130)
Cinnamon (130)
Clove (130)
Cubeb (130)
Curryleaf tree (130)
Ginger (131)
Nutmeg (130)
Pepper, black (130)
Pepper, long (130)
Turmeric (131)
Zedoary (130)
By Robert M. Newcomb, for Economic Botany (1963)
This article is of only tangential interest to me in my research. It contains notes on the origins of a selection of spices, some of which are present in Mandeville’s travel narrative.
Newcomb speaks to a vagueness on the origin of many spices, which he argues is intentional, mostly to protect trade interests in the East. This leads to an interesting point on how merchants contributed to the obscurity around source areas:
“Tall tales and legends were promulgated as part of the camouflaging effort. Fire-breathing monsters, great carnivorous birds, perils and hardships of the sea, as well as strange and cruel tribes were supposed to isolate and guard the spice groves. Protection from the searching newcomer was thereby assured, assuming that he were not possessed of particular charms, incantations, route maps or commercial knowledge so vital for surmounting such obstacles” (127).
So, the invention (or popularization) or marvels was, served, among other things, to protect the interests of merchants in the East. This might bear in interesting ways on Mandeville’s discussion of pepper, the beasts that beset visitors to the pepper groves, and the charms (such as lemons) that will protect people who wish to harvest.
Beyond this, Newcomb maps three botanical regions as source areas for spices in Asia: India, Malaysia and South China (128). He also makes note of sources for the following spices, some of which occur in the Travels:
Anise (131)
Betel (130)
Cardamom (130)
Cassia (130)
Cinnamon (130)
Clove (130)
Cubeb (130)
Curryleaf tree (130)
Ginger (131)
Nutmeg (130)
Pepper, black (130)
Pepper, long (130)
Turmeric (131)
Zedoary (130)
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Some Fabulous Beasts (article)
Some Fabulous Beasts
By Margaret Robinson, for Folklore (1965)
In this article, Robinson examines the folkloric origins of some of the fantastical beasts that stand as examples of the medieval imagination. These origins she divides into categories:
“…we find that as far as written sources go we can divide them into roughly three categories: myths and legends, perpetuated in poetry and allegory; chronicles and travellers’ tales; and scientific works in natural history, botany and medicine” (275)
The interesting thing to my mind is that all three of these categories are present, to some extent, in Mandeville’s Travels. Because Mandeville adopts stray bits of whimsy, fact and invention from a diverse assemblage of sources, there are threads of science, history and literature woven into his narrative. You could call this troubling (it might, for example, make it hard to clearly discuss specific examples within the Mandeville text). However, I think it’s perfect. What appeals to me about the Travels is not the information they contain, per se. It’s how they speak to the imagination and storytelling impulses of the cultural moment they capture.
Some of Robinson’s passages seem to speak very clearly to author-personas like Mandeville, for example when she writes (of a specific kind of author)
“These writers are putting down what they believe to be true; what they have heard or read is true; or sometimes what they have heard or read but cannot quite believe to be true: there are of course a few exceptions who have crossed over the lines between credulity, wishful thinking, and downright fabrication” (277).
In other passages, there is no mystery, and she mentions Mandeville by name, for example as the final sample in a historical sequence of texts that speak of griffins and a certain type of giant ant:
“Mandeville’s ‘Travels’ collates all the evidence and concludes that it is in summer that the heat drives them underground, so that men can come and pick up the gold, but that in winter they are on the prowl in the daytime, so that the trick of the empty containers must be used. Mandeville puts this story in Taprobane, or Ceylon: his griffins are in Bachary, and can carry off to their nests a horse and its rider, or two oxen yoked together” (283).
Robinson also mentions both the barnacle goose (279) and the Tartary lamb (286) at different points in her article. Unfortunately, I did not find (as I’d hoped and expected) that she carried her thoughts to any interesting conclusions about what, in European culture, made a zoophytic hybrid like the barnacle goose or vegetable lamb seem plausible. But I suppose that every piece of scholarship I find that ignores this question deepens and widens a void that will make my discussion of it more compelling!
By Margaret Robinson, for Folklore (1965)
In this article, Robinson examines the folkloric origins of some of the fantastical beasts that stand as examples of the medieval imagination. These origins she divides into categories:
“…we find that as far as written sources go we can divide them into roughly three categories: myths and legends, perpetuated in poetry and allegory; chronicles and travellers’ tales; and scientific works in natural history, botany and medicine” (275)
The interesting thing to my mind is that all three of these categories are present, to some extent, in Mandeville’s Travels. Because Mandeville adopts stray bits of whimsy, fact and invention from a diverse assemblage of sources, there are threads of science, history and literature woven into his narrative. You could call this troubling (it might, for example, make it hard to clearly discuss specific examples within the Mandeville text). However, I think it’s perfect. What appeals to me about the Travels is not the information they contain, per se. It’s how they speak to the imagination and storytelling impulses of the cultural moment they capture.
Some of Robinson’s passages seem to speak very clearly to author-personas like Mandeville, for example when she writes (of a specific kind of author)
“These writers are putting down what they believe to be true; what they have heard or read is true; or sometimes what they have heard or read but cannot quite believe to be true: there are of course a few exceptions who have crossed over the lines between credulity, wishful thinking, and downright fabrication” (277).
In other passages, there is no mystery, and she mentions Mandeville by name, for example as the final sample in a historical sequence of texts that speak of griffins and a certain type of giant ant:
“Mandeville’s ‘Travels’ collates all the evidence and concludes that it is in summer that the heat drives them underground, so that men can come and pick up the gold, but that in winter they are on the prowl in the daytime, so that the trick of the empty containers must be used. Mandeville puts this story in Taprobane, or Ceylon: his griffins are in Bachary, and can carry off to their nests a horse and its rider, or two oxen yoked together” (283).
Robinson also mentions both the barnacle goose (279) and the Tartary lamb (286) at different points in her article. Unfortunately, I did not find (as I’d hoped and expected) that she carried her thoughts to any interesting conclusions about what, in European culture, made a zoophytic hybrid like the barnacle goose or vegetable lamb seem plausible. But I suppose that every piece of scholarship I find that ignores this question deepens and widens a void that will make my discussion of it more compelling!
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