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IMC 2023: Sessions

Session 826: Natural Entanglements, III: Crossing Literature, Natural Science, and Philosophical Fiction in Medieval Writing

Tuesday 4 July 2023, 16.30-18.00

Sponsor:Centre d'Études sur le Moyen Âge et la Renaissance, Université catholique de Louvain
Organiser:Antonella Sciancalepore, Centre d'études sur le Moyen Âge et la Renaissance, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve
Moderator/Chair:Antonella Sciancalepore, Centre d'études sur le Moyen Âge et la Renaissance, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve
Paper 826-aQuestions of Form in the Poetic Philosophy of the Romance of the Rose
(Language: English)
Jonathan Morton, Department of Medieval & Modern Languages, University of Oxford
Index terms: Language and Literature - French or Occitan, Philosophy
Paper 826-bGreat Pieces of Turf
(Language: English)
Kellie Robertson, Department of English, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Index terms: Art History - Painting, Language and Literature - Comparative, Science
Paper 826-cEmpire and Nature: Texts on Alexander the Great, Variety, and the Order of the Cosmos in Southern Italy, 10th-13th Centuries
(Language: English)
Michele Campopiano, Department of English & Related Literature, University of York
Index terms: Language and Literature - Latin, Politics and Diplomacy, Science
Abstract

Natural philosophy in the Middle Ages was not confined to scholarly treatises, but crossed both scientific and literary genres. In fact, the discourse on nature could serve strategic purposes because of its potential for mixing different codes, languages and sources.
This session will approach this entanglement of genres in the discussions about nature in medieval writing and art, from three different but complementary points of view. First, Jonathan Morton will investigate the ways in which poetic form could enact a particularly literary process of knowledge: through examples from the Roman de la Rose, the paper will focus on the joint effect of philosophical lexicon and ambiguous figurative language in the text's epistemology. Kellie Robertson will also tackle artistic language - that of early modern painting - to demonstrate the dynamic entanglement of art and nature through the analysis of practical and aesthetic uses of turf in late medieval scientific and literary texts. Finally, Michele Campopiano will approach the political purpose of genre entanglement through the case of two texts - one scientific and one literary - produced in Southern Italy, in which the variety of nature and species becomes functional to the construction of imperial hegemony.