The Ornament of the World

Posted on 17 December 2018 by María Rosa Menocal

Undoing the familiar notion of the Middle Ages as a period of religious persecution and intellectual stagnation, Mar a Menocal now brings us a portrait of a medieval culture where literature, science, and tolerance flourished for 500 years.The story begins as a young prince in exile the last heir to an Islamic dynasty founds a new kingdom on the Iberian peninsula al Andalus Combining the best of what Muslim, Jewish, and Christian cultures had to offer, al Andalus and its successors influenced the rest of Europe in dramatic ways, from the death of liturgical Latin and the spread of secular poetry, to remarkable feats in architecture, science, and technology The glory of the Andalusian kingdoms endured until the Renaissance, when Christian monarchs forcibly converted, executed, or expelled non Catholics from Spain In this wonderful book, we can finally explore the lost history whose legacy is still with us in countless ways Author Biography Mar a Rosa Menocal is R Selden Rose Professor of Spanish and Portuguese and head of the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale University She lives in New Haven, CT. Download The Ornament of the World by María Rosa Menocal – kino-fada.fr This book is all about fragmentation Fragmented are the arguments, fragmented are the contents, fragmented was the society Menocal strives to explore, and fragmented was also the tolerance that the author believes existed in Medieval Spain Fragmented remains then my Like Dislike of the book.It does not help that in this mosaic of unequal elements the glue that is supposed to bind them together, Menocal s language, did not seem to coalesce her pieces Reading her prose, although it is very clea This book is all about fragmentation Fragmented are the arguments, fragmented are the contents, fragmented was the society Menocal strives to explore, and fragmented was also the tolerance that the author believes existed in Medieval Spain Fragmented remains then my Like Dislike of the book.It does not help that in this mosaic of unequal elements the glue that is supposed to bind them together, Menocal s language, did not seem to coalesce her pieces Reading her prose, although it is very clear and flowing, I could not help but quiver in my seat at times The terms and turns of phrases she uses are too modern One cannot speak of avant garde...The ornament of the world is the famous description of Cordoba given to her readers by the tenth century Saxon writer Hroswitha, who from her far off convent at Gandersheim perceived the exceptional qualities and the centrality of the Cordoban caliphate. Mar a Rosa Menocal 1953 2012 Cuban born scholar of medieval culture and history and Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University degrees from the University of Pennsylvania taught Romance philology at the University of PennsylvaThe ornament of the world is the famous description of Cordoba given to her readers by the tenth century Saxon writer Hroswitha, who from her far off convent at Gandersheim perceived the exceptional qualities and the centrality of the Cordoban caliphate. Mar a Rosa Menocal 1953 2012 Cuban born scholar of medieval culture and history and Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University degrees from the University of Pennsylvania taught Romance philology at the University of Pennsylvania director of the Yale Whitney Humanities Center for several years co editor of The Literature of Al Andalus in the Cambridge History of Arabic Literature series elected a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America in 2011 and inducted into the Fellows of the Medieval Academy in March 2012 Wiki The book Forward first chapterThe book was published in 2002, with the subtitle How Muslims, Jews, and Christians created a culture of tolerance in medieval Spain Ironic, in light of the happenings of the previous September...First, some words of warning do not approach this particular book as a historical documentation of a period, lest you be very frustrated within a few chapters The Decline and Fall The Moorish Way this is not While Menocal does provide an outline of the events, rulers, and major actors of the era in the first chapter, it is nothingthan a quick sketch, intended to explain the backdrop of what she really wishes to talk about Elsewhere, the historical information is presented in a very sh First, some words of warning do not approach this particular book as a historical documentation of a period, lest you be very frustrated within a few chapters The Decline and Fall The Moorish Way this is not While Menocal does provide an outline of the events, rulers, and major actors of the era in the first chapter, it is nothingthan a quick sketch, intended to explain the backdrop of what she really wishes to talk about Elsewhere, the historical information is prese... Idealism what we call quixotic idealism, so vividly is it depicted by Cervantes is an act of the imagination, and perhaps a doomed one, and the question on the table becomes whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. This is a book about nostalgia, and nostalgia is a dangerous thing It s one of the tricks of our memory to filter the past through a sentimental lens, forgetting all the bad and magnifying the good And when thinking about a time before we lived, we run the risk not only of twis Idealism what we call quixotic idealism, so vividly is it depicted by Cervantes is an act of the imagination, and perhaps a doomed one, and the question on the table becomes whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. This is a book about nostalgia, and nostalgia is a dangerous thing It s one of the tricks of our memory to filter the past through a sentimental lens, forgetting all the bad and magnifying the good And when thinking about a time before we lived, we run the risk not only of twisting the truth but of inventing it.Ostensibly the book is about Al Andalus, Muslim Spain from 711 to 1492 and specifically about the culture of tolerance that flourished during this period Menocal takes her title from a remark of