The whole of the Middle Ages was, in a sense, a child: "Melancholy child, ripped from the very entrails of Christianity, born in tears, grown up in prayer and reverie and in heartrending anguish, dead without achieving anything; but it has left behind so poignant a memory that all the joys and all the grandeurs of the modern age are not enough to console us."
Jules Michelet, quoted by Jacques Le Goff in Time, Work & Culture in the Middle Ages
5 comments:
This is fascinating, and shows how widely you've read... :)
"dead without achieving anything"? Nothing but a "poignant memory", that is...Why are we doing Course II then?
Sorry, I didn't mean to sound confrontational in my last post! (Not that I could be confrontational to save my life, but...).
What I was just trying to say is, is it fair to say the Middle Ages died without achieving anything... isn't that reverting back to certain past scholars' way of thinking, of reducing the mediaeval 'period' in importance, seeing it as a big messy blob stuck somewhere bwteen Ancient times, and the Modern era? Okay, I appreciate that the quote doesn't seem to lean that way with all the "cannot be consoled" business, but isn't there the danger of leaning that way with a statement like "dead without achieving anything@+"... okay, probaby not, this is maybe a stupid idea, and I might have misunderstood everything... sorry...I'll go to bed now...
i think the "dead without achieving" part signifies that its incomplete, and that its struggling between two times, the past and the future. I dont neccesarily agree with the quote, just thought its nicely written, and would give us something to think about. I havent read that widely ayoush, this is something i had to read for my earlier degree, and i just read the first two pages of the book :S
i think the middle ages were a very rich period, especially in terms of language, and standardisation nipped that while it was still flourishing. well, but at the same time, standardisation is something that was accepted by the language, and it all kind of happened...historically, and in retrospect, its a "middle" ages, but looking at the time in itself, its taking something from the Anglo Saxon past and transforming it, and trying to take it further, but not managing, because by then it has become modern.
Now Im just blabbering. Do I make any sense??
Oh no, you make perfect sense, and your ideas are all very interesting :). Do you have any thoughts on how you'll work these ideas into analysis on specific texts?
no, this isn't really an exam thing. its actually just something i discovered in my old blog. And i though you or lollius may be able to use it or argue against it.
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