Bogoslovska smotra, Vol. 90 No. 1, 2020.
Original scientific paper
Zooanthropomorphism in the Vision of St. Hildegard of Bingen
Marija-Ana Dürrigl
orcid.org/0000-0002-7715-1953
; Old Church Slavonic Institute, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
In her work Liber vitae meritorum (The Book of the Rewards of Life, BRL), written probably between 1158 and 1163, German visionary, theologian, writer, and composer St Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) describes in imaginative and dramatic images a vision of the conflict of sin/fault and virtues. Apparitions in the vision are presented in anthropomorphic and zoomorphic way, so the apparitions can be called anthropozoomorphic because they look like animals while verbalising human thoughts and feelings in human language. Some of them look like one or more animals and some are a junction of an animal and a human being, for instance a young man and a crab. These represent sins that are brought to life and that pronounce impressionable monologues in which they present and justify themselves. Invisible virtues are replying to them and chastising them from a cloud. Apart from these descriptions, Hildegard also offers individual, poetic, and theologically‑based interpretations of the appearance of these beings, i.e., how can individual sins be described through an appearance – actually an image – of an individual animal. These are regularly animals from the real world and not mythological beings. Through what belongs to the animal world, Hildegard of Bingen speaks about the deeply human significance of sinfulness and in her work Liber vitae meritorum creates a unique anthropomenagerie within the context of European medieval literature.
Keywords
Hildegard of Bingen; vision; sins; allegory; animals; human being.
Hrčak ID:
238358
URI
Publication date:
28.5.2020.
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