Hroswitha, the German canoness, who called C rdoba the Ornament of the World after meeting with an ambassador Menocal does not, however, write a conventional, chronological history, but instead a series of vignettes from the time...The fact that Ferdinand and Isabella did not choose the path of tolerance is seen as an example of the intractability and inevitability of intolerance, especially in the premodern era But their actions may be far better understood as the failure to make thedifficult decision, to have the courage to cultivate a society that can live with its own flagrant contradictions They chose instead to go down the modern path, the one defined by an ethic of unity and harmony, and which is largely in The fact that Ferdinand and Isabella did not choose the path of tolerance is seen as an example of the intractability and inevitability of intolerance, especially in the premodern era But their actions may be far better understood as the failure to make thedifficult decision, to have the courage to cultivate a society that can live with its own flagrant contradictions They chose instead to go down the modern path, the one defined by an ethic of unity and harmony, and which is largely intolerant of contradiction Although specifically related to the act that was the final nail in the coffin of a culture of tolerance that had existed to greater or lesser degrees for hundreds of years on the Iberian peninsula, this passage from the epilogue is an excellent summary of Menocal s book as well as of the place and period which are its subject matter This book should be required reading for l...I have to say this book has awoken a thirst to learn muchMedieval history of Spain and Europe as a whole I enjoyed this book so much because of the history it provides and how it piqued my interest in learningabout Medieval times in Al Andalus, Spain, as well as the rest of Europe and Middle East, the development of vernacular languages and developing literature via such authors as Dante, Boccaccio and at the end of the era, Cervantes I also want to sample some of the books on poet I have to say this book has awoken a thirst to learn muchMedieval history of Spain and Europe as a whole I enjoyed this book so much because of the history it provides and how it piqued my interest in learningabout Medieval times in Al Andalus, Spain, as well as the rest of Europe and Middle East, the development of vernacular languages and developing literature via such authors as Dante, Boccaccio and at the end of the era, Cervantes I also want to sample some of the books on poetry...Maria Rosa Menocal s The Ornament of the New World dealt with a time frame in which people became pioneers either due to personal desire or because they were forcefully moved to another place Menocal explained people s migration patterns, how locations name changes occurred, and why shifts in personal assignment to a religious faith happened.The book explained the growth of Arabic in Iberia, which previously was a Latin based region, to the birth of the Mozarabe dialect I was in...Ornament of the World is a book about medieval era in Iberian peninsula Menocal starts the time at 750, right after the Abbasid massacre of the Umayyad dynasty in Syria and ends it around 1500 after the exile of Jews, Muslims and convertos from the peninsula In the epilogue the timeline even stretches to the WWII and deliberate destruction of National Library in Sarajevo by Serbian Army During the 750 years of time studied, we see the linguistic and cultural development in this part of euro Ornament of the World is a book about medieval era in Iberian peninsula Menocal starts the time at 750, right after the Abbasid massacre of the Umayyad dynasty in Syria and ends it around 1500 after the exile of Jews, Muslims and convertos from the peninsula In the epilogue the timeline even stretches to the WWII and deliberate destruction of National Library in Sarajevo by Serbian Army During the 750 years of time studied, we see the linguistic and cultural development in this part of ...Menocal s objective is clear from the subtitle of her book she sets out to demonstrate to a popular audience the culture of convivencia, religious and ethnic co existence, which predominated in medieval Iberia There s certainly much to back up her argument, with the presence of Arabic speaking and writing Christians and Jews Jewish officials reaching high ranks in Christian governments the preservation, transmission and transformation of classical knowledge by Muslim translators and scholars Menocal s objective is clear from the subtitle of her book she sets out to demonstrate to a popular audience the culture of convivencia, religious and ethnic co existence, which predominated in medieval Iberia There s certainly much to back up her argument, with the presence of Arabic speaking and writing Christians and Jews Jewish officials reaching high ranks in Christian governments the preservation, transmission and transformation of classical kn...I just couldn t get in to the writing style of this author One has to wonder which among the many fantasies come to life of the palatine city of Madinat al Zahra would have most stupified the army troops that breached its walls one day in 1009.I felt intensely on edge all the way to page 91, where I gave up.I think Kelly s review really nailed my frustration do not approach this particular book as a historical documentation of a period, lest you be very frustrated within a few chapters. I just couldn t get in to the writing style of this author One has to wonder which among the many fantasies come to life of the palatine city of Madinat al Zahra would have most stupified the army troops that breached its walls one day in 1009.I felt intensely on edge all the way to page 91, where I gave up.I think Kelly s review really nailed my frustration do not approach this particular book as a historical documentation of a period, lest you be very frustrated within a few chaptersthe historical information is presented in a very short, incoherent, incomplete, and confusing way for example she often chooses to get h...

English
17 December 2018

María Rosa Menocal