Animal Umwelt and Sound Milieus in the Middle English Physiologus

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Middle English Physiologus features three different nonhuman animals — the lion, the mermaid, and the elephant — whose vocalized sounds resonate on literal and figurative levels. The networks of relationality that ascribe agency to these beings through the representation of sonic phenomena are complex in ways that exceed the conceptual boundaries of a textual “soundscape.” Drawing on recent studies of the terminology used to describe sound in critical theory and ethnomusicology, this article examines how thinking about these creatures in terms of their sound milieus affords greater precision in the identification of how sounds communicate nonhuman perception and perspective. I suggest that sound milieus in this text help us to better understand the nonhuman umwelt, or “world around,” to express an individual species’ distinct perspective and way of being in the world. The chapters on the lion, the mermaid, and the elephant, I argue, present singular and contrasting forms of sound milieus, which reference the human but simultaneously exceed the boundaries of human perception by drawing attention to how nonhuman species inhabit the world.