Reviews for Literary Criticism and the Structures of History: Erich Auerbach and Leo Spitzer

The average rating for Literary Criticism and the Structures of History: Erich Auerbach and Leo Spitzer based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-11-26 00:00:00 John Topaum Medieval cartographers had no difficulty locating the Garden of Eden on their world maps. Their Mappa Mundi were both chronological and geographical documents. Since history began in the Garden, its location was top and center on their maps. Since the Bible placed the Garden in the East, this rotated the cardinal points 90 degrees from the orientation we’ve come to expect. A move down the map was a journey to the West and a trip through history. Biblical events clustered near the top. Jerusalem, the sight of Christ’s resurrection -- the central event of world history—took center position. Further west were the civilizations of Greece and Rome followed by the rise of Europe. At the bottom of the map were the Pillars of Hercules, marking the westernmost point of the known world where the Mediterranean Sea entered the Atlantic Ocean. Problems arose when Medieval travelers and the earliest Portuguese explores failed to find any evidence of the Biblical Paradise on their travels. The area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers remained the favored location, but that left two of the four rivers mentioned in Genesis unaccounted for. Theologians went to work to solve that problem, the best solution to my mind being that the deluge in the time of Noah altered the geography to such an extent that the location was not longer recognizable. At least one map placed the Garden in a sidebar outside the geographical image, suggesting that it existed in a different dimension. In the Renaissance, cartographers established scientific criteria for mapmaking, and turned the earth to its now accepted polar orientation. Although the oceans still hosted sea monsters, the Biblical history of Medieval mapmaking no longer had a place in this new scientific world. Scafi’s book presents this history in an accessible and heavily illustrated volume, that discusses both cartography and the concept of Paradise across ancient civilizations. He even includes a contemporary approach to locating the Garden of Eden. Maps distributed by Jehovah Witnesses continue to place Paradise somewhere between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-08-04 00:00:00 Howard Suggs In the early days of mapmaking, there was always a place for Eden . . .