Short Essay Woofing and weeping with animals in the last days

Abstract

Abstract The medieval eschatological tradition of the ‘15 Signs of the Last Days’ pays special attention to the anguish of animals. This attention seems unnecessary, as animals will not be judged, or resurrected, but only destroyed. Their unnecessary cries might be heard as the cry of life for itself, now useless to God and humans, and also as a reminder to humans of the richness of the worlded selves they abandon in their fantasy of celestial life freed from the flux of worldly being. postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies (2010) 1, 187–193. doi:10.1057/pmed.2010.24 Lives are by definition precarious: they can be expunged at will or by accident; their persistence is in no sense guaranteed. In some sense, this is a feature of all life, and there is no thinking of life that is not precarious – except, of course, in fantasy. Judith Butler, Frames of War: When is Life Grievable? The medieval eschatological tradition of the ‘15 Signs of the Last Judgment ’ was enormously popular; more than 180 Latin examples survive, as do version