ABSTRACT
Through her investigation of the New World monsters described by Christopher Columbus, Elena Daniele demonstrates the plasticity of the concept of monstrosity itself. Columbus carried a load of expectations with him to the Americas and those expectations helped to shape his perceptions in the New World. Yet, Daniele argues, Columbus’s tales of Amazons and cannibals reflect not only European fears about liminal spaces but also the world of the indigenous Americans he encountered. Neither solely a tribute to a well-established literary tradition nor the product of the preconceptions of a prejudiced mind, monstrous representation in these texts was rooted in factual observations and tailored to meet European expectations.
