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IMC 2005: Sessions

Session 1520: Preparing for Death and Salvation

Thursday 14 July 2005, 09.00-10.30

Moderator/Chair:Cora Dietl, Onderzoekinstituut voor Geschiedenis en Cultuur, Universiteit Utrecht
Paper 1520-aAnd then, neither Will nor Fortune, and not even Medicine: 'Now I se', seide Lif, 'that surgerie ne phisik may noght a myte availle to medle ayein Elde'
(Language: English)
Edurne Garrido Anes, Departamento de Filología Inglesa, Universidad de Huelva
Index terms: Language and Literature - Middle English
Paper 1520-b15th-Century Dutchmen Were Ready to Die
(Language: English)
Bas Jongenelen, Universiteit van Amsterdam
Index terms: Language and Literature - Comparative, Language and Literature - Dutch, Language and Literature - French or Occitan, Rhetoric
Paper 1520-cExplanations of the Psychological Divide: Youth and Maturity of St Francis of Assisi
(Language: English)
Peter G. Christensen, Department of English, Cardinal Stritch University, Wisconsin
Index terms: Medievalism and Antiquarianism, Religious Life, Sermons and Preaching, Social History
Abstract

Grouped by IMC Programming Committee
Abstract Paper -a:
In The Visions of Piers Plowman, Lust and Fortune ended up abandoning Will, their faithful follower for over forty-five years. Then, Lif tried to help Will and hold off Elde but nothing and nobody could help. The realization that one’s life is coming to an end provokes inner anxieties that often result in the adoption of more or less materialistic or ascetic attitudes, depending on whether we think of death as something absolute or believe in an afterlife. This paper will focus on some medieval literary allusions to ageing as a one-way trip towards death and further, and we will be able to infer how that trip was supposed to be prepared.
Abstract Paper -b:
This paper relates to my 2004 paper presentation (1521-b). Olivier de la Marche’s book Le chevalier délibéré (1483) prepares its readers for aging and dying. Everybody should know that death can strike at any time! In this light Le chevalier délibéré fits in the 2005 theme. This paper is the prequel to my 2004 one: 15th century Dutchmen were ready to die. Many books on death were published in the Netherlands in the 15th century: Vanden drie blinde danssen, Tdal sonder wederkeeren and Elckerlyc. Besides the three books mentioned, which other books prepared the way for Le chevalier délibéré?
Abstract Paper -c:
The life of St. Francis of Assisi divides itself into two parts: a) youth as a pampered, wealthy son of a cloth merchant up to the time of his religious experience, which led him to turn his back on the commercial world and his birthright and b) maturity as the leader of a band of followers who chose poverty and gained Papal approval. The hagiographical tradition through traditional before/after patterns makes it difficult to understand this change. I wish to discuss how novelists such as Nikos Kazantzakis, and more recently John Mueller and Edward Hays, as well as the filmmakers Franco Zeffirelli and Liliana Cavani have tried to explain Francis's sudden transit from youth to maturity.