XIII Colloquium of the Hispanic Association Portugueses Section of Medieval Literature

Francis of Assisi proclaimed the community of creatures and the brotherhood of species. Undoubtedly the most illustrious representative of Western thought countercurrent in the Middle Ages, the Franciscan message, whose actuality is undoubtedly, is powerfully inspired by renewed animalistic approaches in medieval literature and imaginary. This is the case, for example, of the anthropomorphic allegory of animals in bestiaries, heraldry, astrology, and the literary reconfigurations of these symbolisms. Motifs and figures such as hunting (typically centered on the pursuit of the uncatchable prey that draws the hunter to an erotic encounter), the wild man, the undine, the licantropic mutation, the zoophilia, constitute a vast and complex problem of human-animal thresholds which deserves to be (re)examined carefully by various disciplines.