Suchergebnisse

The article deals with The Land of Cokaygne, the poem of the 14th
century recorded in Middle English in a manuscript associated with Ireland. The
poem is a description of an unprecedented land, which is the embodiment of the
earthly Paradise, and therefore one of the goals of studying its image was to establish
the symbolic meanings of its details. Th e mention of the four rivers of the land of
Cokaygne, the precious gems that are the bed for the mouth of the four healing
streams, the roses and lilies that adorn the meadow of the abbey described in detail,
etc., according to the author of the article, turned out to be associated with biblical
images and medieval religious beliefs, therefore, the depicted earthly Paradise seems
to be a projection of both the heavenly Jerusalem and the Garden of Eden. Th is religious connotation separates the English version of the Cokaigne legend from foreign-language versions created solely for the entertainment of the social lower
classes, and not addressed to "men of wisdom". The author of the article touches
upon the fragment of the English poem which depicts the heavenly games of the
monks, and their fantastic fl ight over the abbey, the center of this land. The author
sees the origins of the anonymous poet's fantasy in his acquaintance with the English tradition of depicting celestial flights and with the Irish tradition of mentioning
'evidence' of boats floating in the sky. The article argues that the poet embodied this
fantasy, because the forms of the verbs 'fly' and 'flee', that originated in the Old
English and developed in some dialects of Middle English, were indistinguishable.