Spiritual and Material Boundaries in Old French Verse: Contemplating the Walls of the Earthly Paradise

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The Earthly Paradise was a vibrant symbol at the heart of medieval Christian geographies of the cosmos. As humanity’s primal home now lost through the sins of Adam of Eve, the Earthly Paradise figured prominently in Old French voyages beyond the mundane world. This study proposes a fresh look at the complex roles played by the Earthly Paradise in three medieval French poems: Marie de France’s The Purgatory of St. Patrick, the anonymous Voyage of Saint Brendan the Abbot, and Guillaume de Lorris’s The Romance of the Rose. By examining the literary, cultural, and artistic components that informed the poetic constructions of these walls, this book advances the thesis that the gates of the Earthly Paradise served evolving purposes as contemplative objects that implicitly engaged contemporary practices of prayer and other forms of intellectual cultivation.