If you have noticed, quite a few of the texts we have read use animals as symbols to represent something like traits. From Marie de France to Chaucer: animals are key literary tools. So when you close read and come across a reference to an animal the website, The Medieval Bestiary, is your friend.
All you have to do is type in the animal and search. You can find medieval illustrations, allegories, morals, traits, and other places in medieval literature that the animal is referenced.
Examples:
Marie de France references an eagle in her lai, Lanval in regards to the character, the mysterious lady of the woods. According to The Medieval Bestiary an eagle can represent Christ and rejuvenation or it can represent an evil spirit and a ravisher of souls.
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| Retrieved from The Medieval Bestiary. British Library. |
In Sir Gowther, Gowther's punishment is to only eat the food that was first in the mouth of a dog. In medieval culture dogs were considered to be faithful creatures who could heal wounds by licking them. This symbolizes "the wounds of sin being healed through confession."
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| Retrieved from The Medieval Bestiary. Kongelige Bibliotek. |
In the near future we will be reading the Nun's Priest's Tale. Chaucer loved his animals, in this tale there is a rooster and a fox. I highly recommend you utilize this website while reading.
Kinzi,
ReplyDeleteThis is such a helpful tool for the many of readings we have done throughout the semester and I will probably use this for future readings in this semester. I love the analysis of the dogs and brings me back to our class discussion of Gowther. It seems we were on the right track about the use of dogs in Sir Gowther as a part of his penance. Very interesting and glad you have brought this to our attention!
Thanks Lexie, it has helped me in the past and it also really interesting. In Gowther, applying the symbolism of the dogs makes me believe that his healing/purifying/redeeming process began the moment he confessed his sins to the pope.
DeleteKinzi,
ReplyDeleteThis is awesome! This would be a great tool for Dr. Mann to make available for future Medieval students because you're right we see animals all the time. It would be interesting to go and see what dragons symbolize, since we had no idea why the dragon was included in Beowulf! How the medieval culture viewed animals is very fascinating and I think it's a far stretch on some of them to relate it to how some people feel about certain animals today! Very interesting and a great tool (maybe this will help in some of our final papers!).
Dr. Mann actually shared the website awhile back in Chaucer; I have simply utilized it in the readings and my papers. Back then it seems as though everything had a meaning. I think that since the medieval culture was still going through some transitioning from pagan beliefs and superstitions to Christian beliefs: what remained were superstitions, signs, omens and usually referenced nature and animals.
DeleteI really liked the piece about the dogs. Now I find it more interesting that Gowther could only eat food from the mouths of dogs because this was seen as a healing process; also it be seen as mending a broken faith that comes from Gowther's biological father that was a fiend.
ReplyDelete