The Goddess Natura in Medieval Literature

The Goddess Natura in Medieval Literature PDF Author: George Economou
Publisher: Cambridge, Mass : Harvard University Press
ISBN:
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Get Book Here

Book Description

The Goddess Natura in Medieval Literature

The Goddess Natura in Medieval Literature PDF Author: George Economou
Publisher: Cambridge, Mass : Harvard University Press
ISBN:
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Get Book Here

Book Description


Nature, Sex, and Goodness in a Medieval Literary Tradition

Nature, Sex, and Goodness in a Medieval Literary Tradition PDF Author: Hugh White
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 9780198187301
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Get Book Here

Book Description
'Nature' is a highly important term in the ethical discourse of the Middle Ages and, as such, a leading concept in medieval literature. This book examines the moral status of the natural in writings by Alan of Lille, Jean de Meun, John Gower, Geoffrey Chaucer, and others, showinghow-particularly in the erotic sphere-the influences of nature are not always conceived as wholly benign. Though medieval thinkers often affirm an association of nature with reason, and therefore with the good, there is also an acknowledgement that the animal, the pre-rational, the instinctivewithin human beings may be validly considered natural. In fact, human beings may be thought to be urged almost ineluctably by the force of nature within them towards behaviour hostile to reason and the right.

Goddesses in Myth and Cultural Memory

Goddesses in Myth and Cultural Memory PDF Author: Emilie Kutash
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567697401
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Get Book Here

Book Description
How have the goddesses of ancient myth survived, prevalent even now as literary and cultural icons? How do allegory, symbolic interpretation, and political context transform the goddess from her regional and individual identity into a goddess of philosophy and literature? Emilie Kutash explores these questions, beginning from the premise that cultural memory, a collective cultural and social phenomenon, can last thousands of years. Kutash demonstrates a continuing practice of interpreting and allegorizing ancient myths, tracing these goddesses of archaic origin through history. Chapters follow the goddesses from their ancient near eastern prototypes, to their place in the epic poetry, drama and hymns of classical Greece, to their appearance in Platonic and Neoplatonic philosophy, Medieval allegory, and their association with Christendom. Finally, Kutash considers how goddesses were made into Jungian archetypes, and how some contemporary feminists made them a counterfoil to male divinity, thereby addressing the continued role of goddesses in perpetuating gender binaries.

God and the Goddesses

God and the Goddesses PDF Author: Barbara Newman
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 9780812202915
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 476

Get Book Here

Book Description
Contrary to popular belief, the medieval religious imagination did not restrict itself to masculine images of God but envisaged the divine in multiple forms. In fact, the God of medieval Christendom was the Father of only one Son but many daughters—including Lady Philosophy, Lady Love, Dame Nature, and Eternal Wisdom. God and the Goddesses is a study in medieval imaginative theology, examining the numerous daughters of God who appear in allegorical poems, theological fictions, and the visions of holy women. We have tended to understand these deities as mere personifications and poetic figures, but that, Barbara Newman contends, is a mistake. These goddesses are neither pagan survivals nor versions of the Great Goddess constructed in archetypal psychology, but distinctive creations of the Christian imagination. As emanations of the Divine, mediators between God and the cosmos, embodied universals, and ravishing objects of identification and desire, medieval goddesses transformed and deepened Christendom's concept of God, introducing religious possibilities beyond the ambit of scholastic theology and bringing them to vibrant imaginative life. Building a bridge between secular and religious conceptions of allegorized female power, Newman advances such questions as whether medieval writers believed in their goddesses and, if so, in what manner. She investigates whether the personifications encountered in poetic fictions can be distinguished from those that appear in religious visions and questions how medieval writers reconcile their statements about the multiple daughters of God with orthodox devotion to the Son of God. Furthermore, she examines why forms of feminine God-talk that strike many Christians today as subversive or heretical did not threaten medieval churchmen. Weaving together such disparate texts as the writings of Latin and vernacular poets, medieval schoolmen, liturgists, and male and female mystics and visionaries, God and the Goddesses is a direct challenge to modern theologians to reconsider the role of goddesses in the Christian tradition.

