Body metaphors in goliardic poetry: Altercatio cordis et oculi (The dispute between the eye and the heart) and Alte Clamat Epicurus (The cult of the stomach)
Mariana BLANCO
Original title: Metáforas corporales en la poesía de los goliardos: Altercatio cordis et oculi (La disputa entre el ojo y el corazón) y Alte Clamat Epicurus (El culto del estómago)
Published in The Medieval Aesthetics
Keywords: Body images, Carmina Burana, Goliards, Medieval Latin poetry, Middle Ages.
Born in the twelfth century, in the literary world of medieval schools, goliardic poetry is considered one of the most original manifestations of the Medieval Latin lyric for its rebellious vitalism, its celebration of the body and its irreverent criticism of the social order. In this article we propose to analyze some body images and corporal metaphors recurrent in the poetics of goliardism, focusing on the dialectical relations between soul-body and virtue-vice, characteristics of the medieval worldview. We will take into consideration the anonymous poems Altercatio cordis et oculi (The dispute between the eye and the heart) and Alte Clamat Epicurus (The cult of the stomach) and we will study the tensions between the noble and ignoble parts of the body, between the ascetic ideal and excess, between the exaltation of sensual pleasures and the condemnation of the flesh as the origin of sin. Likewise, we will examine the way in which body representation is mediated by the intellectual formation of poets in its double aspect: the classical Latin and the biblical-ecclesiastical traditions.
Images of the body in the rhetorical ethos of Cicero (106-43 a. C.) and Descartes (1596-1650)
Giannina BURLANDO
Original title: Imágenes del cuerpo en el ethos retórico de Cicerón (106-43 a. C.) y Descartes (1596-1650)
Published in The Medieval Aesthetics
Keywords: Body images, Cicero, Descartes, Rhetoric.
The main hypothesis of the study tries to establish that there are images of bodies, which play the role of figuring a certain rhetorical ethos in both Cicero and Descartes. Both are critical authors of the rhetoric inherited from their predecessors, who in turn build their new rhetorical ethos. The first section shows a rhetorical ethos permeated by images of neo-academicist bodies of the mythical-epic type that mirror the vital culture of Cicero. The second to the fifth section includes the perspective and images of neo-Renaissance mathematical-geometric bodies in the work of Descartes, in both cases, the images of bodies have sign value of their times.