Woodys favorite aphorism about history is of uncertain heritage, but it sings with rhetorical acuity: History doesnt repeat itself, but it rhymes. My virtual pal, Max Hooper is gonna present a paper next year in Ol Blighty on a similar theme. A medievalist, she was idly perusing the dramatic literature of the 13th Century when she happened upon something unsettlingly familiar: mortal conflict between Christian and Saracen.,. Heres her precis: Clash of Empires: Conflict Resolution and Religious Domination in the 12th-century Jeu De Saint Nicholas In Jean Bodel’s twelfth-century play Le Jeu de Saint Nicholas, the playwright addresses a pressing, contemporary issue: the interaction between Saracen and Christian during the Third (or King’s) Crusade. In this presentation, I examine the expendability of the Christian body, the tension and confusion of staging a foreign empire, and the necessity of a scapegoat in religio-political systems. Similarly, the play pits pagan god and idol against a statue of Saint Nicholas. Since the Christians are slaughtered in Bodel’s version, intriguingly, the playwright ultimately concludes war and violence are ineffective, but that conversion, even forced conversion, is essential to medieval Christianity. It certainly evokes current tensions, nest paw?
Posted on: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 18:58:24 +0000
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