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OverviewThe Gospel of John describes the Incarnation of Christ as ""the Word made flesh""-an intriguing phrase that uses the logic of metaphor but is not traditionally understood as merely symbolic. Thus the conceptual puzzle of the Incarnation also draws attention to language and form: what is the Word; how is it related to language; how can the Word become flesh? Such theological questions haunt the material imagery engaged by medieval writers, the structural forms that give their writing shape, and even their ideas about language itself. In Poetics of the Incarnation, Cristina Maria Cervone examines the work of fourteenth-century writers who, rather than approaching the mystery of the Incarnation through affective identification with the Passion, elected to ponder the intellectual implications of the Incarnation in poetical and rhetorical forms. Cervone argues that a poetics of the Incarnation becomes the grounds for working through the philosophical and theological implications of language, at a point in time when Middle English was emerging as a legitimate, if contested, medium for theological expression. In brief lyrics and complex narratives, late medieval English writers including William Langland, Julian of Norwich, Walter Hilton, and the anonymous author of the Charters of Christ took the relationship between God and humanity as a jumping-off point for their meditations on the nature of language and thought, the elision between the concrete and the abstract, the complex relationship between acting and being, the work done by poetry itself in and through time, and the meaning latent within poetical forms. Where Passion-devoted writing would focus on the vulnerability and suffering of the fleshly body, these texts took imaginative leaps, such as when they depict the body of Christ as a lily or the written word. Their Incarnational poetics repeatedly call attention to the fact that, in theology as in poetics, form matters. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Cristina Maria Cervone , Ruth Mazo KarrasPublisher: University of Pennsylvania Press Imprint: University of Pennsylvania Press Dimensions: Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.30cm , Length: 22.90cm Weight: 0.590kg ISBN: 9780812244519ISBN 10: 0812244516 Pages: 320 Publication Date: 04 February 2013 Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Tertiary & Higher Education , Professional & Vocational Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: In Print  This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us. Table of Contents"Introduction Chapter 1. The ""Enigma"" of Signification in ""Figurative"" Language Chapter 2. Elisions of Abstract and Concrete, Epitomized in a ""True-love"" Chapter 3. Agency: When Christ as ""Doer"" Is Also the ""Love Deed"" Chapter 4. Time in Narrative: The Teleology of History Meets the Timelessness of God ""in plenitudo temporis"" Chapter 5. ""He is in the mydde point"": Poetic Deep Structure and the Frameworks of Incarnational Poetics Conclusion Notes Works Cited Index Acknowledgments"ReviewsThis is a virtuoso study, a substantial, unusual, often brilliant contribution to Middle English stylistics and poetics. -Nicholas Watson, Harvard University Cervone's book is a work of high order-polished, original, stamped by a formidable poetic and philosophical mind. -Barbara Newman, Northwestern University In this startlingly original, highly suggestive, and lovingly written book, Cristina Maria Cervone writes of incarnational poetics as from the heart of imaginative understanding. Close analyses of major and minor texts find their common appeal in their extraordinary imagining of the metaphorics of incarnation. A work of subtle and meticulous scholarship which is above all about the poetic imagination. -Derek Pearsall, Harvard University This is a virtuoso study, a substantial, unusual, often brilliant contribution to Middle English stylistics and poetics. -Nicholas Watson, Harvard University Cervone's book is a work of high order-polished, original, stamped by a formidable poetic and philosophical mind. -Barbara Newman, Northwestern University Author InformationCristina Maria Cervone teaches English literature and medieval studies at the University of Memphis. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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