Turning the Irish into monsters. The geographical imagination of Giraldus Cambrensis

• Autor(a) principal: Sousa, Raimundo
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.4000/medievalista.1259
• topic: Colonial discourse; Giraldus Cambrensis; Geographical imagination; Ireland; Monstrification; Discurso colonial; Giraldus Cambrensis; Imaginação geográfica; Irlanda; Monstrificação

By analyzing Topographia Hibernica, first topographical description of Ireland, written by the medieval chronicler Giraldus Cambrensis, this paper investigates how the British colonial discourse sought to legitimize the colonization of the territory turning the native inhabitants into monsters. By assigning the Irish, under the sign of abjection, all sorts of gender anomalies based on the representation of repertoires offered by medieval Teratology, Cambrensis characterized Ireland as a hotbed of monstrous sexualities and thus tries to naturalize colonization as a necessary civilizing process.   Bibliography Sources AUGUSTINUS – De Civitate Dei. Venetiis: N. Jensen, 1475. CAMBRENSIS, Giraldus – Topographia Hibernica, et Expurgatio Hibernica. Ed. James F. Dimock. London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1867. HAZLITT, William – “Why distant objects please”. in Table Talk. Vol. II. London: Henry Colburn and Co., 1822, pp. 219-238. STRABO – The Geography of Strabo. Trad. H.C. Hamilton (vol. I a VI) e W. Falconer. Vol. I. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854.   Studies AGAMBEN, Giorgio – L’aperto. L’uomo e l’animale. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 2002. BARKER, Martin – The New Racism: Conservatives and the ideology of the tribe. London: Junction Books, 1981. BENSHOFF, Harry – Monsters in the Closet: Homosexuality and the Horror Film. New York: Manchester University Press, 1997. BERNHEIMER, Richard – Wild Men in the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952. BRADSHAW, Brendan; HADFIELD, Andrew; MALLEY, Willy (ed.) – Representing Ireland: Literature and the Origins of Conflict 1534-1660. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. CIXOUS, Helene – “Sorties: Out and Out: Attacks/Ways Out/Forays”. in CIXOUS, Helene; CLEMENT, Catherine – The Newly Born Woman. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986, pp. 63-132. COHEN, Jeffrey – Monster Theory: Reading Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996. COSGROVE, Art. (ed.) – A New History of Ireland: Volume II Medieval Ireland 1169-1534. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987. FOUCAULT, Michel – Les mots et les choses: une archeologie des sciences humaines. Paris: Gallimard, 1966. GILROY, Paul – There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack: The Cultural Politics of Race and Nation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. HARPER-BILL, Christopher; VAN HOUTS, Elisabeth (ed.) – A Companion to the Anglo-Norman World. Woodbridge: Boydell, 2003. HULME, Peter – Colonial Encounters: Europe and the Native Caribbean. London: Methuen, 1986. KAPPLER, Claude – Monstres, démons et merveilles à la fin du Moyen Age. Paris: Payot, 1980. KENNY, Kevin – “The Irish in the Empire”. in KENNY, Kevin (ed.) – Ireland and the British Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, pp. 90-122. KRISTEVA, Julia – Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982. LECOUTEUX, Claude – Les monstres dans la pensée médiévale européenne. Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 1993. LEFEBVRE, Henri – La production de l’espace. Paris: Éditions Anthropos, 1974. MARCUSE, Herbert – Eros und Kultur: Ein philosophischer Beitrag zu Sigmund Freud. Stuttgart: Klett, 1957.  MCCLINTOCK, Anne – Imperial Leather: race, gender and sexuality in the colonial contest.London: Routledge, 1995. MCVEIGH, Robbie; ROLSTON, Bill – “Civilising the Irish”. in Race & Class v. 51, 1 (2009), pp. 2-28. PRATT, Mary Louise – Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. London, New York: Routledge, 1992. WILLIAMS, David – Deformed Discourse: The Function of the Monster in Medieval Thought and Literature. Exeter: University Exeter Press, 1996.