Garden and plant imagery in medieval Spanish and Arabic literature of the Iberian Peninsula: Some ecocritical approaches.

摘要

This work studies garden imagery in medieval Hispano-Arab literature, using methodology provided by ecocriticism. The first two chapters provide historical context and a brief overview of religious and philosophical influences in the period. The following chapters follow a roughly chronological scheme. Chapter 3 addresses the topic by looking at the Iberian preoccupation with what trees and birds represented. Chapter 4 relates such imagery to the medieval search for knowledge. Chapter 5 explores concepts of gender, hierarchies of power, and the importance of height. Chapter 6 examines works in relation to conceptions of work, duty, and leisure. Chapter 7 examines the ideas of the bosco, water, deployment of space, boundaries, and safety. Chapter 8 examines the concept of order in the world, and the longing for it to increase. Chapter 9 examines questions of duty to society, and the fate of the individual human soul, along with ideas of divine judgment, eternal life, and resurrection. The work shows that garden imagery functions as a medium for the creation of virtual landscape, landscape through which ethical and philosophical questions may be addressed.