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historical-philology
The rigorous scholarly effort to reconstruct and understand the Middle Ages through authentic texts and artifacts, contrasting with escapist or romanticized versions.
1 chapter across 1 book
Travels in Hyperreality (1986)Umberto Eco
Chapter 6
The chapter examines the enduring fascination with the Middle Ages, highlighting its foundational role in shaping modern Western identity, technology, and social structures. It contrasts romanticized and scholarly approaches to medievalism, emphasizing the continuous cultural reinterpretation and bricolage of medieval themes rather than a static reconstruction. Eco proposes a typology of ten distinct visions of the Middle Ages, urging clarity about which medieval narrative is being engaged to understand its cultural and ideological implications.