Mundus inversus (original) (raw)
Mundus inversus, Latin for "world upside-down," is a literary topos in which the natural order of things is overturned and social hierarchies are reversed. More generally, it is a symbolic inversion of any sort. Although the words are ancient, the term mundus inversus has been common in English only since the 1960s. In European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, Ernst Robert Curtius first identified the topos, illustrating it with one of the Carmina Burana ("Florebat olim studium"), about which he comments (p. 94):
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| dbo:abstract | Mundus inversus, Latin for "world upside-down," is a literary topos in which the natural order of things is overturned and social hierarchies are reversed. More generally, it is a symbolic inversion of any sort. Although the words are ancient, the term mundus inversus has been common in English only since the 1960s. In European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, Ernst Robert Curtius first identified the topos, illustrating it with one of the Carmina Burana ("Florebat olim studium"), about which he comments (p. 94): The poem begins as a "complaint on the times": youth will no longer study! Learning is in decay! But—so the thought proceeds—the whole world is topsy-turvy! The blind lead the blind and hurl them into the abyss; birds fly before they are fledged; the ass plays the lute; oxen dance; plow-boys turn soldiers. ... What was once outlawed is now praised. Everything is out of joint. Curtius concludes with a formula for creating the mundus inversus (p. 96): "Out of stringing together impossibilia grows a topos: 'the world upsidedown.'" (en) |
| dbo:thumbnail | wiki-commons:Special:FilePath/Jean_Dodal_Tarot_trump_12.jpg?width=300 |
| dbo:wikiPageID | 70974403 (xsd:integer) |
| dbo:wikiPageLength | 4630 (xsd:nonNegativeInteger) |
| dbo:wikiPageRevisionID | 1102412563 (xsd:integer) |
| dbo:wikiPageWikiLink | dbc:Folklore_studies dbr:Ernst_Robert_Curtius dbr:Barbara_A._Babcock_(folklorist) dbc:Rhetoric dbr:Latin dbr:Carmina_Burana dbr:Literary_topos dbr:Pittura_infamante dbr:File:Jean_Dodal_Tarot_trump_12.jpg |
| dbp:wikiPageUsesTemplate | dbt:Blockquote dbt:Reflist |
| dct:subject | dbc:Folklore_studies dbc:Rhetoric |
| rdfs:comment | Mundus inversus, Latin for "world upside-down," is a literary topos in which the natural order of things is overturned and social hierarchies are reversed. More generally, it is a symbolic inversion of any sort. Although the words are ancient, the term mundus inversus has been common in English only since the 1960s. In European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, Ernst Robert Curtius first identified the topos, illustrating it with one of the Carmina Burana ("Florebat olim studium"), about which he comments (p. 94): (en) |
| rdfs:label | Mundus inversus (en) |
| owl:sameAs | wikidata:Mundus inversus https://global.dbpedia.org/id/GVUz8 |
| prov:wasDerivedFrom | wikipedia-en:Mundus_inversus?oldid=1102412563&ns=0 |
| foaf:depiction | wiki-commons:Special:FilePath/Jean_Dodal_Tarot_trump_12.jpg |
| foaf:isPrimaryTopicOf | wikipedia-en:Mundus_inversus |
| is dbo:wikiPageWikiLink of | dbr:Pittura_infamante |
| is foaf:primaryTopic of | wikipedia-en:Mundus_inversus |
