When Ego Was Imago: Signs of Identity in the Middle Ages (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9789004192171)

Twelfth-century individuals negotiated personal relationships along a continuum connecting rather than polarizing immediacy and mediated representation. Their markers of individuation, signs of identity and media of communication thus evidence practical engagement with contemporary medieval sign theory and perceptions of reality. In this study, the relevance of modern theory for the interpretation of medieval artifacts is shown to depend upon the parallel existence of theoretical activity by the producers and users of such artifacts. In the cultural landscape of the central Middle Ages, the axes of iconicity, semantics and materiality traced by charters, seals, and by both concrete and metaphorical images of the imprint, dynamically shaped the boundaries within which a sense of self was formulated, modulated, experienced, and enacted.

Author: Brigitte Bedos-Rezak
ISBN-10: 9004192174
ISBN-13: 9789004192171
Publisher: Brill
Language: English
Published: 11/26/2010
Pages: 322
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.45lbs
Size: 9.50h x 6.30w x 0.90d