ABSTRACT The midday demon, who attacked the solitary monk with vicious temptations – above all, that of acedia – is a conventional motif in late antique and medieval ascetic literature. At the noon hour, the demonic assault was vigorous and ranging. But medieval spiritual writers like Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153) and Richard of Saint Victor (d. 1173) also described noontime as the high point of mystical experience. Both notions hark back to biblical statements made in the Psalms and Song (...) of Songs and were elaborated by medieval thinkers through exegetical rumination. This paper studies the propinquity of these two notions in the symbolism and vocabulary of medieval spiritual writers, and in so doing documents the biblical and monastic contribution to unfolding ideas about melancholy. As examined in Saturn and Melancholy pathological melancholy would traditionally refer to the complex of symptoms associated with sloth and sadness that beleaguered the uprooted and antisocial ascetic. But after the introduction of the Aristotelian problem to Latin writers, a contrasting view appeared in the early thirteenth century, which held melancholy for a benediction of mystical or theophanic frenzy. This paper unmoors melancholy from its classical sources and, beginning from the ambivalence of the noonday motif, argues that the traditional literature of mystics and ascetics prepared for this remarkable shift. (shrink)

El presente estudio analiza los recursos narrativos utilizados en los libros de viajes europeos a finales de la Edad Media. En primer lugar, se revisa la discusión sobre los relatos de viajes y la literatura de viajes, examinando las estructuras narrativas que configuran los escritos reales e imaginarios en los periplos. Posteriormente, se estudian los recursos narrativos aplicados a los relatos de los viajeros occidentales –tales como el itinerario, el orden espacial y cronológico, los mirabilia, entre otros-, estableciendo un relato (...) verosímil y legítimo frente a cualquier tipo de invención o falta de rigurosidad en la narración de viaje. En suma, nuestra propuesta de investigación sostiene que el método narrativo de los viajeros, basado en la curiosidad, la observación y el deseo de conocer nuevas cosas, privilegia la búsqueda de objetividad y verosimilitud en el relato. Los viajeros desean presentar con profunda sinceridad las verdades del mundo, lo que se torna una unidad en la composición narrativa de los libros de viajes medievales. (shrink)