Primitivism and Related Ideas in the Middle Ages

Primitivism and Related Ideas in the Middle Ages PDF

Author: George Boas

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 1997-07-24

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 9780801856105

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The Noble Savage, earthly paradise, the original condition of human beings, cynicism, Christianity . . . "All of us men were born in the first man without vice, and all of us lost the innocence of our nature by the sin of the same man. Thence our inherited mortality, thence the manifold corruptions of body and mind, thence ignorance, distress, useless cares, illicit lusts, sacrilegious errors, empty fear, harmful love, unwarranted joys, punishable counsels, and a number of miseries no smaller than that of our crimes."—St. Prosper of Aquitania, quoted in Primitivism and Related Ideas in the Middle Ages This volume of essays, written by George Boas in collaboration with Arthur O. Lovejoy, was originally intended to be the second in a series of four documenting the history of primitivism and related ideas about goodness in the world. Covering the Middle Ages, these essays underscore the continuity between pagan and Christian cultures with respect to concepts of primitivism and examine the latter period's modifications of a group of favorite classical themes. They demonstrate the growth of primitivism and anti-primitivism from the first through the thirteenth centuries and include a discussion of such subjects as the Noble Savage, earthly paradise, the original condition of human beings, and cynicism and Christianity. They also, as Boas suggests in his preface, "drive the piles for a bridge between the Renaissance and Classical Antiquity, although the superstructure itself remains to be constructed."

Medieval Ethnographies

Medieval Ethnographies PDF

Author: Joan-Pau Rubies

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-05-15

Total Pages: 453

ISBN-13: 1351918613

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From the twelfth century, a growing sense of cultural confidence in the Latin West (at the same time that the central lands of Islam suffered from numerous waves of conquest and devastation) was accompanied by the increasing importance of the genre of empirical ethnographies. From a a global perspective what is most distinctive of Europe is the genre's long-term impact rather than its mere empirical potential, or its ethnocentrism (all of which can also be found in China and in Islamic cultures). Hence what needs emphasizing is the multiplication of original writings over time, their increased circulation, and their authoritative status as a 'scientific' discourse. The empirical bent was more characteristic of travel accounts than of theological disputations - in fact, the less elaborate the theological discourse, the stronger the ethnographic impulse (although many travel writers were clerics). This anthology of classic articles in the history of medieval ethnographies illustrates this theme with reference to the contexts and genres of travel writing, the transformation of enduring myths (ranging from oriental marvels to the virtuous ascetics of India or Prester John), the practical expression of particular encounters from the Mongols to the Atlantic, and the various attempts to explain cultural differences, either through the concept of barbarism, or through geography and climate.

The Idea of the Book in the Middle Ages

The Idea of the Book in the Middle Ages PDF

Author: Jesse Gellrich

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2019-03-15

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 1501740717

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This book assess the relationship of literature to various other cultural forms in the Middle Ages. Jesse M. Gellrich uses the insights of such thinkers as Levi-Strauss, Foucault, Barthes, and Derrida to explore the continuity of medieval ideas about speaking, writing, and texts.

Wilderness and the American Mind

Wilderness and the American Mind PDF

Author: Roderick Frazier Nash

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2014-01-28

Total Pages: 440

ISBN-13: 0300190387

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A study of America's changing attitude toward wilderness, discussing efforts to protect the Alaskan wilderness, trends in wilderness management, and the international perspective.

Medievalism

Medievalism PDF

Author: Elizabeth Nicole Emery

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1843843854

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The discipline of medievalism has produced a great deal of scholarship acknowledging the "makers" of the Middle Ages: those who re-discovered the period from 500 to 1500 by engaging with its cultural works, seeking inspiration from them, or fantasizing about them. Yet such approaches - organized by time period, geography, or theme - often lack an overarching critical framework. This volume aims to provide such a framework, by calling into question the problematic yet commonly accepted vocabulary used in Medievalism Studies. The contributions, by leading scholars in the field, define and exemplify in a lively and accessible style the essential terms used when speaking of the later reception of medieval culture. The terms: Archive, Authenticity, Authority, Christianity, Co-disciplinarity, Continuity, Feast, Genealogy, Gesture, Gothic, Heresy, Humor, Lingua, Love, Memory, Middle, Modernity, Monument, Myth, Play, Presentism, Primitive, Purity, Reenactment, Resonance, Simulacrum, Spectacle, Transfer, Trauma, Troubadour Elizabeth Emery is Professor of French and Graduate Coordinator at Montclair State University (Montclair, NJ, USA); Richard Utz is Chair and Professor of Medievalism Studies in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech (Atlanta, GA, USA). Contributors: Nadia Altschul, Martin Arnold, Kathleen Biddick, William C. Calin, Martha Carlin, Pam Clements, Michael Cramer, Louise D'Arcens, Elizabeth Emery, Elizabeth Fay, Vincent Ferré, Matthew Fisher, Karl Fugelso, Jonathan Hsy, Amy S. Kaufman, Nadia Margolis, David Matthews, Lauryn S. Mayer, Brent Moberly, Kevin Moberly, Gwendolyn Morgan, Laura Morowitz, Kevin D. Murphy, Nils Holger Petersen, Lisa Reilly, Edward Risden, Carol L. Robinson, Juanita Feros Ruys, Tom Shippey, Clare A. Simmons, Zrinka Stahuljak, M. Jane Toswell, Richard Utz, Angela Jane Weisl.

Milton and the Middle Ages

Milton and the Middle Ages PDF

Author: John Mulryan

Publisher: Bucknell University Press

Published: 1982

Total Pages: 198

ISBN-13: 9780838750360

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Refuting the view that Milton was an antimedievalist, the eight essays presented here approach him from the interdisciplinary perspectives of historical, theological, literary, philosophical, and pictorial concerns, and illuminate the many areas in which Milton's work grew out of medieval art and culture.

Facing Each Other (2 Volumes)

Facing Each Other (2 Volumes) PDF

Author: Anthony Pagden

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-09-08

Total Pages: 744

ISBN-13: 1351937421

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The perception of Europeans of the world and of the peoples beyond Europe has become in recent years the subject of intense scholarly interest and heated debate both in and outside the academy. So, too, has the concern with how it was that those peoples who were variously ’discovered’, and then, as often as not, colonised, understood the strangers in their midst. This volume attempts to cover both these topics, as well as to provide a number of crucial articles on the difficulties faced by modern historians in understanding the complex, relationship between ’them’ and ’us’. Inevitably such relationships not only changed over time, they also varied greatly from culture to culture. The articles, therefore cover most of the areas with which the European world came into contact from the earliest Portuguese incursions into Africa in the mid fifteenth century until the explorations of Cook and Bougainville in the Pacific in the late eighteenth. It ranges, too, from Brazil to Russia, from Tahiti to China.