Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-dnltx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T17:28:40.328Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Naming the Tiger in the Early Modern World

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

David Thorley
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The English word tiger has an uncertain etymology and a curious history of use. Probably first seen in Europe in the fourth century BCE, the tiger, by the early modern age, had acquired a long history of folkloric associations. This article examines early modern uses of the word tiger in the context of the period’s linguistic debates about natural and conventional meaning. It seeks to present a history in which the word, through use, develops closer (if not necessarily natural) associations with the qualities of its referent.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 70 , Issue 3 , Fall 2017 , pp. 977 - 1006
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 Renaissance Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agrippa, Heinrich Cornelius. Three books of occult philosophy. London, 1651.Google Scholar
Ainsworth, Robert Thesaurus Linguæ Latinæ Compendiarius: or, a Compendious Dictionary of the Latin Tongue. London, 1736.Google Scholar
Almond, Philip Adam and Eve in Seventeenth-Century Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Ambrose. Hexameron, Paradise and Cain and Abel. Trans. John Savage. New York: Catholic University of America Press, 1961.Google Scholar
Anderson, Judith Words That Matter: Linguistic Perception in the English Renaissance. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Anglicus, Bartholomew Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus. Ed. Robert Steele. London: Moring, 1905.Google Scholar
Aristotle. Categories. On Interpretation. Prior Analytics. Trans. H. P. Cooke and Hugh Tredennick. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1938.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Athenaeus. The Deipnosophists: Or, Banquet of the Learned, of Athenaeus. Trans. C. D. Yonge. 3 vols. London: Bohn, 1853.Google Scholar
Bacon, Francis The Works of Francis Bacon. Ed. James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis, and Douglas Denon Heath. 15 vols. New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1860–64.Google Scholar
Barber, Charles Early Modern English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Baret, John An Alveary or Triple Dictionary, in Englishe, Latin, and French. London, 1574.Google Scholar
Bastwick, John The utter routing of the whole army of all the Independents & sectaries. London, 1646.Google Scholar
Bohun, Edmund A geographical dictionary. London, 1693.Google Scholar
Bono, James Joseph. The Word of God and the Languages of Man: Interpreting Nature in Early Modern Science and Medicine. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Boyle, Robert The works of the Honourable Robert Boyle. Ed. Thomas Birch. 6 vols. London, 1772.Google Scholar
Boys, John An exposition of al the principal scriptures vsed in our English liturgie. London, 1609.Google Scholar
Bray, Warwick “Crop Plants and Cannibals: Early European Impressions of the New World.” In The Meeting of Two Worlds: Europe and the Americas 1492–1650, ed. Warwick Bray, 289–326. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Brooke, Arthur, trans. The tragicall historye of Romeus and Iuliet. London, 1562.Google Scholar
Brown, Carmen “Bestiary Lessons on Pride and Lust.” In The Mark of the Beast: The Medieval Bestiary in Art, Life, and Literature, ed. Debra Hassig, 53–70. London: Routledge, 2013.Google Scholar
Buchanan, George Tyrannicall-government anatomized. London, 1642.Google Scholar
Bullokar, John An English expositor teaching the interpretation of the hardest words vsed in our language. London, 1616.Google Scholar
Burke, Peter Languages and Communities in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Canning, Patricia Style in the Renaissance: Language and Ideology in Early Modern England. London: Bloomsbury, 2012.Google Scholar
Caussin, Nicolas The holy court in five tomes. London, 1650.Google Scholar
Cockeram, Henry The English dictionarie. London, 1623.Google Scholar
Coles, Elisha An English dictionary. London, 1677.Google Scholar
Cooper, Thomas Thesaurus Linguae Romanae & Britannicae. London, 1573.Google Scholar
Cotgrave, Randle A dictionarie of the French and English tongues. London, 1611.Google Scholar
Crawforth, Hannah Etymology and the Invention of English in Early Modern Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D’Anghiera, Pietro Martire. The decades of the newe worlde or west India conteynyng the nauigations and conquestes of the Spanyardes. London, 1555.Google Scholar
De, Grazia Margareta. “The Secularization of Language in the Seventeenth Century.” Journal of the History of Ideas 41.2 (1980): 319–29.Google Scholar
Demonet, Marie-Luce. Les Voix du Signe: Nature et Origine du Langage à la Renaissance. Paris: Honoré Champion, 1992.Google Scholar
Demonet, Marie-Luce. “‘Si les signes vous fâchent …’: Natural Inference and the Science of Signs in the Renaissance.” South Central Review 10.2 (1993): 76–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elyot, Thomas The dictionary of syr Thomas Eliot knyght. London, 1538.Google Scholar
Eratosthenes. Eratosthenes’ Geography. Trans. Duane W. Roller. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Florio, John Florio his firste fruites which yeelde familiar speech. London, 1578.Google Scholar
Fudge, Erica Perceiving Animals: Humans and Beasts in Early Modern English Culture. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Green, Ian Humanism and Protestantism in Early Modern English Education. Farnham: Ashgate, 2009.Google Scholar
