ED PROJECT POST 3

In the introduction of The Norton Anthology English Literature – The Middle Ages, Volume A, General Editor Stephen Greenblatt notifies readers that “medieval is coined from Latin medium (middle) and aevum (age) refers to whatever was made, written, or thought during the Middle Ages”. (page 3) Call me an imbecile, but why did I think Medieval Age meant the middle of the evil age.

One thing I found interesting is the art of the time period. In today’s day  we have this technological device that has created a block in humans to read written text, some call it the “idiot box”, retails stores call this thing, televisions. Anyhow, broadcastings come over different frequencies and make their ways to visually show us what broadcasters want to present to us through programs. One I am guilty of hypnotizing my time watching is a program called Ancient Aliens, broadcasted by the History channel. This program, in my opinion is non-bios and helps minds think outside the box. During a particular program they expressed how the Middle ages, like stated by Greenblatt on page 4, “art, literature, and science flourished during the Middle Ages, rooted in the Christian culture that preserved, transmitted, and transformed classical tradition.” In the Ancient Aliens program, different scholars want the audience to see how writings and paintings blew up and how they depicted objects in the sky similar to what we call today as UFOs. I love God, I say it with pride, I believe my God created all things, good and bad. I have a sense of comfort knowing that in my opinion God created UFO’s as well. There are so many paintings back then clearly show UFOs and this class actually has me anticipating anything that has similarities towards this topic. Now as I flip through our assigned text, I wish it was full of paintings, however it is full of text from that time period, and oh wait look at pages C1-C8, there are arts and paintings. They too have things that don’t look of this world too. Page C2 show us the “Annunciation to the Shepherds” and is it me or do you see people like figures, whom might be known as Angels then, but if we were to see something flying around we can’t describe we might coin them to be UFOs. And in my opinion, a UFO doesn’t have to be a bright silver Frisbee with big headed green humanoids, but actually what it UFO stands for, an object flying around that is unidentifiable.  And look at the next picture on the next page (C3), doesn’t that look like devils hitching a ride on that person’s back, and one submerged in water. What is that about? What inspires an artist to draw that? We see more “angels” in the other pages that present paintings, but what really draws another weird itch in my brain is “The Universe According to Ptolemy” found on page A48 or our text. First off Greenblatt edits that he was a “Roman astronomer of Greek descent, born in Egypt during the second century C.E.” I don’t know what others minds are thinking, but I’m thinking wow, this guy probably had Egyptian and Greek mythology all scattered in his head. What baffles me the most is the universe portrayed at the bottom of the page. How the heck are people knowing about all this astrology and planets with the naked eye. What enables them to describe such a planetary system without modern day telescopes and  at the same time be so accredited that scholars today can use it and have relevance to the studies of today’s time?