Folding Time: Honorius Augustodunensis' 'Imago Mundi'

Younge, George (2023) Folding Time: Honorius Augustodunensis' 'Imago Mundi'. Interfaces: A Journal of Medieval European Literatures, 10. pp. 59-83. ISSN 2421-5503

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Abstract

[EN] The Imago mundi or "Image of the World" was composed around 1110 by Honorius Augustodunensis, one of the most prolific authors of his age. Presented in the form of a mappa mundi, the Imago offers its reader a verbal 'image' of the cosmos, covering topics ranging from the atom to the heavenly spheres. Despite being one of the most popular works of the central Middle Ages, scholars rarely regard the Imago as a text possessing serious literary merit, dismissing it instead as a derivative exercise in compilation. This essay argues that the Imago is in fact an ambitious literary undertaking with a coherent spiritual agenda. While Honorius recycles (like many of his peers) earlier medieval and especially Neoplatonic cosmological ideas, his text shapes that material in new ways – into a spiritually transformative journey through and above the cosmos, and into the self. At the same time, throughout the work Honorius deploys a range of strikingly material metaphors to describe the world from the perspective of eternity – most notably, the rope of time. In this further literary sense, the ascent to eternity entails a recognition that we dwell in images.

Tipologia del documento: Articolo in rivista
Parole chiave: Honorius Augustodunensis; Platonism; Boethius; folding; salvation
Soggetto: D History General and Old World > D History (General) > D111 Medieval History
P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN0441 Literary History
Depositato il: 21 Ago 2026 21:41
Ultima modifica: 22 Ago 2026 14:26
URI: https://www.rmoa.unina.it/id/eprint/8035

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