Culture Wars Medieval and Modern in Le Moine et la sorci�re
Ed Benson
Benson !Culture Wars Medieval and Modern in Le Moine et la sorcière Ed University of Connecticut Culture In Memoriam: Nancy Lyman Roelker The modem practice history hides a contradiction between the urgency our search for usable past on one hand its irreducible alterity other.1 was already apparent Aristotle's rhetorical separation from fiction,2 modern historians have deepened intensified it even as they proclaim their scorn classical narratives. I suggest that we must at least acknowledge dilemma before can hope to resolve it, successful resolution will recognize willful nature any view adopt history.3 problem is such recognition runs counter tenet Weltanschauung all more deeply held since so imperfectly articulated, instance by Gordon Wood: One accept historical record fragmentary incomplete, recovery partial difficult, never finally agree interpretations, yet still believe intelligibly not naively an objective truth be observed empirically verified. Historians may see represent wholly finally, but some them come closer than others, nearly complete, objective, honest, written history, know known when it. That knowledge best antidote destructive skepticism troubling us today.4 Wood situates authority transparent referentiality he confesses his own inability articulate criteria judging take appeal ineffable prototypical modernism, owe students help both distance affinity with perhaps helping most distinctive features culture share.5 56 Film & History Period | Special In-Depth Section propose, therefore, ways ofviewing recent fiction film, sorcière,6 rationalization ofstorytelling medieval countryside prefiguring birth pangs France, world order. am addressing this essay only médiévistes those who seek ground interpretive practices because think historicist film raises several pressing issues useful ways. included recollections my use classroom, notjust particularly broadly students' questions helped frame own. Patriarchy: Contemporary As Europe began emerge Carolingian world, aristocracy discovered how far anything recognized were cultural references farmed lands: indeed, things /a shows successfully superficial Christianization remained.7 monk whom Etienne de Bourbon, very first Inquisitors author account which provided basis film.8 1 here present enactment beginning long struggle standardize peasant beliefs into Latin Christian culture. Acknowledging these contradictions should also situate reading historically, et/a persistence power Freudian reconstruction. A few months Freud deliberately turned back accounts hearing ofchildhood sexual abuse,9 wrote friend confidant Wilhelm Fliess "his theories origins ofhysteria had been formulated centuries judges witchcraft trials."10 Many ofus are eager free ourselves ofthe thrall late nineteenth-century pillars ofmodernism like Freud, fictional village cure's prediction end that...
Film & History