ISIDORE OF SEVILLE – READER OF SOLINUS Anca Crivăţ *1 Abstract: This paper focuses on examining how in his Etymologiae sive Origines Isidore of Seville makes use of the lexis that describes marvellous phenomena. This lexis was borrowed to some extent from Solinus’ Collectanea rerum memorabilium. This research therefore aims at checking the results of some previous studies which demonstrate the rationality of Isidore’s approach by investigating the lexis in his work. Keywords: lexis of the marvels, Isidore of Seville, Solinus 1. Introduction The marvellous is a concept that has always been a constant subject of research in the history of mentalities and holds a privileged place in an approach to the history of the imaginary. At first sight, the concept has a familiar air and seems easy to define. However, if one takes a closer look, one can instantly notice that its features are not easily identifiable, as they seem to depend more on the subjective point of view of the one who contemplates a certain reality rather than on reality itself. The difficulties appear even more numerous in the case of the medieval marvellous: various distances arise between today’s researcher and his object of study, of which chronological distance is but the easiest to measure. Thus, the phoenix, the sirens, or the pelican that feeds his young on its blood, thereby keeping them alive, continue to be things of wonder and marvel, even for us, nowadays. It is however more complicated to find out which creatures/phenomena are marvellous for the medieval man, and, more importantly, which are the textual marks that allow us to state with a degree of certainty that a certain creature/pheonomenon is marvellous for that man. While attempting to answer this question, we come to notice that texts are not of much help: for instance, the rabbit or the cat are often described with the aid of the same strategies by which the griffin or the basilisk are described. The research conducted with the purpose of clarifying a definition of the marvellous did nothing but accumulate a great diversity of views, where focus shifts from one perspective to another. Thus, in Faral’s (1913: 308) opinion, “the rarest curiosities, the most unexpected prodigia” are meant to astonish the viewer and fire his imagination. For Rousset (1956: 25), the marvellous is related to translating into a religious language the extraordinary manifestation, which in fact represents man’s capacity to recognize in natural phenomena those portents that announce divine intention. Meslin (1984: 6-9) underlines the subjective character of the marvellous, which is distinctly circumscribed function of the epoch that attempts its definition; he places in this category any * University of Bucharest, Department of Spanish, crivat.anca@gmail.com. 1 This work was supported by the strategic grant POSDRU/89/1.5/S/62259, Project “Applied social, human and political sciences. Postdoctoral training and postdoctoral fellowships in social, human and political sciences”, cofinanced by the European Social Fund within the Sectorial Operational Program Human Resources Development 2007-2013.