The Medieval Imagination - Hardcover

Le Goff

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226470849 ISBN 13: 9780226470849

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1988

Synopsis

To write this history of the imagination, Le Goff has recreated the mental structures of medieval men and women by analyzing the images of man as microcosm and the Church as mystical body; the symbols of power such as flags and oriflammes; and the contradictory world of dreams, marvels, devils, and wild forests. "Le Goff is one of the most distinguished of the French medieval historians of his generation ...he has exercised immense influence."--Maurice Keen, New York Review of Books "The whole book turns on a fascinating blend of the brutally materialistic and the generously imaginative."--Tom Shippey, London Review of Books "The richness, imaginativeness and sheer learning of Le Goff's work ...demand to be experienced."--M. T. Clanchy, Times Literary Supplement

About this title

From the Back Cover

The collection begins with an essay on 'the marvelous.' Le Goff highlights subtle changes in medieval attitudes and sensibilities by contrasting the marvelous (representing a 'secularization' of the supernatural after the thirteenth century) with the miraculous (depending solely on God's saving grace) and the magical (governed by Satan's destructive activity).

About the Author

Jacques Le Goff(1927-2014) was a prominent French historian andmedievalist. He wasa key proponent of theAnnales school of historical analysis, which emphasizes longterm social history over political or military themes. He argued that the Middle Ages were a distinct form ofcivilization, substantively different from both the classsical and modern worlds.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226470849
• ISBN 13: 9780226470849
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 302