Medieval Gardens: Body, Space, and the Allure of the Locus amoenus

Züleyha Çeti̇ner-Öktem

doi:10.32600/huefd.467149

Abstract

In the literary tradition, the locus amoenus meaning pleasant place, is generally deployed and envisioned as a garden that is idyllic, peaceful, and safe. This place is commonly considered to be a space momentarily frozen in time creating the illusion of eternal bliss. The landscape, however, may not be as innocent as it seems as it bears underlying instances of an insidious nature. Although, for instance, the Garden of Eden is apparently an archetypal garden that is deemed to be pleasant, under the seemingly safe and peaceful surface is also a space wherein gendered bodies are tempted to fall from grace. On the other hand, spaces imbued with mystifyingly sinister aspects do not completely transform into a locus horridus (“fearful place”) their functions go beyond being a simple locus amoenus. This becomes even more evident when we reflect on the placement and/or displacement of bodies within these spaces. By exploring the gardens in canonical medieval narratives, such as Dante’s Divine Comedy, Boccaccio’s Decameron, and Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls and the Merchant’s Tale, this article analyses the various functions of the locus amoenus with a specific focus on how certain bodies are perceived within these spaces through the lens of spatial theories.

Highlights

In a fifteenth-century illumination to Boccaccio’s De casibus virorum illustrium (On the Fates of Illustrious Men and Women),1 the central image is the temptation scene of Adam and Eve who are depicted in the Garden of Eden surrounded by tall hexagonal walls
One interpretation associated with the Garden of Eden is that it is a locus amoenus, which in the literary medieval tradition generally refers to a garden that is idyllic, peaceful, and safe
This space does not completely transform into a locus horridus its functions go beyond being a simple locus amoenus

Summary

Introduction

In a fifteenth-century illumination to Boccaccio’s De casibus virorum illustrium (On the Fates of Illustrious Men and Women), the central image is the temptation scene of Adam and Eve who are depicted in the Garden of Eden surrounded by tall hexagonal walls. It is not a coincidence, that the Boucicaut Master depicted the Garden of Eden as a hortus conclusus (enclosed garden), as all gardens by definition are enclosed spaces, generally surrounded by walls, fences, or even with various flora, such as bushes, hedges, and trees These enclosures are always human-made spaces that are constructed and shaped, meant to keep others out as well as in. As the garden is ambivalent, because it belongs to both nature and culture simultaneously, it begs for reinterpretation With this in mind, this article will proceed to analyse and interpret the imaginatively constructed canonical medieval gardens as particular places that generate spaces with various connotations dependent upon the context by focussing on the placement and/or displacement of bodies within these literary spaces

A Garden in Limbo

Conclusion