‘How to Recognise a Werewolf in the Nineteenth Century’ by Will Pooley

This well researched post, ‘How to Recognise a Werewolf in the Nineteenth Century’, on the Beastly Histories blog is a very interesting read. (Actually the whole of the blog is pretty exciting so get ready to lose a few hours reading away). I am particularly interested in how the werewolf was presented as ‘unnatural’ or different from a non-supernatural wolf in these texts. These ideas fit in with my discussions on hybridity, the wolf and the werewolf which I am currently writing up. I’m interested in how the werewolf is both a hybrid (wolf and man combined – often in a monstrous form) and also a discrete taxonomic category within the supernatural evolutionary tree. Currently, I am attempting to express these ideas in an articulate way for my thesis and as well as suggesting what this means about the relationship between man and wolf. It certainly beats having a New Year’s resolution!