Professor Carolyn F. Scott from the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), Tainan, Taiwan, gave a talk on The Medieval Apocalyptic Imagination at NCKU Library on May 25.

“People in the medieval period were worried about the same things we’re worried about,” said Scott in her talk, adding, “There’s disease, wars, chaos and disasters. What does that mean and how does it teach us about where we are heading or what we should be doing with our lives.”

She also said, “For the medieval people, it tended to either focus them in the direction of becoming more religious, or of sort of giving up. In our time, we can see kind of the same things happening, that people who have religious faith find this difficult time is a time when their faith becomes more important to them and some other people feel more despair.”

“Medieval imagination might be a little more graphic,” said Scott when she showed the audience some of the painting by Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel, “but they are concerned about the same things we are.”

“The idea of the Apocalypse comes from the Book of Revelation, which is the last book of the Bible,” according to Scott, who talked about the origin of the Apocalypse and some of its features.

As part of the NCKU Library’s book exhibit on Disease, Disaster, and the Apocalyptic Imagination, Scott introduced a book entitled “Illuminating the End of Time: The Getty Apocalypse Manuscript” by Nigel Morgan. The book has detailed descriptions of the Book of Revelation, illuminating the End of Time and it offers an introduction to the history of thirteenth-century English illustrated Apocalypse manuscripts. This book and other books about Bosch and Bruegel are part of a collection in the library made possible by a grant from the Ministry of Science and Technology.

When interpreting Bosch’s painting of The Last Judgment, she said, “The imagery he picks for his images of heaven and hell are very interesting and very modern in some ways.”

“His paintings show a reflection of the Medieval Apocalyptic imagination, of what people back then believed it would be like at the end of time,” according to Scott.

National Cheng Kung UniversitySonia Chuang, +886-6-275-7575 Ext. 50042News Centersonia20@mail.ncku.edu.twNCKU news: http://news-en.secr.ncku.edu.tw/bin/home.php