Transcience and eternity. Confrontation and Interconnection of Different Types of Temporal Semantics in Medieval Journeys to the Beyond

虽然人类存在的有限性仍然是人类学上的一个常量，但它的认知和应对策略在历史和文化中是高度不同的。死亡不可逆转的经历催生了多种旨在超越死亡的社会实践。为了以一种历史上合适的方式来处理这些现象，必须找到各种解释模式，通过这些模式，每一种应对凡人瞬间的方式都变得可观察到。这个项目考察了中世纪幻想文学中涉及的永恒和短暂的不同类型的时间语义。这项研究的主题是从中世纪晚期(12世纪)开始的其他世界旅行的拉丁文记述，以及它们在中世纪晚期翻译成德语(15世纪)，这些记录与关于Ars moriendi的文本一起传播。这些文字记录是流动的文本，存在于启示、叙述和传说的交汇处。因此，这个项目的方法是跨学科的，将通过历史和文学研究的方法来实施。分析的中心是通过不同的时间性反映瞬时的叙事，在个人死亡和世界末日的交织中，通过对来世的远见之旅来反映解脱和永恒。旅程叙事构成了一个特别适合这一目的的媒介，因为时间性在物质和空间经验中得到了充实，因此可以被体验和说明。线性前进的旅程和救赎历史、永恒和个体死亡、永恒的诅咒和救赎的不同时间语义不应被视为不一致。这些并列应该更好地考察在这里处理瞬变的意义和处理的概念是什么。通向来世的旅程为基督教中世纪提供了一套强有力的解释性贡献。在12世纪以来的拉丁文文本中，经历的时间、生命的时间和对未来的期望(无论是救赎还是启示录)都在不断发展。中世纪的异界之旅因此建立了一种特殊的象征意义和世俗参照关系，关于惩罚和忏悔的谈判前景，许多文字记录不断地提炼、扩展和修改。这些去稳定和再稳定的过程是神学、教会律法和活着的虔诚相互作用的新兴现象。对这种相互作用的研究是这个项目的主要目标，它保证能够准确地洞察那些记录、编辑和传播这些文本的社会和群体中应对死亡的问题，以及西方基督教建立的普遍超越性思想。

While the finiteness of human existence remains an anthropological constant, its perception and coping strategies are highly variable across history and cultures. The experience of the irreversibility of death generates manifold social practices, which aim to transcend mortality. To approach these phenomena in a historically adequate way, the various interpretive patterns must be found through which each respective coping with mortal transience becomes observable. This project examines the different types of temporal semantics of eternity and transience dealt with in medieval visionary literature. The subject of this study are Latin accounts of otherworld journeys from the High Middle Ages (12th century) as well as their Late Medieval translations into German (15th century), which are transmitted in combination with texts on the Ars moriendi. These written records are fluid texts, existing at the intersection of revelation, account and lore. Therefore the approach in this project is interdisciplinary and will be implemented by employing methods from both history and literary studies.Central to the analysis are narratives that reflect transience through different temporalities, in the intertwining of individual mortality and the end of the world, deliverance and eternity through visionary journeys to the afterlife. The journey narrative constitutes a particularly well-suited medium for this purpose since temporality is substantiated in corporeal and spatial experience and can thus be experienced and illustrated.The different temporal semantics of the linearly progressing journey and salvation history, eternity and individual mortality, eternal damnation and redemption should not be seen as inconsistent. These juxtapositions should rather be examined as to what concepts of meaning and processing in dealing with transience are developed here.Journeys to the hereafter provide a potent set of interpretive offerings for the Christian Middle Ages. In the Latin texts of journeys to the afterlife since the 12th century, there is a developing concurrency of experienced time, life time and expectation of the prospects ahead (be they salvation or the apocalypse). Medieval otherworld journeys thus establish a particular relation of symbolism and worldly reference over the negotiated prospects of punishment and penance, which the numerous written records continually refine, expand and modify. These processes of de- and re-stabilization are emergent phenomena of the interaction of theology, ecclesiastical law and lived piety. The study of this interplay, the main goal of this project, promises precise insights into the coping with mortality in those societies and groups that record, edit and disseminate these texts, as well as into the universal ideas of transcendence established by western Christianity.