Figure des Brifilians: allegory and utopia
Luiz Cláudio Moisés RIBEIRO; Bárbara DANTAS
Original title: Figure des Brifilians: alegoria e utopia
Published in Rhythms, expressions and representations of the body
Keywords: Allegory, Amerindian, Denis Diderot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Locke, Michel de Montaigne.
The Americas were proof of a new way of life, that of the Amerindians. Since the 16th century, the French already knew Portuguese America and called its native inhabitants brifilians, that is, Brazilians. These Indians aroused curiosity, they were living proof of the beings that inhabited exotic and rich lands, places that, for Europeans, were ready to be conquered and explored. According to the function of entertaining and instructing linked to artists as political philosophers, this article presents the relationship between image and text through the vision of four European philosophers − John Locke, Michel de Montaigne, Denis Diderot, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau − about America and its inhabitants, eyes covered by their own conceptions and prejudices, but willing to understand the New World. Whether in philosophy or visual art, the medium used to represent this exotic place − therefore strange − was the allegory.
Meaning and importance of Paradise description in the Introducción de los Milagros de Nuestra Señora by Gonzalo de Berceo
Lidia Raquel MIRANDA
Original title: Sentido y alcances de la descripción del Paraíso en la Introducción de los Milagros de Nuestra Señora de Gonzalo de Berceo
Published in Paradise, Purgatory and Hell: the Religiosity in the Middle Ages
Keywords: Allegory, Berceo, Description, Milagros de Nuestra Señora, Paradise.
The Introduction of Los Milagros de Nuestra Señora by Gonzalo de Berceo shows a locus amoenus, where the pilgrim rests, that identify with paradise (c. 14 a y b). The source in that lawn (c. 3) divides in four branches (c. 21) that evoke the rivers of paradise, and the trees that produce healthful and beautiful fruits (c. 4) represent the abundance and happiness preceding the original sin. In this context, Virgin Mary image is the redemption matrix that will repair the fault committed by Adam and Eve because of her mediation between Christ and men. The stanzas’ text by Gonzalo de Berceo we have analyzed focus in theological history of humanity of latest days, the enunciator present, which is understood starting from the originating times. So, the lawn description connotes the lost paradise and paradisiacal state which recovery is a certain possibility to men who believe and devote Virgin Mary.
O símbolo contra o texto: Pseudo-Dionísio Areopagita e a irrepresentabilidade divina
Henrique Marques Samyn
Published in The Philosophical Tradition in the Ancient and Medieval World
Keywords: Allegory, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, symbol.
Philosophy & Art: The Dispute between Faith and Understanding (1303). The Allegory in philosophical thought and Baroque Art: Ramon Llull (1232-1316) & Vermeer (1632-1675)
Luís Carlos Silva de SOUSA
Original title: Filosofia & Arte: A Disputa entre a Fé e o Entendimento (1303). A Alegoria no pensamento filosófico e na Arte Barroca: Ramon Llull (1232-1316) & Vermeer (1632-1675)
Published in The World of Tradition
Keywords: Allegory, Art, Faith, Johannes Vermeer, Philosophy, Ramon Llull, Reason, Understanding.
The purpose of this article is to analyse the work of Ramon Llull (1232-1316), Disputatio fidei et intellectus (1303), comparing it with the painting by Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675), The Allegory of Faith (ca. 1672-4). The statute of the Allegory is examined in Llull and Vermeer. It is argued that both work with the theme of the personification of the Allegories and that, in the relationship between faith and reason, the transcendence of the mysteries of the Christian faith is preserved, without hindering the power of reason.
The Myth of Lot in Genesis 19 and its Implications in Sexual Education During the Middle Ages
Andrea A. M. GATTI
Published in Pleasure in the Middle Ages
Keywords: Allegory, Cave cult, Homosexuality, Hospitality, Incest.
