The Body and the East: Monstrous Encounters in the Travels of Sir John Mandeville

The main aim of the present dissertation is to analyse the monstrous presences in the Travels of John Mandeville and to compare them with the tradition from which they are taken. The recurring theme that links all chapters is the correlation between the physical body and monstrosity. Indeed, the monstrous creatures that Mandeville describes in his alleged journey in the Eastern land are often characterised by a deformation of the normative body. In some cases, the deformation is due to hybridisation between human and animal features, while in other cases it depends on the mutation of human characteristics. In the end, the results of these mutations are creatures that were believed to inhabit the East since the time of the Greeks, like Cynocephali, Sciapods and Blemmies. The existence of these creatures, however, was problematic: in the medieval categorisation of the world, every creature occupied a specific place in the hierarchy of creation. These creatures, however, were not fully human, so they could not be considered equal to humans, but at the same time they were not animals. In his description of the monstrous races, Mandeville is often ambiguous and contradictory in assigning to them human features like reason and in defining their societies as fully civilised. The discussion on anthropophagy represents another interesting connection between the body and monstrosity. Anthropophagy is one of the greatest taboos in the history of humankind and the attribution of anthropophagic habits to foreign cultures is recurrent in history. However, Mandeville often interprets anthropophagy as a link to his own culture, rather than a repugnant sign of monstrosity: he openly points out some parallels between cannibalistic funerary rites and the Eucharist. In the end, his depiction of these creatures is ambiguous and contradictory, describing a reality which is not easy to categorise.