The Renaissance Monkey

This chapter looks at Edward Topsell’s History of Four-footed Beasts (1607) and other contemporaneous natural historical writings on apes, in order to delineate the scientific background to which playwrights were responding. It traces the history and literary uses of the early modern monkey back into the classical period, through its resonances in the middle ages and onto the Shakespearean stage. It shows how parallels between apes and players, drawn out in Ovid and in early modern anti-theatrical writings, stimulated playwrights to interrogate the congruences, sometimes playfully and sometimes seriously.