The category of the grotesque originally named human-animal-plant hybrids defying classical logic

Evidence

Playing around with etymology enabled Jacques to construct a specific category in which could be grouped a series of assertions, both ethnographic and theological, that applied to no such actual group of people. For good measure, he includes Sadducees—a biblical category determined by a set of distinctive beliefs—and Samaritans, a few communities of which were probably still in existence in the early thirteenth century, under the same general heading. Having done so, he takes the opportunity to embark on a critique of contemporary Judaism, with the implication that, although they may differ in specific theological beliefs, Essenes, Nizari Ismailites, Sadducees and Samaritans are all subgroups of the genus Jews. — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 212 (#expands, via linked claim)

Encounters with the monstrous races and creatures that lived in the East continued to occupy the European imaginaire. Andre Thevet’s description of a Red Sea “monster of the size and proportion of a tiger without a tail, but [with] the face of a well-formed man” is but one example of the human-animal hybrids that continued to be associated with Muslim territories. Turks figure prominently in these stories of monsters, due to the many geographical spaces they occupied as well as the threat that Ottoman power posed to the Europeans. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 237 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The word grotesque derives from grotto decorative art discovered in Titus’s baths — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1127; Renaissance writers still associated human-animal hybrid monsters with Muslim territories — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 237; Monster representation shifted from fixed periphery to Gothic mobility in modernity — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 55 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Etymological wordplay let medieval polemicists fuse unrelated groups into one genus #expands (0.80) — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 212
• Dracula embodies a hybrid Ottomanized-European identity that violates stable categories #exemplifies (0.80)
• Renaissance writers still associated human-animal hybrid monsters with Muslim territories #expands (0.75) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 237
• Monster representation shifted from fixed periphery to Gothic mobility in modernity #qualifies (0.70) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 55
• Modern monsters shed supernatural alterity yet persist as domesticized degenerates #expands (0.70) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 378