Of Heaven and Hell: Narrating Hieronymus Bosch

The author reads Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Delights as a hermeneutic text. In a dreamlike sequence, the author undertakes a trek through the three panels of the triptych, usually taken to represent Hell, Purgatory, and the Garden of Eden. In each panel, he discusses the enigmatic and highly controversial images of humans, animals, and fruits. The painting has been interpreted in a great variety of very discordant ways. According to the author, therefore the Garden of Delights is an excellent example of the ever-changing nature of textual readings, as well as of Habermas's notion of critical hermeneutics. In addition, because very little is known about Bosch himself, interpretations of the painting inform the readers about authorial influence and textual interpretations.