Humanities 303
The Monstrous Middle Ages
Satisfies the Connections Core
A Sciopod enjoys a moment out of the sun
|
Denise L. Despres Department of English Wyatt 349 / Ph: X3409 E-mail: ddespres@pugetsound.edu Office Hours: MWF 10:00-10:45; 12:30-14:30 TTh 12:00-13:45 and by appt. |
David F. Tinsley Department of Foreign Languages Wyatt 242 / Ph: x 3266 E-mail: tinsley@pugetsound.edu Office Hours: MW 14:00-15:00; TTh 11:00-11:50 and by appt.
|
Our web site:
www2.ups.edu/faculty/tinsley/Courses/hum303/00hum303.htm
The illustrious Bernard of Clairvaux felt compelled to address the medieval fondness for monstrosity when he rebuked the builders of the new Gothic Cathedrals and Cloisters in fascinated horror:
But what can justify that array of grotesques in the cloister where the brothers do their reading, a fantastic conglomeration of beauty misbegotten and ugliness transmogrified? What place have obscene monkeys, savage lions, unnatural centaurs, manticores, striped tigers, battling knights or hunters sounding their horns? You can see a head with many bodies and a multi-bodied head. Here is a quadruped with a dragon's tail, there an animal head stuck on a fish. That beast combines the forehand of a horse with the rear half of a goat . . .with such a bewildering array of shaped and forms on show, one would sooner read the sculptures than the books, and spend the whole day gawking at this wonderland rather than mediating on the law of God.
Gothic babwyns (grotesques) gambol in the margins of liturgical manuscripts, function as downspouts on cathedrals, and appear in epics and chivalric romances as forces of both good and evil. Early-modern artists, like Shakespeare and Leonardo da Vinci, influenced by medieval travel narratives such as Mandeville's Travels, believed in the veracity of a King of the East, Prester John, whose head was afixed to his body below his shoulders.
Today, we naturally "connect" the medieval period with monstrosity, and rightly so. While popular culture has relegated the monstrous to subgenres of film and literature, medieval culture embraced monstrosity and all its ambiguity as the border between human ingenuity and Platonic form, culture and the darker forces of fallen nature, self and the ever-present other (Saracen, Jew, Mongol, Hermaphrodite, to name a few). Humanities 303 explores medieval ontology, the nature of creation and our human ability to know it fully, through the monstrous. Recent research in art history, geography, anthropology, literary history, and cultural studies enables us to offer undergraduates current scholarship in an interdisciplinary format; as cultural historians whose published scholarship ranges from the disciplines of art history to literary and religious studies, we welcome the opportunity to collaborate in search of an answer to Bernard's haunting question. Why does monstrosity assume such a visible place in medieval culture? In turn, we expect that our students will emerge with a critical methodology for cultural studies in other periods. They will not be surprised when they discover that Renaissance historiographers, sharing the classical heritage with medieval intellectuals, were equally fascinated with monstrosity and compiled their own "scientific" works on the marvelous.
Connections 303 and the Core Curriculum
Connections courses are designed to develop an understanding of the interrelationship of fields of knowledge. Connections 303 explores such interrelationships on a number of levels. On a philosophical level, we conduct a series of inquiries into medieval ontology, the nature of creation and our human ability to know it fully, through the monstrous. The role of the monstrous in pagan, classical culture will serve as a contrast to the place monsters assume in the evolving Christian contexts the course sets forth as interdisciplinary case studies in medieval monstrosity. Each case study sets up a historical context for the study of monstrosity, informed by a specific material and literary culture. Recent research in art history, geography, anthropology, literary history, and cultural studies will enrich the course's interdisciplinary format.
We ask our students to study systematically how modes of representation influence our perception of monstrosity, with particular focus on the relationship of text to image. The course will begin with an art historical introduction to Classical theories of monstrosity reflected in a visual tradition medieval artists and writers inherited. Frequent reference to examples from digital manuscript libraries across Europe will allow the students to observe precisely the interrelationship between text, illuminations, and miniatures as they define visually the place of the monstrous even as a tale of confrontation with monstrosity is being told on the same page. Not only can text and images be telling contrasting stories simultaneously, but students will also become familiar with modes of allegorical and devotional interaction which were commonplace in the Middle Ages but are largely lost today. The goal of the course is for students to develop greater awareness of the cultural significance of monstrosity even as they refine their aesthetic appreciation of how the monstrous is represented.