"Every Valley Shall Be Exalted": The Discourse of Opposites in Twelfth-Century Thought

"Every Valley Shall Be Exalted": The Discourse of Opposites in Twelfth-Century Thought image
ISBN-10:

0801440580

ISBN-13:

9780801440588

Edition: 1
Released: Dec 12, 2002
Format: Hardcover, 192 pages
to view more data

Description:

In high medieval France, men and women saw the world around them as the product of tensions between opposites. Imbued with a Christian culture in which a penniless preacher was also the King of Kings and the last were expected to be first, twelfth-century thinkers brought order to their lives through the creation of opposing categories. In a highly original work, Constance Brittain Bouchard examines this poorly understood component of twelfth-century thought, one responsible, in her view, for the fundamental strangeness of that culture to modern thinking.

Scholars have long recognized that dialectical reasoning was the basic approach to philosophical, legal, and theological matters in the high Middle Ages. Bouchard argues that this way of thinking and categorizing―which she terms a "discourse of opposites"―permeated all aspects of medieval thought. She rejects suggestions that it was the result of imprecision, and provides evidence that people of that era sought not to reconcile opposing categories but rather to maintain them.

Bouchard scrutinizes the medieval use of opposites in five broad areas: scholasticism, romance, legal disputes, conversion, and the construction of gender. Drawing on research in a series of previously unedited charters and the earliest glossa manuscripts, she demonstrates that this method of constructing reality was a constitutive element of the thought of the period.

Low Price Summary






Top Bookstores


























We're an Amazon Associate. We earn from qualifying purchases at Amazon and all stores listed here.

DISCLOSURE: We're an eBay Partner Network affiliate and we earn commissions from purchases you make on eBay via one of the links above.

Want a Better Price Offer?

Set a price alert and get notified when the book starts selling at your price.

Want to Report a Pricing Issue?

Let us know about the pricing issue you've noticed so that we can fix it.