Editing Monster (section)

==Cultural heritage==
In the words of Tina Marie Boyer, assistant professor of medieval German literature at [[Wake Forest University]], "monsters do not emerge out of a cultural void; they have a literary and cultural heritage".{{r|Boyer}}

In the religious context of ancient Greeks and Romans, monsters were seen as signs of "divine displeasure", and it was thought that birth defects were especially ominous, being "an unnatural event" or "a malfunctioning of nature".{{sfnp|Beagon|2002|p=127}}

Monsters are not necessarily abominations however. The Roman historian [[Suetonius]], for instance, describes a snake's absence of legs or a bird's ability to fly as monstrous, as both are "against nature".{{sfnp|Wardle|2006|p=330}} Nonetheless, the negative connotations of the word quickly established themselves, and by the playwright and philosopher [[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]]'s time, the word had extended into its philosophical meaning, "a visual and horrific revelation of the truth".{{sfnp|Staley|2010|pp=80, 96, 109, 113 et passim}}

In spite of this, mythological monsters such as the [[Lernaean Hydra|Hydra]] and [[Medusa]] are not natural beings, but divine entities. This seems to be a holdover from [[Proto-Indo-European religion]] and other belief systems, in which the divisions between "spirit," "monster," and "god" were less evident.