Carl von Linné’s Monstrosus Variety and Divine Revenge
In my research, I have investigated whether or not there is a possible connection between Carl von Linné’s (1707–1778)[1] understanding of divine revenge – Nemesis Divina – and his monstrosus category. The monstrosus category, in which the extreme varieties of human beings are presented,[2] can be found in one of Linné’s most famous works, Systema Naturae (System of Nature), which was first published in 1735. During Linné’s lifetime Systema Naturae was published in eleven further editions. [3] In this research, however, I am focusing on Gunnar Broberg’s Swedish translation of the monstrosus category from the 1758 edition of Systema Naturae, in which the category is represented as one of the five Homo sapiens varieties. Some extra notes and explanations have been added to the description of the varieties in Broberg’s PhD dissertation Homo Sapiens L. Studier i Carl von Linnés naturuppfattning och människolära (Homo Sapiens L. Studies in Linnaeus’ concept of nature and his physical anthropology) published in 1975, in order to make the description clearer.[4] I also take into account some other descriptions of the varieties made by Linné, and these descriptions are represented in Broberg’s dissertation as well.
A research of a possible connection between the monstrosus category and divine revenge is interesting, mainly because monsters were often associated with divine punishment during the seventeenth century,[5] and God’s active role in nature and society continued to be of importance in Linné’s contemporary society. Because both God’s active role on earth and divine revenge were important issues for Linné, it is interesting to investigate if these phenomena are somehow connected to his understanding of the monstrosus category. Linné himself strongly believed in divine punishment, or more specifically in divine revenge, which he called Nemesis Divina.[6] Nemesis Divina is also the name for Linné’s compilation of selected stories from different periods, and statements written by Linné himself, which have later been compiled into a book by a number of scholars. Linné collected these stories in order to support a Nemesis-way of thinking, by searching for religious and moral connections in these.[7] We do not know exactly when Linné wrote and collected them, and Linné himself did not compile them into a book. In fact, Linné did not want to publish Nemesis Divina at all – a work which is considered to be very personal – and the manuscript is therefore a good source when considering his religious and moral thinking. The texts Linné chose to quote were not only Biblical, but also classical stories written in Latin, folk beliefs, everyday-life stories and much more.[8] The Nemesis Divina has been compiled into a book several times, for instance by scholars Elis Malmeström and Telemak Fredbärj, who published the first complete edition of Nemesis Divina in Swedish and Latin in 1968. In 2001, however, M. J. Petry built on and translated Malmeström and Fredbärj’s edition of Nemesis Divina into English. The book from 1968 was, according to Petry, lacking in wider intellectual context and rational re-arranging of the materials.[9] Wolf Lepenies claims in his work Linnaeus’s Nemesis divina and the Concept of Divine Retaliation,[10] written in 1982, that although the complete edition of the Nemesis Divina was published as late as 1968, more than a hundred years after the original manuscript had been rediscovered, several shortened versions had been published before that. Lepenies claims that the Nemesis Divina no longer is only an expression of Linné’s personal beliefs and experiences. Divine revenge is connected to all of Linné’s works and to eighteenth-century thinking in general.