Cosmopolitanism and Medievalism.
- Author/Editor
- Ganim, John.
- Title
- Cosmopolitanism and Medievalism.
- Published
- Ganim, John. "Cosmopolitanism and Medievalism." Exemplaria; 2010; 22(1): 5-27.
- Review
- Ganim explores the different forms of medieval cosmopolitanism, reaching the conclusion that both cosmopolitanism and anti-cosmopolitanism could and did exist at once in many situations in the Middle Ages. This, he suggests, is a useful reminder to not misunderstand these aspects of the Middle Ages as monolithic. Ganim examines the presentation of the Middle Ages in three post-Cold War texts: the film "Destiny" (1999), the novel "Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree" (1993), and the novel "Dictionary of the Khazars" (1984). He asserts, "They represent a turn towards the Middle Ages after the Cold War, and they do so in the context of how we should accommodate differences within and between cultures, and how human rights can be extended, defended, or negotiated in those different cultures" (7). The fictionalized Middle Ages represented in these texts depict "the Middle Ages as uncertain, as complex and divided as the present," not as a paradise "but a continual double of the present" (10-11). Ganim proceeds to offer a history of medieval cosmopolitan thought, explaining that medieval political thought was less concerned with exterior forces than with managing internal affairs: "it never quite gets around to thinking about the other" (14). Ganim then discusses the beginning stages and current moment of work on medieval cosmopolitanism before providing his own readings of "Troilus and Criseyde," "Confessio Amantis," and "The Travels of Sir John Mandeville." Ganim suggests that Gower, in the Prologue to CA, "consistently argues away difference," opting instead to advocate for the eventual unity at the end of time, even as he seems to deny the possibility of ultimate unity because of the "innate divisions within each human" (23). Ganim concludes that medieval political thought made no distinction between cosmopolitanism and communitarianism: "Thus, individual writers and thinkers in the Middle Ages could be both xenophobic and cosmopolitan, both curious and closeminded, either at particular points in their careers or, more typically, within the same text" (25).] [JGS. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 39.1]
- Date
- 2010
- Gower Subjects
- Confessio Amantis