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Despair in the Medieval Imagination. Author/s: Moshe Barasch Issue: Summer, 1999 Visitors to the Cathedral of Strasbourg will remember the representation of virtues and vices on the western facade. The virtues, all large scale, erect female figures, some wearing crowns and holding spears in their hands, are treading on the utterly defeated vices, part of whom are male figures. Among these two-figure groups is also the image of Hope (spes) trampling on Despair (desperatio). Representations …

…The system presented by early Christian writers did indeed achieve a remarkable stability. Even if some details changed in the course of time, the system as such dominated European thought for more than a millenium. However, so far as I can see, the specific juxtaposition of despair and hope became firmly crystallized only at a somewhat later stage of history, and was expressed first in literature and afterwards in the visual arts. continued ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography**