Marguerite Porete: Between Language and Mysticism

The Medieval Life of Language, 2021

The Medieval Life of Language The Knowledge Communities series focuses on innovative scholarship in the areas of intellectual history and the history of ideas, particularly as they relate to the communication of knowledge within and among diverse scholarly, literary, religious and social communities across Western Europe. Interdisciplinary in nature, the series especially encourages new methodological outlooks that draw on the disciplines of philosophy, theology, musicology, anthropology, paleography and codicology. Knowledge Communities addresses the myriad ways in which knowledge was expressed and inculcated, not only focusing upon scholarly texts from the period, but also emphasizing the importance of emotions, ritual, performance, images and gestures as modalities that communicate and acculturate ideas. Knowledge Communities publishes cutting-edge work that explores the nexus between ideas, communities and individuals in medieval and early modern Europe.

Medieval Feminist Forum, 2008

Medieval Feminist Forum, 2008

Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, 1995

Olivier, on the other hand, that "rational" man (p. 103), introduces Mediterranean values by his antiheroic wisdom and sense of measure (p. 117). His Old Testament connection is to Ecclesiastes. Guillaume d'Orange appears as a hero "on a human scale," a Mediterranean presence, with comic elements. His Christian reference is to the New Testament. A connection, incomprehensible to me, seems to hinge on a word play made by the author and possible in Greek but not in Latin or in any of the languages of the poems under discussion: "the weeds are the traitors. .. who diavalloun (slander) and thus perform the work of the Diavolos (devil), which is what the apostolic parable (Matt. 13.36-43) says" (p. 181). The poet, however, did not have the Greek to play such elegant quasi-etymological games, nor does the Latin New Testament allow them. A recurring phrase of the author is "the popular [presumably, folk] poet," or, alternatively, "the popular imagination," which he thinks is present in these poems, informs them, and is responsible for the traits of the heroes. But it is far from self-evident that the extant versions were written by popular or folk poets; the statement needs elucidation and elaboration, and an effort should have been made to distinguish what may be owed to folk memory and what to a more learned hand. This concept serves the author ill when he notes that scholars have found, in the Montage Guillaume, references to historical events of the time of Tancred de Hauteville and Robert Guiscard. How the "folk poet" or the "popular imagination" knew and incorporated these historical elements is not explained. Belief in folk poetry also sits poorly in the discussion of the Song of Digenis, a Greek poem probably of the twelfth century and a learned construction for sure. Quite rightly, the author does not find in the hero, Digenis Akritas, the elements that distinguish the heroes of Western epics. He seems to think that this is a flaw in the poet, who intended to write an epic and failed. But the Song of Digenis is not an epic, nor was it meant to be one, although the first part of the poem, sometimes known as the Song of the Emir, has old antecedents and may well preserve elements of the songs of the frontier. The Song of Digenis is a romance rather than an epic; if the author of this study had taken account of the difference, he might have avoided statements such as, "it is truly disappointing to see the harsh, Herculean hero opt for a life of luxury and softness" (the reference is to the description of Digenis's palace, p. 220), or, "the greatest enemy of Akritas is not Charon but the untalented poet, who, although he knows well that men die by the sword, does not hesitate to give to his hero a sad end, from illness" (p. 251). The book has, undoubtedly, some interesting points: the discussion of symbolism in the Chanson de Roland, for example (p. 56). But the belief that all the texts in question were composed by popular or folk poets creates difficulties. The discussion of Digenis Akritas is especially flawed, not least by the deficient bibliography. Furthermore, much of the book consists of lengthy quotations from other modern authors, mostly in French, English, or German. This makes it hard to read, poses the problem of originality, and leaves one wondering about the intended audience. The student of Western medieval literature will not be able to read the Greek part of the text, and the Greek reader will have to wade through lengthy quotations in various languages; the former might have profited from an in-depth discussion of Digenis Akritas, but unfortunately that is not offered here.

Abstract: In her Mirror of Simple Souls, Marguerite Porete describes the “farness” of divine love as “greater nearness,” closing the gap between self and Christ in mystical union (trans. Babinsky 218). Recent scholarship has accordingly studied space and movement in Porete’s self-authorizing Mirror. Scholars have addressed its movements of reading (Barr), its celebration of verbal transmission (Meï et al.), and its imaging of spiritual topography (Acosta-García and Serra Zamora). For Anne Carson, Porete’s project is even “de-creation,” an ongoing process of self-annihilation. In accordance, my paper examines how spatial distance—gaps of farness, movements of travel, and motions of deferral—in Porete’s work constructs the distinctly feminine erotics of her project. By removing the self from the center of Christ, I argue, Porete projects herself as embodied with the divine and asserts a feminine erotics of deferral. My paper will address Porete’s depicting of the “Ravishing Farnearness” as God’s love (135) and her imagining of Marian devotion as voyaging toward “freeness” (202), among others; it will also position these alongside Le Roman de la Rose and other relevant discourses on sexual and divine love. Lastly, considering recent interests in the Middle English translation of Porete’s Mirror (Cré; Stauffer and Terry), I discuss its unique variations alongside the short text of the Showings of Julian of Norwich included with it in the Amherst Manuscript (British Library MS Additional 37790). In addressing the Middle English Mirror translated long after Porete’s death, my paper demonstrates that her erotics of distance transcend the stretches of time as well, dwelling among the English mystics of the late fourteenth century and beyond.