[11] While investigating a possible connection between the monstrosus category and Nemesis Divina, one can notice that the monstrosus category in itself is divided into smaller groups. The groups differ in many ways, and therefore it is quite far-fetched to try to connect a whole category to Linné’s Nemesis way of thinking. Instead, I focused primarily on the Hottentots – one variety in the monstrosus category – which turned out to have a possible connection to Linné’s understanding of Nemesis Divina – divine revenge. There are a few possible connections between the Hottentots and Nemesis Divina, and the strongest connection between these two is sexuality, which connected to sin is a common theme in Nemesis Divina, and therefore quite important. In Nemesis Divina, Linné discusses different kinds of inappropriate sexual behavior, for instance incest and adultery. This indicates that inappropriate sexual behavior was not just slightly connected to divine revenge. It was an important part of the whole concept of Nemesis Divina. One can further claim that inappropriate sexual behavior, sin and divine punishment are interconnected, and this is to be observed in Linné’s research overall. He was interested in the Hottentots’ distinguishing appearance and in their sexuality, in particular the male Hottentots’ one missing testicle, which they removed to prevent their families from becoming too big. Moreover, he believed that the Hottentots were extremely fertile, but also capable of committing veneris sin.[12] He did even occasionally blend together the characteristics of the Hottentot with the characteristics of other African people, and he did not always set clear boundaries between animals and human beings either.[13] In his Nemesis Divina understanding Linné wanted to prove that God punishes those who commit sin, and in the above mentioned definition of the Hottentots, he believed that they were extremely fertile and capable of committing veneris sin. The Hottentots – by definition fertile, sexual creatures capable of committing veneris sin – therefore fit in the framework of Linné’s perception of divine punishment. In my opinion, this is a connection between the monstrosus category and Nemesis Divina. A. H. [1]Linnésamlingen Uppsala Universitet. <http://www.ub.uu.se/sv/Samlingar/Handskrifter/Specialsamlingar/Linnesamlingen/>, 22.10.2012. [2] Gunnar Broberg, Homo Sapiens L. Studier i Carl von Linnés naturuppfattning och människolära [Homo Sapiens L. Studies in Linnaeus’ concept of nature and his physical anthropology] (Motala: Borgströms Boktryckeri, 1975), p. 243. [3] Carl von Linné, Nemesis Divina, trans. and edit. M. J. Petry, (Dordrecht, Boston, London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001), p. 3. [4] Broberg, Homo Sapiens L. (1975), p. 222. [5] Lorraine Daston & Katharine Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature (New York: Zone Books, 1998), pp. 201–214. [6] Nationalencyklopedin – Nemesis Divina. <http://www.ne.se/carl-von-linne/242590?i_h_word=nemesis+divina> 22.10.2012. [7] Carl von Linné, Nemesis Divina, trans. and edit. Elis Malmeström & Telemak Fredbärj, (Stockholm: Alb. Bonniers boktryckeri, 1968), pp. 7-12. [8] Linné, Nemesis Divina, (1968), p. 10. [9] Linné, Nemesis Divina (2001), p. 17. [10] Wolf Lepenies, “Linnaeus’ Nemesis divina and the Concept of Divine Retaliation,” Isis (Vol. 73, No. 1, 1982), pp. 11-27. [11] Lepenies, “Linnaeus’ Nemesis Divina” (1982), pp. 11–13. [12] Broberg, Homo Sapiens L. (1975), p. 249. [13] Broberg, Homo Sapiens L. (1975), pp. 250–251. Sources Broberg, Gunnar, Homo Sapiens L. Studier i Carl von Linnés naturuppfattning och människolära [Homo Sapiens L. Studies in Linnaeus’ concept of nature and his physical anthropology] (Motala: Borgströms Boktryckeri, 1975). Daston, Lorraine & Park, Katharine, Wonders and the Order of Nature, (New York: Zone Books, 1998). Lepenies, Wolf, “Linnaeus’ Nemesis divina and the Concept of Divine Retaliation,” Isis (Vol. 73, No. 1, 1982), pp. 11-27. Linnésamlingen-Uppsala <http://www.ub.uu.se/sv/Samlingar/Handskrifter/Specialsamlingar/Linnesamlingen/> 22.10.2012. Nationalencyklopedin <http://www.ne.se/carl-von-linne/242590?i_h_word=nemesis+divina> 22.10.2012. von Linné, Carl, Nemesis Divina, trans. and edit. Malmeström, Elis & Fredbärj, Telemak, (Stockholm: Alb. Bonniers boktryckeri, 1968). von Linné, Carl, Nemesis Divina, trans and edit. Petry, M. J. (Dordrecht, Boston, London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001). |