An accurate understanding of sexual relations described in Lot’s parable in Genesis 19 constitutes an interesting key to the analysis of this episode and to its exegetic interpretation throughout the Middle Age. In this essay we will focus on two distinct moments of the account: first, the attempted rape of Lot’s divine guests by the populace of Sodom, then destroyed by God’s anger; second, the incestuous intercourses between Lot and his daughters in a remote cave, far from the burning cities of the Dead Sea’s plain. By comparing this passage with similar episodes in the Old Testament, we will try to explain those topoi in their historical and geographical context, by stressing the ethnic and genealogical background of this episode. Then, we will show different readings by exegetes of all the revealed religions during the Middle Age. Finally, Supported by textual and iconographical analysis, we will study the social and cultural implications of such readings in response to these violent behaviours and to the role played by facts and characters.
The School of Alexandria and the use of allegorical method by Origen of Alexandria
Eirini ARTEMI
Published in
Keywords: Allegory, Celsus, Neoplatonism, Origen, Platonism, School of Alexandria.
In this paper it will be examined the School of Alexandria. The latter was a great center of Christianity, for a span of five centuries, until the reign of Justinian (529 A.D.). In it, the first system of Christian theology was formed and the allegorical method of biblical exegesis was devised. The School of Alexandria adopted the allegorical interpretation of the Holy Scripture, believing that it hides the truth and at the same time reveals it. It hides the truth from the ignorant, whose eyes are blinded by sin and pride, hence they are prevented from the knowledge of the truth. Origen, one of the greatest Christian theologians employed the allegorical method of the interpretation of the Bible in the belief that he was explaining them, whereas he was exploiting them on behalf his own dogmatic teaching. He was accused of that by other fathers of the Christian Church but also by many heretics. Origen had to defend his exegetical method against the various attacks from heretics, from laymen the church and from Celsus who attacked the Christian writers because, being «ashamed of these things (which are written the Bible), they take refuge allegory». On the other hand, Origen was not a «pure» allegorist in that he has some place for literal interpretation as well. Finally, Origen’s basic commitments were to the Scriptures as the word of God, the church as the guardian of the tradition and the household of faith, and to Platonic metaphysics He thus wanted to hold both to his literally true Christian history, and to his spiritually true Platonism and Neoplatonism.
The allegorical interpretation of myths: from origins to Plato
Loraine OLIVEIRA
Original title: A interpretação alegórica de mitos: das origens a Platão
Published in Manifestations of the Ancient and Medieval World
Keywords: Allegory, Interpretation, Myths, Philosophical discourse, truth.
The aim of this paper is to present some of the main aspects of allegory understood as hermeneutical practice. Allegory takes as certain that the text to be interpreted possesses some truth content. At the same time that the first allegorical interpretations of Homer and Hesiod appear, there also appear harsh criticisms of their poems. Such criticisms can be grouped under two main headings: the demythologization of the cosmos and the immorality of gods. Plato has behind him two centuries of disputes about the meaning of the poems, and clearly stands against allegorical practice, even though he does not abandon myths. What happens is that he displaces the truth content of the text: truth is not to be sought in poetry anymore, but in philosophical discourse.
The allegorical representation in the Bad Women by Francisco de Goya (1746-1828): narrative and iconological analysis
Alexandre Emerick NEVES, Sabrina Vieira LITTIG
Original title: A representação alegórica na obra Mulher Má de Francisco de Goya (1746-1828): análise narrativa e iconológica
Published in Art, Criticism and Mysticism
Keywords: Allegory, Francisco de Goya, Iconography, Sorceress.
We present a study about of allegorical elements of representation from female figure in the work Bad Woman by Francisco de Goya y Lucientes. Through stemming images of popular imagination that throw themselves in time and serve to reinforce decadent social stereotypes, we propose a brief discussion of the allegory its significant and symbolic structures. The iconological approach of some narrative aspects of these artistic formulations indicates how the popular imagination contributed to the development of the witch myth, creature represented as evil reference by the artists of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, pernicious enemy of religious and moral structures. We emphasize the symbolic and conceptual relationships in the modern development of these figures in Goya's work.
