Page 213 - Kavur, Boris. Devet esejev o (skoraj) človeški podobi. Založba Univerze na Primorskem, Koper 2014.
P. 213
mary
In the Middle Ages people believed that the Wild men were a reality of
their world. These imaginary creatures lacked any laws and were not capa-
ble living in an organized society – they were able to live only with a part-
ner. They were considered being a menace to the individual, while the barbar-
ians were a thread to the society. The later were living far away and
apocalyptically appearing in periods of feebleness and social decay, while wild
men were always close on the confines of society – placed just hidden from
the glance, on the other side of the horizon in the nearby forest.
In a certain way the wild man with his unrecognizable existence be-
comes a dark medieval antithesis to the almost anthropologically defined
concepts of barbarians in Antiquity and late Renaissance. Basic characteristic
of their depictions, known from art of Medieval and early modern period, is
the absence of evolutionary thoughts which today strongly define our percep-
tion of the past. Wild men are modern in their appearance, but defined as
wild or deprived of civilization by their symbolic attributes – dwellings in
caves, clothes made from hides, broken bones scattered around their living
space and the indispensable club. Torn between myths and symbols they
were, according to convictions of medieval Europeans, fit for damnation as
well as for redemption – they represent the antithesis of medieval society and
at the same time it’s ideal.
But when the society which created them began to change, the myth
based on steady social order started to vanish. And when it did not play a sen-
sible role in collective imaginary it was transferred in to the sphere of fiction.
The end of the period when wild man started to lose its symbolic role could be
dated in to the 16th century while the question regarding the beginning of cre-
ation of a medieval myth is more complex.
summary 213
In the Middle Ages people believed that the Wild men were a reality of
their world. These imaginary creatures lacked any laws and were not capa-
ble living in an organized society – they were able to live only with a part-
ner. They were considered being a menace to the individual, while the barbar-
ians were a thread to the society. The later were living far away and
apocalyptically appearing in periods of feebleness and social decay, while wild
men were always close on the confines of society – placed just hidden from
the glance, on the other side of the horizon in the nearby forest.
In a certain way the wild man with his unrecognizable existence be-
comes a dark medieval antithesis to the almost anthropologically defined
concepts of barbarians in Antiquity and late Renaissance. Basic characteristic
of their depictions, known from art of Medieval and early modern period, is
the absence of evolutionary thoughts which today strongly define our percep-
tion of the past. Wild men are modern in their appearance, but defined as
wild or deprived of civilization by their symbolic attributes – dwellings in
caves, clothes made from hides, broken bones scattered around their living
space and the indispensable club. Torn between myths and symbols they
were, according to convictions of medieval Europeans, fit for damnation as
well as for redemption – they represent the antithesis of medieval society and
at the same time it’s ideal.
But when the society which created them began to change, the myth
based on steady social order started to vanish. And when it did not play a sen-
sible role in collective imaginary it was transferred in to the sphere of fiction.
The end of the period when wild man started to lose its symbolic role could be
dated in to the 16th century while the question regarding the beginning of cre-
ation of a medieval myth is more complex.
summary 213
