scholarly journals The “Laurer” and the “Columbyn”: The Images of Frustrated Love in Chaucer's Merchant's Tale

Hawliyat ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 35-58
Author(s):  
Ingrid Semaan
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Married Couple ◽  
East Indian ◽  
Pear Tree ◽  
Jewish Scholar ◽  
Tree Cluster

«Rys up, my wyf, my love, my lady free» (1.2138) -however it has been the literary scholars who have followed old January with much greater alacrity than his «fresshe May» into the literary and rhetorical world of the wedding chamber and the garden that Chaucer lets the Merchant create for the married couple. The scholars, in turn, especially those interested in sources, metaphor, analogy, and allusion have been richly rewarded by the study of The Merchant's Tale, this «dense mosaic of references, allusions, quotations», as G. G. Sedgewick has described it. Unifying the richly structured composition of this «mosaic» is the theme of frustrated love, a concern to which many of these «ref- erences, allusions, quotations» point. One of the earlier critical concerns was to track down the analogues. It proved to be a fertile field; by now it has become a critical commonplace that one of the central motifs of Chaucer's tale—the blind man and the adulterous youth the pear-tree-cluster—is of Mid Eastern origin and can be found among the tales of the Disciplina Clericalis. This anthology of Eastern folklore—com- prising East Indian, Byzantine, Persian, Arabian, and Hebrew materials—was compiled in Latin back in the twelfth century by Petrus Alfunsus. Alfunsus, originally a Jewish scholar born in Spain, converted to Christianity, and eventu- ally emigrated to England where he became royal physician to King Henry I. He wrote the Disciplina while he resided in England. Alfonsi's collection of thirty- four tales is important as a bridge by which what is commonly called the literaty «matter of Araby» in both form and content became a tradition that supplied vernacular medieaval Europen writers.

Peter Abelard, Heloise and Jewish Biblical Exegesis in the Twelfth Century

2010 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-19
Author(s):  
CONSTANT J. MEWS ◽  
MICHA J. PERRY
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Biblical Exegesis ◽  
Peter Abelard ◽  
Jewish Scholar ◽  
1 Samuel

This paper revisits the question of the influence of Jewish biblical exegesis on Christian scholars in twelfth-century France, by focusing in particular on Abelard's response to a question of Heloise in herProblemataabout questions raised by1 Samuel ii.35–6 (=1 Regum ii.35–6)concerning ‘the faithful priest’ prophesied as Eli's successor, the meaning of ‘will walk before my anointed’ and the nature of the offering his household should make. Abelard's discussion of the views of an unnamed Jewish scholar illustrates a consistent movement evident in the late eleventh and twelfth centuries for certain Christian exegetes to approach Jewish scholars to resolve problems posed by the text of the Old Testament. While the passage in1 Samuelwas traditionally interpreted in a Christocentric fashion, Heloise implicitly supports a more historical reading of the text in the question she puts to Abelard. The Jewish scholar's interpretation reported by Abelard is very close to that of Rashi's twelfth-century disciples.

Christian Hebraism in Twelfth-Century Rome: A Philologist's Correction of the Latin Bible through Dialogue with Jewish Scholars and their Hebrew Texts

2017 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 71-87
Author(s):  
Marie Thérèse Champagne
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Hebrew Text ◽  
Discourse Community ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
Jewish Scholar ◽  
The One ◽  
Christian Hebraism ◽  
Confessional Discourse

In mid-twelfth-century Rome, one clerical scholar, Nicolaus Maniacutius, honed his philological skills as he endeavoured to return the text of the Psalter to the original. Maniacutius met the challenge of editing Scripture in an unusual manner as a Christian Hebraist, consulting with Jewish scholars to compare the Vulgate Book of Psalms with the Jews’ Hebrew text. In doing so, he followed the example set by his scholarly predecessor, St Jerome, centuries earlier, as well as his contemporary, Hugh of St Victor. While scholars have acknowledged that Maniacutius consulted with Jews and learned Hebrew, the identity of the one or more Jewish scholar(s) remains obscure. The Sephardic scholar Abraham ibn Ezra lived in Rome c.1140–1143, and while there wrote a commentary on the Psalms. Nicolaus also revised the Psalter and wrote of a ‘learned Spanish Jew’. This article explores the phenomenon of Christian Hebraism in mid-twelfth-century Rome through the life and work of Maniacutius, and presents evidence that supports Cornelia Linde's suggestion that Abraham ibn Ezra was the ‘learned Spanish Jew’ with whom Maniacutius worked. In addition, textual evidence supports Maniacutius's work within an informal, cross-confessional discourse community of Jewish and Christian scholars.

Utopia’s Moorish Inspiration: Thomas More’s Reading of Ibn Ṭufayl

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Regnier
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
The Self ◽  
Latin Translation ◽  
Thomas More ◽  
Philosophical Novel ◽  
Ibn Tufayl

A promising but neglected precedent for Thomas More’s Utopia is to be found in Ibn Ṭufayl’s Ibn Ḥayy Yaqẓān. This twelfth-century Andalusian philosophical novel describing the self-education and enlightenment of a feral child on an island, while certainly a precedent for the European Bildungsroman, also arguably qualifies as a utopian text. It is possible that More had access to Pico de la Mirandola’s Latin translation of Ibn Ḥayy Yaqẓān. This study consists of a review of historical and philological evidence that More may have read Ibn Ḥayy Yaqẓān and a comparative reading of More’s and Ṭufayl’s two famous works. I argue that there are good reasons to see in Ibn Ḥayy Yaqẓān a source for More’s Utopia and that in certain respects we can read More’s Utopia as a response to Ṭufayl’s novel. L’Ibn Ḥayy Yaqẓān d’Ibn Ṭufayl consiste en un précédent incontournable mais négligé à l’Utopie de More. Ce récit philosophique andalou du douzième siècle décrivant l’auto-formation et l’éveil d’un enfant sauvage sur une île peut être considéré comme un texte utopique, bien qu’il soit certainement un précédent pour le Bildungsroman européen. Thomas More pourrait avoir lu l’Ibn Ḥayy Yaqẓān, puisqu’il a pu avoir accès à la traduction latine qu’en a fait Pic de la Miradolle. Cette étude examine les données historiques et philologiques permettant de poser que More a probablement lu cet ouvrage, et propose une lecture comparée de l’Ibn Ḥayy Yaqẓān et de l’Utopie de More. On y avance qu’il y a non seulement de bonnes raisons de considérer l’Ibn Ḥayy Yaqẓān d’Ibn Ṭufayl comme une source de l’Utopie de More, mais qu’il est aussi possible à certains égards de lire l’Utopie comme une réponse à l’Ibn Ḥayy Yaqẓān.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document