The Unspeakable, Gender and Sexuality in Medieval Literature, 1000-1400

The Unspeakable, Gender and Sexuality in Medieval Literature, 1000-1400 PDF Author: Victoria Blud
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1843844680
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Get Book Here

Book Description
Frontcover -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Abbreviations -- Introduction: Words and Other Fragments -- 1 Speaking Up and Shutting Up: Expression and Suppression in the Old English Mary of Egypt and Ancrene Wisse -- 2 What Comes Unnaturally: Unspeakable Acts -- 3 Crying Wolf: Gender and Exile in Bisclavret and Wulf and Eadwacer -- 4 Taking the Words Out of Her Mouth: Glossing Glossectomy in Tales of Philomela -- Conclusion: After Words -- Bibliography -- Index

Bulletin bibliographique de la Société internationale arthurienne

Bulletin bibliographique de la Société internationale arthurienne PDF Author: International Arthurian Society
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Arthurian romances
Languages : en
Pages : 684

Get Book Here

Book Description


Classical Myths and Legends in the Middle Ages and Renaissance

Classical Myths and Legends in the Middle Ages and Renaissance PDF Author: H. David Brumble
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136797378
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 315

Get Book Here

Book Description
While numerous classical dictionaries identify the figures and tales of Greek and Roman mythology, this reference book explains the allegorical significance attached to the myths by Medieval and Renaissance authors. Included are several hundred alphabetically arranged entries for the gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines, and places of classical myth a

Encyclopedia of Literature and Science

Encyclopedia of Literature and Science PDF Author: Pamela Gossin
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313011060
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 600

Get Book Here

Book Description
Science and literature have always been strange bedfellows. Like puzzle pieces, they fit because they're different. Some of the greatest works of world literature have been inspired by the marvels of the scientific world. Scientists have written works of the imagination. Even formal scientific writings have been known to employ rhetoric. There is a tendency to think of literature—and the humanities in general—as having little to do with science. Yet scholars have conducted fruitful studies of the history and philosophy of science. With the rise of technology, scholars have also applied scientific analysis to the study of literature and the creative process. The intersection of scientific and humanistic inquiry is finally being mapped. This volume includes more than 650 A-Z entries on topics and themes in science and literature, significant writers, key scientists, seminal works, and important theories and methodologies. This reference defines the rapidly emerging interdisciplinary field of literature and science. An introductory essay traces the history of the field, its growing reputation, and the current state of research. Broad in scope, the volume covers world literature from its beginnings to the present day and illuminates the role of science in literature and literary studies. A wide range of experts contributed entries to this volume, each of which concludes with a brief bibliography. The entire volume closes with a list of works for further reading.

The Concept of Nature in Early Modern English Literature

The Concept of Nature in Early Modern English Literature PDF Author: Peter Remien
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108496814
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 237

Get Book Here

Book Description
Participates in an intellectual history of ecology while prompting a re-evaluation of nature in the early modern period.

The Marvels of the World

The Marvels of the World PDF Author: Rebecca Bushnell
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812297814
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 377

Get Book Here

Book Description
Long before the Romantics embraced nature, people in the West saw the human and nonhuman worlds as both intimately interdependent and violently antagonistic. With its peerless selection of ninety-eight original sources concerned with the natural world and humankind's place within it, The Marvels of the World offers a corrective to the still-prevalent tendency to dismiss premodern attitudes toward nature as simple or univocal. Gathering together medical texts, herbals, and how-to books, as well as scientific, religious, philosophical, and poetic works dating from antiquity to the dawn of the Enlightenment, the anthology explores both mainstream and unconventional thinking about the natural world. Its seven parts focus on philosophy and science; plants; animals; weather and climate; ways of inhabiting the land; gardens and gardening; and European encounters with the wider world. Each section and each of the book's selections is prefaced with a helpful introduction by volume editor Rebecca Bushnell that weaves connections among these compelling pieces of the past. The early writers collected here wrote with extraordinary openness about ways of coexisting with the nonhuman forces that shaped them, Bushnell demonstrates, even as they sought to control and exploit their environment. Taken as a whole, The Marvels of the World reveals how many of these early writers cared as much about the natural world as we do today.