2009

This study views the female medieval mystics of northern Europe primarily as writers in the period from 1250-1400 CE, concentrating on Hadewijch, a Brabantine beguine, Mechthild of Magdeburg, a German beguine with ties to the Cistercian convent of Helfta, and Julian of Norwich, an English anchoress. The writer questions why females writing within a theological context that discouraged female authorship would choose for their subject matter something which cannot be described. Through analysis of the cultural, theological, and literary context within which the women worked, and the mystic literature they produced, the study finds that authority to write was embedded within the vision itself and uncovered through the writer's active, integrative revision and shaping of the liminal experience. The dialogic, social imperative inherent within the mystic situation led those women practicing beguine spirituality to a mixed path of inward and outward action as they sought to continually integrate their visionary insight with their outward reality through writing. Concentrating on the mystics' attention to form, description, synthesis, and audience, the study identifies limitations of past critical approaches including the iii theological, vernacular, liberationist, feminist, and Lacanian. In stressing the mystics' social rather than alienated nature, the writer calls for a revision of our own perspective, a move from interpreting them using the "poetics of desire" model to one stressing a "poetics of integration," concentrating less on their affective and more on their effective piety. The experience of the late medieval mystics is compared to that of a shamanic balancer and healer, one who voyages and mediates between worlds. The last chapter proposes a re-interpretation of the mystics based on new definitions of the self as multiple and networked rather than unitary. It offers insight on the role of the artist using this new model of the narrative self, borrowing concepts from cognitive science to re-describe the liminal or shamanic journey. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My thanks go to the Department of Comparative Literature and the Graduate School at Rutgers University for their inestimable and sorely tried patience in allowing me the space and time to complete this project. In particular, I thank Dr. Janet A.Walker for firmly grounding me in critical theory and for guiding the beginning stages of this work, Dr. Nathaniel Tarn for introducing me to Dante studies, and Dr. Steven F. Walker for sharing his interests in Renaissance mysticism and psychological approaches to literature. Christine Chism from the Rutgers English department served as an outside reader on my dissertation committee and provided very helpful critique, challenging me to redefine, to recognize underlying assumptions, and to search for further ways to show how the mystic writers impacted their world. Thanks also go to past dissertation director Dr. Andrew Welsh for encouragement and advocacy. Many thanks go especially to current director Dr. Alessandro Vettori for insight, ideas, advice, and gracious, supportive criticism. He provided deep understanding of a rather specialized topic and encouraged me to take a critical risk in proposing something new. For providing me with invaluable rhetorical and pedagogical training along with the financial support of instructorships and lectureships, I thank the Rutgers University Writing Program and the English Department of Rider University. I am indebted to several friends and colleagues for support and encouragement, especially Dr. Susan Charles Groth, Dr. Kathleen Sands, Dr. Bettina Caluori, and Nana Owusu. I am very grateful to Carol L. Hostutler for careful reading and perceptive commentary on the draft, and to Doris Thorne for help with Dutch. I also thank the many students who have v challenged me to reexamine my assumptions about the reality of virtual and actual worlds, and for providing continual insight on the ways we use writing to integrate and make sense of our lives. Finally, deep thanks go to the Hostutler and Hamilton families, who never wavered (at least aloud) in their belief that I was working on something worth doing. This dissertation is dedicated with a grateful heart to Ernest F. Hamilton, Jr and William R. Regan, two men who share in the quest for the music of the spheres, who have given continual encouragement and support, and who have never tried to change my nature. vi

Anglia - Zeitschrift für englische Philologie, 2007

French Studies, 2001

het project of beginning a 'queer re-reading of the medieval French corpus' (144). We can hope to be enriched by more of Klosowska's contraband riches. In her 'Conclusion,' Klosowska resituates hef approach in a tradition grounded in Barthes and enriched by Lacan and othefs of the circle, such as Laplanche and Klein. This useful summing up is less a conclusion than a prolegomena. Referring to Barthes's reference to the 'body in question,' (a reference famously picked up in a different context by Jonathan Miller), she both questions and authofi2es the subjectivity of her ethic and the validity of a psychoanalytic approach and, echoing an earlier theme, argues that 'the legitimacy of queer readings of medieval texts' if questionable, is so 'because it is still fragmentary in practice,' which does not delegitimize it, but extends its mandate (163). Klosowska's study is not an easy read and a Bibliography would have been useful, but it is rich, provocative, and likely to inspire debates and discoveries for some time to come. It is a significant contribution to queef theory and medieval scholarship.

Religion and Gender, 2015

Analiza i Egzystencja, 2021

The special issue of Analiza i Egzystencja entitled "The Intersections of Theology, Language, and Cognition in Medieval Tradition" features a diversity of approaches to debating theological and philosophical dilemmas in the late Middle Ages and offers a forum for cross-disciplinary research on medieval philosophy and theology. While scholars tended to cross disciplinary boundaries throughout the Middle Ages, interdisciplinary practices reached an apex of sophistication in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, promoting thematic and methodological entwinements. Admittedly, by combining analytical tools and terminology from disparate disciplines, thirteenth- and fourteenth-century authors crafted a methodological perspective that enabled them to describe and explore numerous issues from different angles, offering novel solutions to old problems. This approach was adopted in various fields of knowledge and proved most fruitful in theology, where it prompted a veritable cross-pollination of ideas. Especially inspiring were the intersections of theological, linguistic, and epistemological realms, as studied by several contributors to this issue.