{"title":"地球和空气的身体:前现代英国亡灵叙事中的物质性和精神性","authors":"Martha McGill","doi":"10.1080/03044181.2022.2051329","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Scholarship on the returning dead has tended to contrast corporeal revenants, or risen corpses, with incorporeal ghosts, or phantoms returning from the afterlife. This article argues that it is misleading to draw so clean a distinction between material and spiritual apparitions. Focusing on accounts discussed in Britain between c.1200 and c.1750, the article demonstrates that the bodies of the returning dead were persistently ambiguous. Popular stories endowed apparitions with both spiritual and corporeal qualities, while medieval and early modern theories about elemental bodies offered a philosophical framework for understanding how apparently insubstantial spectres could interact with the material world. The article further suggests that we might better understand the history of ghosts, and of pre-modern bodies generally, by attending to how understandings of ‘spiritual corporeality’ changed over time.","PeriodicalId":45579,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF MEDIEVAL HISTORY","volume":"48 1","pages":"265 - 281"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2022-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Bodies of earth and air: corporeality and spirituality in pre-modern British narratives of the undead\",\"authors\":\"Martha McGill\",\"doi\":\"10.1080/03044181.2022.2051329\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"ABSTRACT Scholarship on the returning dead has tended to contrast corporeal revenants, or risen corpses, with incorporeal ghosts, or phantoms returning from the afterlife. This article argues that it is misleading to draw so clean a distinction between material and spiritual apparitions. Focusing on accounts discussed in Britain between c.1200 and c.1750, the article demonstrates that the bodies of the returning dead were persistently ambiguous. Popular stories endowed apparitions with both spiritual and corporeal qualities, while medieval and early modern theories about elemental bodies offered a philosophical framework for understanding how apparently insubstantial spectres could interact with the material world. The article further suggests that we might better understand the history of ghosts, and of pre-modern bodies generally, by attending to how understandings of ‘spiritual corporeality’ changed over time.\",\"PeriodicalId\":45579,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"JOURNAL OF MEDIEVAL HISTORY\",\"volume\":\"48 1\",\"pages\":\"265 - 281\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.3000,\"publicationDate\":\"2022-03-15\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"JOURNAL OF MEDIEVAL HISTORY\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1080/03044181.2022.2051329\",\"RegionNum\":2,\"RegionCategory\":\"历史学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"0\",\"JCRName\":\"MEDIEVAL & RENAISSANCE STUDIES\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"JOURNAL OF MEDIEVAL HISTORY","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03044181.2022.2051329","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"MEDIEVAL & RENAISSANCE STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
Bodies of earth and air: corporeality and spirituality in pre-modern British narratives of the undead
ABSTRACT Scholarship on the returning dead has tended to contrast corporeal revenants, or risen corpses, with incorporeal ghosts, or phantoms returning from the afterlife. This article argues that it is misleading to draw so clean a distinction between material and spiritual apparitions. Focusing on accounts discussed in Britain between c.1200 and c.1750, the article demonstrates that the bodies of the returning dead were persistently ambiguous. Popular stories endowed apparitions with both spiritual and corporeal qualities, while medieval and early modern theories about elemental bodies offered a philosophical framework for understanding how apparently insubstantial spectres could interact with the material world. The article further suggests that we might better understand the history of ghosts, and of pre-modern bodies generally, by attending to how understandings of ‘spiritual corporeality’ changed over time.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Medieval History aims at meeting the need for a major international publication devoted to all aspects of the history of Europe in the Middle Ages. Each issue comprises around four or five articles on European history, including Britain and Ireland, between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance. The Journal also includes review articles, historiographical essays and state of research studies.