Süezer smac. Gardens as a refuge for leisure in literature of the Middle Ages.

GARDENS; REFUGE (Humanitarian assistance); MIDDLE Ages; BIBLE; SEDUCTION; CHRISTIANS

The depictions of gardens in literary texts from the Middle Ages are not aimed at mimetic referentialization, but represent mental concepts, i.e. conceptions, ideas or imaginations that are shaped by very different literary intentions and contexts. Intertextual references, i.e. the connection to the tradition of the literary field, as well as functions within diegesis play an important role in their interpretation as places of action. Therefore, the tradition of depicting gardens (ancient literature, the Bible) and the inner-literary functions of the garden as a setting (place of relaxation/leisure, sexual seduction, harmonious/disharmonious interaction with nature, etc.) and its symbolisations are taken into account in the article. The investigation focuses on the dichotomous evaluation of the garden as a place of auspiciousness and at the same time of sensual seduction. Right from the start, the vernacular literature of the Middle Ages was not only an affirmative medium of aristocratic representation and community building, in which gardens were portrayed in their positive functionality as recreational spaces, but also one of the most important media of aristocratic self-criticism based on Christian values. These Christian values condemn the pleasures of the worldly man as manifestations of an Epicurean way of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]