EVES AND MARY
EVES AND MARY

Summary/Abstract: The tradition of perceiving women exclusively as Eve’s sinful, luring, artful, and perilous daughters was very much alive in the Early Middle Ages. The 11th-12th centuries brought about the slow altering of this image. This was the time when the veneration of Mary was increasingly spreading in clerical as well as monastic communities. This moment marked the outset of two opposing images of women, which were to define the perception of women in the early modern age as well. Their condemnation, deriving from Eve’s deed, lives on, but it is increasingly paralleled by the image of the blessed woman, devoid of the original sin. András Illyés employs and transforms Mary’s figure in such a way as to instruct and educate his audience and offer solutions for various conflicts and problems of his age. He takes on several roles to this end, presenting Virgin Mary in turns from the viewpoints of a narrator, a presenter, a preacher, an exegete, or a catechist.

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