Estella Ciobanu, Representations of the Body in Middle English Biblical Drama. (The New Middle Ages Series.) Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. Pp. xviii, 337. $89.99. ISBN: 978-3-319-90917-2.

Speculum ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 95 (1) ◽  
pp. 216-218
Author(s):  
Sarah Brazil
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (s2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Reed

AbstractProfanity has attracted much scholarly attention for the reason that swearing, oaths, and insults “manifest language use in its most highly charged state” (Taavitsainen 1997: 815). This article examines the possible functions of swearing per membra Christi [by Christ’s limbs], starting with a particularly revealing example from a group of late medieval pedagogical dialogues, the Manières de langage. Taking the perlocutionary reaction to this utterance as a starting point, the wider phenomenon of swearing on the body parts of Christ in both Middle English and Anglo Norman will be explored. This behaviour was initially conceptualised (and widely condemned) as an act of blasphemy, the notion of dismembering Jesus being especially widespread. However, this article also concerns itself with the emotive interjectory function of swearing oaths on God and Christ, and will posit that this behaviour is caught in a long process of pragmaticalisation during the high and late Middle Ages. This research supports the view of a bidirectional channel of influence between Middle English and Anglo Norman, and suggests a similar trajectory of both pragmatic development and language attitudes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 244-252
Author(s):  
Brahim BOUKHALFA

The yearning for a journey towards the places of strangers, the longing to mingle with them and immerse themselves in their lives, and to record everything that is strange and wondrous about their lifestyle, their ways of thinking, their customs and traditions, that is the nature that characterizes man, since ancient times. The lives of the prophets, may blessings and peace be upon them, were frenetic migrations, and a constant movement, length and breadth, in search of a place of intimacy, a comfortable life, and a bright truth. Western poets, writers, philosophers and travelers have also been fond of the journey to the Naked and Islamic East, from the Middle Ages to the present day; The desire to get to know the Easterners closely, to mix with them, and then to dominate them, was evident in the so-called travel literature. It is the writing emanating from the experiences of travelers in the eastern "One Thousand and One Nights". However, these travelers have always hidden the true intentions that drove them on the journey, which, as we will present in the body of this study, are colonial motives deposited in the political consciousness of Western governments that stand behind the colonial phenomenon. It is from this perspective in the research that urgent questions come to the surface, which we are trying to answer. What are the real motives for the trip for Western writers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries? What is their relationship with the Western governments that were colonizing large areas of the Arab countries? What are the representations of Arabs and Muslims in so-called travel literature? The answer to these questions is to reveal to us the colonial nature of the modern West, and the extent of its contempt for non-Westerners, which is supported by myths of racial superiority and self-centeredness in that. It is a belief that has not been affected by the tremendous development in the field of human sciences that our time has witnesse


1952 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Thomas C. Smith

As in the Middle Ages in the West, so in Tokugawa Japan (1600–1868) men were fond of explaining the hierarchical society in which they lived by comparing it to an organism. Social classes, Confucian scholars said, were like parts of the body: each had a vital function to perform, but their functions were essentially different and unequal in value. In this scheme the peasants were second in importance only to the ruling military class. Just as the samurai officials were the brains that guided other organs, so the peasants were the feet that held the social body erect. They were the “basis of the country,” the valued producers whose labor sustained all else. But, as a class, they tended innately to backsliding and extravagance. Left alone they would consume more than their share of the social income, ape the manners and tastes of their betters, and even encroach upon the functions of other classes to the perilous neglect of their own. Only the lash of necessity and the sharp eye of the official could hold them to their disagreeable role. They had to be bound to the land; social distinctions had to be thrown up around them like so many physical barriers; and, to remove all temptation to indolence and luxury, they had to be left only enough of what they produced to let them continue producing.


Author(s):  
Michael A. Kornienko ◽  

The author analyzes the prerequisites for the formation of a theological and philosophical school, founded in 990 by Bishop Fulbert in Chartres, which flourished during the years of the Episcopal ministry of Yves of Chartres (1090–1115), a recognized intellectual center of Western Europe. The role of the Chartres Cathedral School as a citadel of metaphysical, cosmological and natural-scientific Platonism in the era of early scholasticism is revealed. The philosophical orientation of the Chartres school (orientation to the ideas of Neoplatonism), as shown in the work, is the result of a combination of the ideas of Plato, aristotelism, stoicism, pythagoreanism, Eastern and Christian mysticism and religion. The body of ideas characteristic of the Neoplatonism tradition is analyzed, the account of which is essential in understanding the specifics of the Chartres school ideological platform: the ideas of a mystically intuitive knowledge of the higher, the stages of transition from “one and the universal” to matter, the idea of comprehension of pure spirituality. The thesis is substantiated that the time of the highest prosperity of the Chartres school, its highest fame is the XII century, which went down in the history of civilization as the era of the cultural renaissance taking place in France. The specificity of the 12th century renaissance, as shown in the study, lies in the growing interest in Greek philosophy and Roman classics (this also determines the other name of the era – the Roman Renaissance), in expanding the field of knowledge through the assimilation of Western European science and the philosophy of the ancient Greeks. The thesis in which the specifics of the entry of Greek science into the culture of Western Europe is also identified. This entry was carried out through the culture of the Muslim world, which also determined the specifics of the cultural renaissance of France of the XII century. Radical changes are revealed that affect the sphere of education and, above all, religious education; the idea of reaching the priority positions of philosophy and logic is substantiated – a situation that has survived until the end of the Middle Ages. This situation, as shown in the work, was facilitated by the rare growth rate of the translation centers of Constantinople, Palermo, Toledo. It is shown that scholasticism in its early version is oriented towards religious orthodoxy. In the teaching of philosophy, the vector turned out to be biased towards natural philosophy, which was due, as shown in the work, to the spread of the ideas of Aristotle and Plato. In its educational program, the school synthesized the teachings of Plato and Aristotle. Elements of natural philosophy are inherent in the works of Bernard of Chartres, Gilbert of Poitiers, Thierry of Chartres representing the Chartres school. Deep studies on the problem of universals ensured the invasion of logic in the field of metaphysical constructions of the Chartres school.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 91 (3) ◽  
pp. 658-659
Author(s):  
BEN-ZION GARTY

Five things have been said about garlic: it assauges hunger, warms the body, brings joy, increases virility and destroys intestinal lice. There are those who say that it engenders love and dispels envy. —Babylonian Talmud: Baba Kama (first gate) page 82 Garlic (Liliaceae Allium sativum) has been used for centuries by many cultures as a remedy for a variety of illnesses. Herodotus spoke about the medical use of garlic in Egypt, 3000 years BC. Hippocrates, in the fifth century BC, used garlic to treat a variety of infections, including leprosy, intestinal disorders, and chest pain. In the Middle Ages garlic was used for protection against the plague.


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