Reading menageries: using eighteenth-century print sources to historicise the sensorium of menagerie spectators and their encounters with exotic animals

Plumb, Christopher

doi:10.1080/13507481003660936

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Visits to living animals were of a multi-sensory nature. 38 In the Strand and Piccadilly, the paying public could see a number of different snake-shows, handbills for which provide rich detail of the experiences on offer. Implicitly, it was understood that subjected to a civilizing influence in their new temperate surroundings, most animals could be 'tamed'.…”

Section: Expectations and Realitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Building upon work showing a consideration for the multi-sensory nature of visits to menageries, this article considers the broader materiality of animal display beyond the visual and tries to recover the participation of audiences. 10 The snakes at the reptile house provide a lens through which to explore Victorian notions of evil and morality in relation to spectacle. The theatricality of the reptile house undoubtedly contributed to its appeal to visitors and to the readers of the popular periodicals and serialized fiction in which it became a fixture.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Encountering snakes in early Victorian London: The first reptile house at the Zoological Gardens

Hall

2015

Hist Sci

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This paper examines the first reptile house (opened in 1849) at the Zoological Gardens in London as a novel site for the production and consumption of knowledge about snakes, stressing the significance of architectural and material limitations on both snakes and humans. Snakes were both familiar and ambiguous, present at every level of British society through the reading of Scripture, and as recurrent characters in imperial print culture. For all that snakes engendered feelings of disgust as the most distinctive representatives of a lowly class of animals, they exerted an equivalent fascination over diverse publics spanning the social spectrum. Building on work showing a consideration for the multi-sensory nature of visits to menageries, this paper considers animal display and spectacle beyond the visual. It explores the emotional economy of encountering snakes in person and the bodily phenomena this engendered. Vicarious visits were offered up to readers of periodicals and newspapers, and the reptile house was harnessed as a controversial pedagogical resource for teaching moral, as well as scientific, lessons.

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Section: Expectations and Realitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%