Herodian. The history of Herodian. Trans. Nicholas Smyth. London, 1556.Google Scholar
Heylyn, Peter Microcosmus, or A little description of the great world. Oxford, 1621.Google Scholar
Heylyn, Peter. Cosmographie in four bookes. London, 1652.Google Scholar
Heylyn, Peter. Aerius redivivus, or, the history of the Presbyterians. Oxford, 1670.Google Scholar
Hogarth, Richard Gazophylacium Anglicanum. London, 1689.Google Scholar
Isidore of Seville. The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville. Ed. Stephen A Barney, W. J. Lewis, J. A. Beach, and Oliver Berghof. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Jennison, George Animals for Show and Pleasure in Ancient Rome. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1937.Google Scholar
Jonstonus, Johannes A description of the nature of four-footed beasts. Amsterdam, 1678.Google Scholar
Kersey, John A new English dictionary. London, 1702.Google Scholar
Leonard, John Naming in Paradise: Milton and the Language of Adam and Eve. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
L’Estrange, Roger. The dissenters sayings. The second part. London, 1681.Google Scholar
Locke, John An essay concerning humane understanding. London, 1690.Google Scholar
Luther, Martin Luther’s Works: Volume 1, Lectures on Genesis Chapters 1–5. Ed. Jaroslav Pelikan. Minneapolis: Concordia and Fortress, 1958.Google Scholar
Maimbourg, Louis The history of the League. Trans. John Dryden. London, 1684.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maplet, John A greene forest, or A naturall historie. London, 1567.Google Scholar
Marlowe, Christopher The tragedie of Dido Queene of Carthage: played by the Children of her Maiesties Chappell. London, 1594.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, Thomas A Philological Grammar of the English Language. London: Rivington, 1824.Google Scholar
May, Thomas, trans. Selected epigrams of Martial. London, 1629.Google Scholar
Miège, Guy. A dictionary of barbarous French. London, 1679.Google Scholar
Morice, William Coena quasi koine. London, 1657.Google Scholar
Mulcaster, Richard The first part of the elementarie which entreateth chefelie of the right writing of our English tung. London, 1582.Google Scholar
Nevalainen, Terttu “Early Modern English Lexis and Semantics.” In The Cambridge History of the English Language Volume 3: 1476–1776, ed. Roger Lass, 332–458. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Phillips, Edward The new world of English words. London, 1658.Google Scholar
Pimenta, Nicolaus Epistola … de Statu Rei Christianae in Indiae Orientali. Rome, 1602.Google Scholar
Pliny the Elder. The Natural History. Trans. John Bostock. 5 vols. London: Taylor and Francis, 1855.Google Scholar
Plutarch. Plutarch’s Morals Translated from the Greek by Several Hands. Ed. William W. Goodwin. 5 vols. Boston: Little Brown, 1874.Google Scholar
Poole, Joshua The English Parnassus, or, A helpe to English poesie. London, 1657.Google Scholar
Proudfoot, Leslie Dryden’s Aeneid and Its Seventeenth Century Predecessors. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1960.Google Scholar
Prynne, J. H. Stars, Tigers and the Shapes of Words. London: Birkbeck College, 1993.Google Scholar
Purchas, Samuel Purchas his pilgrimage. London, 1626.Google Scholar
Rufus, Quintus Curtius. Quintus Curtius History of Alexander. Trans. John Rolfe. 2 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1946.Google Scholar
Salmon, Vivian “Views on Meaning in 16th-Century England.” In Language and Society in Early Modern England: Selected Essays 1981–1994, ed. Konrad Koerner, 77–97. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1996.Google Scholar
Shakespeare, William Mr. William Shakespeares comedies, histories, & tragedies. London, 1623. Early English Books Online: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2003&res_id=xri:eebo&rft_id=xri:eebo:citation:99846615.Google Scholar
Smith, Nigel Perfection Proclaimed: Language and Literature in English Radical Religion 1640–1660. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Solinus. The excellent and pleasant worke of Iulius Solinus Polyhistor. Trans. Arthur Golding. London, 1587.Google Scholar
Strabo. The Geography of Strabo. Ed. H. L. Jones. 8 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1924.Google Scholar
Sutton, Christopher Disce mori: Learne to die. London, 1600.Google Scholar
Tassi, Marguerite Women and Revenge in Shakespeare: Gender, Genre, and Ethics. Cranbury, NJ: Susquehanna University Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Thomas, Thomas Dictionarium Linguae Latinae et Anglicanae. London, 1587.Google Scholar
Topsell, Edward The historie of foure-footed beastes. London, 1607.Google Scholar
Varro, Marcus Terentius. On the Latin Language. Trans. Roland Kent. 2 vols. London: Heinemann, 1938.Google Scholar
Vermigli, Pietro Martire. The common places of the most famous and renowned diuine Doctor Peter Martyr. Ed. and trans. Anthonie Marten. London, 1583.Google Scholar
Verstegan, Richard A restitution of decayed intelligence in antiquities. Concerning the most noble and renowned English nation. Antwerp, 1605.Google Scholar
Vicars, John Babylons beautie: or The Romish-Catholicks sweet-heart. London, 1644.Google Scholar
Virgil. The works of Virgil containing his Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis. Trans. John Dryden. London, 1697.Google Scholar
Waite, John Of the creatures liberation from the bondage of corruption. York, 1650.Google Scholar
Webster, John Academiarum examen, or, The examination of academies. London, 1654.Google Scholar
Willet, Andrew Hexapla in Danielem. Cambridge, 1610.Google Scholar
Wybarne, Joseph The new age of old names. London, 1609.Google Scholar