IN SEARCH OF MUNDUS IMAGINALIS OR MIRROR-ED/-ING WORLDS IN THE ENCHANTRESS OF FLORENCE BY SALMAN RUSHDIE
IN SEARCH OF MUNDUS IMAGINALIS OR MIRROR-ED/-ING WORLDS IN THE ENCHANTRESS OF FLORENCE BY SALMAN RUSHDIE

Summary/Abstract: In his article "Mundus Imaginalis or the Imaginary and the Imaginal", Henry Corbin, following the Sufi philosopher Sohravardi, introduces the term Mundus Imaginalis, which designates a world between the world of the senses and the world of the intellect, and which is a world of the Image. The present paper, adopting Henry Corbin’s philosophy, aims at identifying the structures of a possible Mundus Imaginalis in Salman Rushdie’s latest novel, The Enchantress of Florence, and the mirroring process through which epiphanic meetings take place along or at the end of a journey. Spectral characters such as the enchantress Qara Köz or her servant, The Mirror, reflect both people and worlds, yet their spectrality is not one which affects the self, their spectrality is the spectrality of NA-KOJA-ABAD (in Persian – the Land of No-where), which transgresses the being, reduces it to its essence and frees it from the bonds of the world of the senses. At the same time, the author of the paper would like to demonstrate the way in which the journey to Mundus Imaginalis and the spatial and temporal maps that characters such as Qara Köz or Mogor dell’Amore follow on their journey shape their spiritual world, and how, at the end of their journey, both the travellers/migrants and those who await them realise that “This may be the curse of the human race. […] Not that we are so different from one another, but that we are so alike.” (S. Rushdie, The Enchantress of Florence)

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