Humans and Humanism in the Works of William Baldwin

Not only speaking cats, but monstrous ice-giants, lions with scorpion tails and human faces, and grisly speaking cadavres populate William Baldwin’s works. Through these forms, Rachel will argue, Baldwin tests received premodern definitions of the human and experiments with new ones. The talk will draw on examples from across Baldwin’s writings, including not only Beware the Cat (1561) but his best-selling Treatise of Moral Philosophy (1547), The Canticles or Ballads of Solomon (1549), and The Mirror for Magistrates (1554). This research derives from Rachel’s in-progress monograph of the same title.