From monstrous bodies to fantastical representations: the case of Ambroise Paré's Monsters and Marvels.

Abstract

The article analyzes how Ambroise Paré’s Monsters and Prodigies (1575)—a Renaissance treatise by a royal surgeon—functions as a cultural text that articulates the transition from the notion of the monstrous body to its later development as a fantastic representation. Through a critical examination of Paré’s extensive classification of monstrous origins—ranging from divine punishment and physiological anomalies to imagination, demonic intervention and hybrid births—the author shows that Paré’s work merges scientific discourse with religious belief, folklore and collective superstition. Using a sociocritical and comparative methodology supported by Foucault, Cros, Bellemin-Noël and Roas, the study argues that although Paré attempts to present his catalogue as scientific, the abundance of extraordinary cases and medieval-style illustrations (shown on pp. 5, 11 and 15) reveals that the imaginary still dominated explanations of bodily difference. These examples—children born with multiple limbs, hybrid creatures, beings created through imagination or demonic deception—demonstrate how physical deformity becomes a cultural sign, a portent and a metaphor for social fears and moral anxieties. The article’s central objective is to show that monsters are not merely aberrations or punishments but extensions of human nature, reflecting our deepest fears, symbolic constructions and the persistent tension between reality and imagination. Ultimately, the study argues that Paré’s treatise constitutes an important foundation for understanding how the monstrous body evolves into one of the core mechanisms of fantastic literature