Monster (nonfiction): Difference between revisions

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File:Do_Not_Tease_Monster_by_Karl_Jones_800x600.jpg|link=Do Not Tease Monster (nonfiction)|December 16, 2017: ''[[Do Not Tease Monster]]'' voted Image of the Year in a survey of 3200 monsters.
File:The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters.jpg|link=The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (nonfiction)|[[The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (nonfiction)|The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters]], says Francisco Goya.
File:The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters.jpg|link=The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (nonfiction)|[[The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (nonfiction)|The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters]], says Francisco Goya.
File:Azerbaijan-monster-wants-lapilli-soup.jpg|link=[[Lapilli soup]]|Monster wants [[Lapilli soup]].
File:Azerbaijan-monster-wants-lapilli-soup.jpg|link=[[Lapilli soup]]|Monster wants [[Lapilli soup]].

Revision as of 16:14, 10 September 2018

Das Gespenst eines Flohs ("The Ghost of a Flea") by William Blake. Date: 1819-1820. Medium: tempera on mahogany panel, heightened with gold leaf. See also Human Flea Circus.

A monster is any creature, usually found in legends or horror fiction, that is often hideous and may produce fear or physical harm by its appearance and/or its actions.

See also Demon.

The word usually connotes something wrong or evil; a monster is generally morally objectionable, physically or psychologically hideous, and/or a freak of nature.

It can also be applied figuratively to a person with similar characteristics like a greedy person or a person who does horrible things.

The word "monster" derives from Latin monstrum, meaning an aberrant occurrence, usually biological, that was taken as a sign that something was wrong within the natural order.

The root of monstrum is monere, which means both to warn, and to instruct.

Monere is also the root of the modern English demonstrate.

Thus, the monster is also a sign or instruction. This benign interpretation was proposed by Saint Augustine, who did not see the monster as inherently evil, but as part of the natural design of the world, a kind of deliberate category error.

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