THE GOTHIC CATHEDRAL AS REPRESENTED BY SCIENTIFIC THEORY AND LITERATURE: DIFFERENCES OF PERCEPTION AND PERSPECTIVE
THE GOTHIC CATHEDRAL AS REPRESENTED BY SCIENTIFIC THEORY AND LITERATURE: DIFFERENCES OF PERCEPTION AND PERSPECTIVE

Summary/Abstract: The Gothic Cathedral as Represented by Scientific Theory and Literature: Differences of Perception and Perspective. The present paper approaches the cultural concept of the Gothic cathedral from the perspective of the scientific theories (the first section) and from that of the literary discourse (the second section). When transposed from theory into literature, the cathedral discourse undergoes a significant change at the level of representation and it induces a radical emotional reorganization within the ethos of the recording subject. From a principle of intrusion, domination and seizing of the landscape it becomes a principle of mystic absorption (the case of the Gothic castle) and a principle of mythological entrapping (the case of the Gothic cathedral). The second part of our study focuses mainly on Dan Brown’s descriptions of Gothic cathedrals from the novel The Da Vinci Code. Both sections of the study try to identify the physical and metaphysical pagan roots of such edifices and, as well, to follow their diachronic trajectories and adaptations. The concluding section returns to the structures of the Ego and, according to Alfred Schütz’s socio-phenomenological vision, it tries to recapture the essence of such transpositions and transformations from their reflections into the human subject, meaning from the balances and imbalances it creates therein.

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