THE KNIGHT AND HIS PATHOS THE SAVAGE: APOLLONIAN AND DIONYSIAN SPIRIT IN THE MEDIEVAL ICONOGRAPHY

Abstract

Logos, ethos y pathos are tools not exclusive to Aristotelian rhetoric. Reason and instinct, controlled or wild human sentiments, as two extremes of the delicate balance, are well know states of human nature. The knight and the savage provide us with the iconographic representation and medieval esthetic at its best, demonstrating these polarized and fi ckle states of human nature, as well as antagonistic prototypes of the civilized and the primitive, the socially integrated and the marginalized, harmony and the chaos… Beyond doubt, Apollonian and Dionysian spirit in the Early Middle Ages.