"larger distinction here between good & bad experiences of the
> natural world". According Gurevich (Categories of Medieval Culture) and
Bakhtin (Ravelais and his world - Popular culture in middle ages and
renaiscence[?]), the natural world was heterogeneous and hierarquicaly
organized, They mean, some places (forests, holes, caves, islands etc.)
occupied a position more near or away from "sobrenatural" forces. Claude
Kappler (I forgot the title of the book, sorry, but it's something like
"Monsters, Devils and magic at the end of the Middle Ages") said that the
islands (for example) were like separeted worlds, following its own natural
laws. Le Goff, (Imaginaire Medieval), said that the sea were like a desert,
place of purification and test/trial. (according medieval literature,
specialy monastic and "folclorical", as used by Le Goff). Bakhtin talks
about the ambiguity of places, the forests were places of danger and
purification (maybe as a counterpart of each other). This kind of
literature uses terms like "The Middle Ages...Thought this way", I know
that this kind of statement is always temerarious, but, what do you think
about it? (If my ideas are not clear, please, try to understand thats
aren't MY ideas, I'm just tring to show the ideas of these authors, if I'm
not clear, try to remember what they said).
It gives me another question, according these authors there aren't a
natural world in a "pure form" (I know that the expression is not good!
Please, try to understand me), 'cuz all natural places were conected with
some unnatural forces. When a monk in an hagiografical report (narration)
described a landscape, how was it independent of a description of an
annatural force, how was it independent of a simbolic reading? (Of course,
we must reme,ber what said Otfried, but it was not a bad web site that said
that in middle ages we have to think, also, in a simbolic reading of the
narratives and poetry, Jacques Le Goff is not a bad Web Site, he was a
teacher at Ecole Des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales). Aron Gurevich is
another respectable name.
Paulo
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----------
> De: Thomas Izbicki <[log in to unmask]>
> Para: [log in to unmask]
> Assunto: Re: medieval views of the natural world
> Data: Sexta-feira, 9 de Outubro de 1998 11:37
>
> A graduate student I knew back when was working on a dissertation
> distinguishing between gardens (good) & wilderness (bad) in medieval
ideas
> of nature. I don't know whether she ever completed it, but there might
> well be a larger distinction here between good & bad experiences of the
> natural world.
>
> tom izbicki
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