SPPELME · THE SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY, AND POETICS OF EXPERIENCE IN LATE MEDIEVAL ENGLAND

THE SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY, AND POETICS OF EXPERIENCE IN LATE MEDIEVAL ENGLAND

The project examines the rise of interest in the idea of 'experience' during the later Middle Ages (ca. 1360–1450), with particular attention to the role of poets writing in vernacular languages, primarily English and French. The growth of interest in the problematic definition of 'experience' needs to be seen the context of the wider developments in European intellectual and scientific culture, over a longer period stretching from about 1200 to 1450. The relevance of specifically literary texts to the history of western attitudes to experience in this period is twofold. Firstly, poets tackle the problem of 'experience' in a language that is accessible to readers who are not members of the elite community of intellectuals in the later Middle Ages, and whose thought is generally recorded in Latin alone, and often in texts that remain inaccessible to readers outside medieval schools and Universities. The growth of public, vernacular interest in the idea of experience accordingly suggests that this period marks a fundamental paradigm shift in cultural history at large, beyond the "ivory tower" of academic speculation studied by intellectual historians. Secondly, the formal characteristics of poetic fiction lend themselves particularly well to explore the problem of experience, in ways that differ substantially from the analytical tools employed by 'professional' intellectuals in the schools and universities during this historical period. In particular, poets during this period turn to fictional first-person narratives in order to articulate their own, lived understanding of the nature of individual, subjective experience, and to analyse the mental and affective mechanics of experience 'from the inside'. Narrative fiction in this period is increasingly utilised to conduct what we could designate as 'thought experiments'. The project ultimately reveals that the nature of 'experience' became a popular topic of debate in society at large during the period in question. Late medieval definitions of experience, however, cannot be seen as heralding the emergence of modern experimental science in any simple and direct fashion. The project aims to illustrate how medieval ideas of experience were shaped by contemporary science, interiority, and anthropology: rather than arguing for the emergence of modern ideas of subjectivity and interiority in this period, then, the project argues for the need to understand such evolving concepts in their specific cultural and historical context.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз