LEADER 04689nam 2200697Ia 450 001 9910463753703321 005 20211008200357.0 010 $a0-8122-0747-5 024 7 $a10.9783/9780812207477 035 $a(CKB)3170000000060324 035 $a(OCoLC)857347391 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebrary10748343 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000885428 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11482751 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000885428 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10952681 035 $a(PQKB)11051580 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC3442033 035 $a(MdBmJHUP)muse19111 035 $a(DE-B1597)449659 035 $a(OCoLC)1013937807 035 $a(OCoLC)922641451 035 $a(DE-B1597)9780812207477 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL3442033 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10748343 035 $a(CaONFJC)MIL682417 035 $a(EXLCZ)993170000000060324 100 $a20120412d2012 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurcn||||||||| 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 10$aPoetics of the Incarnation$b[electronic resource] $eMiddle English writing and the leap of love /$fCristina Maria Cervone 205 $a1st ed. 210 $aPhiladelphia $cUniversity of Pennsylvania Press$dc2012 215 $a1 online resource (321 p.) 225 1 $aThe Middle Ages series 300 $aBibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph 311 0 $a1-322-51135-7 311 0 $a0-8122-4451-6 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. [283]-300) and index. 327 $tFront matter --$tContents --$tIntroduction --$tChapter 1. The "Enigma" of Signification in "Figurative" Language --$tChapter 2. Elisions of Abstract and Concrete, Epitomized in a "True-love" --$tChapter 3. Agency: When Christ as "Doer" Is Also the "Love Deed" --$tChapter 4. Time in Narrative: The Teleology of History Meets the Timelessness of God "in plenitudo temporis" --$tChapter 5. "He is in the mydde point": Poetic Deep Structure and the Frameworks of Incarnational Poetics --$tConclusion --$tNotes --$tWorks Cited --$tIndex --$tAcknowledgment 330 $aThe Gospel of John describes the Incarnation of Christ as "the Word made flesh"-an intriguing phrase that uses the logic of metaphor but is not traditionally understood as merely symbolic. Thus the conceptual puzzle of the Incarnation also draws attention to language and form: what is the Word; how is it related to language; how can the Word become flesh? Such theological questions haunt the material imagery engaged by medieval writers, the structural forms that give their writing shape, and even their ideas about language itself. In Poetics of the Incarnation, Cristina Maria Cervone examines the work of fourteenth-century writers who, rather than approaching the mystery of the Incarnation through affective identification with the Passion, elected to ponder the intellectual implications of the Incarnation in poetical and rhetorical forms. Cervone argues that a poetics of the Incarnation becomes the grounds for working through the philosophical and theological implications of language, at a point in time when Middle English was emerging as a legitimate, if contested, medium for theological expression. In brief lyrics and complex narratives, late medieval English writers including William Langland, Julian of Norwich, Walter Hilton, and the anonymous author of the Charters of Christ took the relationship between God and humanity as a jumping-off point for their meditations on the nature of language and thought, the elision between the concrete and the abstract, the complex relationship between acting and being, the work done by poetry itself in and through time, and the meaning latent within poetical forms. Where Passion-devoted writing would focus on the vulnerability and suffering of the fleshly body, these texts took imaginative leaps, such as when they depict the body of Christ as a lily or the written word. Their Incarnational poetics repeatedly call attention to the fact that, in theology as in poetics, form matters. 410 0$aMiddle Ages series. 606 $aChristian poetry, English (Middle)$xHistory and criticism 606 $aIncarnation in literature 606 $aPoetics$xHistory$yTo 1500 608 $aElectronic books. 615 0$aChristian poetry, English (Middle)$xHistory and criticism. 615 0$aIncarnation in literature. 615 0$aPoetics$xHistory 676 $a821/.1093823 700 $aCervone$b Cristina Maria$01045482 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910463753703321 996 $aPoetics of the Incarnation$92471801 997 $aUNINA