The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages

Ann W. Astell

Published by Cornell University Press 1995

The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages

Ann W. Astell

https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501720697

Overview
Contents

About this book

The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages is a wide-ranging and insightful book that is carefully researched and gracefully written. It is of importance alike to those interested in mysticism, Middle English, the twelfth century, the fourteenth century...

Author / Editor information

Ann W. Astell is Professor of English at Purdue University. She is the author of Political Allegory in Late Medieval England and Eating Beauty: The Eucharist and the Spiritual Arts of the Middle Ages, both available from Cornell.

Reviews

The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages is a wide-ranging and insightful book that is carefully researched and gracefully written. It is of importance alike to those interested in mysticism, Middle English, the twelfth century, the fourteenth century, and feminist approaches to literature.

Astell proves herself to be a very good close reader.... Her sensitive attention to shifts of gender and their rhetorical motivation yields subtle and compelling results.

This deceptively slender volume is valuable in a number of ways. Astell further substantiates even as she extends and deepens the insights of historical scholars such as Beryl Smalley by distinguishing more precisely the various forms taken by the twelfth-century reemphasis on the letter of the Biblical text and by specifying the psychohistorical circumstances that conditioned that response. She contributes original and insightful readings of important texts, including St. Bernard's Sermones, the mystical writings of Hugh of St. Victor and Richard Rolle, the Middle English religious lyrics, and Pearl. And her bold claim that the 'powerful fusion of letter and allegory in readers' experience of the Song from the twelfth through the fourteenth centuries provided the key definitional model for Christian poetics and rhetoric during that time' encourages a new look at other works.... Astell's book is both stimulating and convincing.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Abbreviations Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. The Song of Songs Ad Litteram Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	25
2. The Exemplary Bride: Ecclesia and Mary Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	42
3. Personal Brideship: The Mystical Treatments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	73
4. Middle English Transitions: The Case of Richard Rolle Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	105
5. Mourning and Marriage in Saint Bernard's Sermones and in Pearl Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	119
6. Religious Love Lyric and the Feminine "I" Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	136
7. Biblical Drama, Devotional Response, and the Feminine "We" Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	159
Epilogue Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	177
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	181
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	191

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 208
Keywords: Religious Studies; Literary Studies; Medieval & Renaissance Studies

eBook

Published: October 18, 2018
ISBN: 9781501720697