‘By moste sweete and comfortable allegories’

Author(s):  
Victoria Brownlee

The Song of Songs, as a poetic dialogue between two lovers, presented literally minded biblical commentators with a thorny exegetical dilemma: either accept the presence of a purely erotic text in scripture, or make the case for a literal reading that was figurative. Like early modern exegesis of the Song, poetic recapitulations of this biblical book, such as those by William Baldwin, Francis Quarles, and Robert Aylett, rely on complex figural reading practices to substantiate a spiritual meaning not directly implied by the biblical text. But this dependence on human words to secure the relationship between sign and spiritually signified exposes reformed anxieties about the inherently fallen nature of the human mind, and the broader inadequacy of language to articulate spiritual truth.

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 332
Author(s):  
RAQUEL DE FÁTIMA PARMEGIANI

<p><strong>Resumo:</strong> Neste trabalho, temos como proposta refletir sobre o processo de construção da relação entre texto bíblico e seus comentadores na Alta Idade Média. Nosso objetivo é pensar esta <em>escritura</em> na sua historicidade, ou seja, seus usos sociais e suas possibilidades de leitura. Para tanto, partiremos da análise do Comentário ao Apocalipse do Africano Ticônio (cerca de 328), um dos primeiros autores a analisar este livro, e do seu trabalho <em>Liber Regylarum</em>, no qual propõe sete preceitos a partir dos quais os textos bíblicos deveriam ser interpretados. Embora este autor tenha sido considerado herético pela Igreja Romana, o uso das suas regras ganhou um reconhecido lugar entre os comentaristas bíblicos na Idade Média, o que pode ser percebido na obra de autores cristãos como Santo Agostinho, São Jeronimo, Cesário de Arlés, Beda e Beato de Liébana.</p><p><strong>Palavras-chave</strong>: Comentário Bíblico – Práticas de leitura – Cristianismo Medieval.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Abstract</strong>: In this paper, we will try to reflect how the relationship between the biblical text and its commentators is building in the High Middle Ages. Our aim is to think this scripture in its historicity, that is, its social uses and possibilities of reading. For this, we begin with the analysis of the Tyconius’ Commentary on the Apocalypse (about 328), one of the first authors to analyze this book and your work entitled <em>Liber Regylarum</em>, in which he proposes seven principles according to which the biblical texts should be interpreted. Although this author has been considered heretical by the Roman Church, the use of these rules has gained a recognized place among the bible commentators in the Middle Ages, as we can see in the works of Christian writers such as St. Augustine, St. Jerome, Caesarius of Arles, Beda and Beatus of Liebana.</p><p><strong>Keywords:</strong> Bible Commentary – Reading practices – Medieval Christianity.</p>


2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Willie Van Heerden

A central concern of ecological biblical hermeneutics is to overcome the anthropocentric bias we are likely to find both in interpretations of the biblical texts and in the biblical text itself. One of the consequences of anthropocentrism has been described as a sense of distance, separation, and otherness in the relationship between humans and other members of the Earth community. This article is an attempt to determine whether extant ecological interpretations of the Jonah narrative have successfully addressed this sense of estrangement. The article focuses on the work of Ernst M. Conradie (2005), Raymond F. Person (2008), Yael Shemesh (2010), Brent A. Strawn (2012), and Phyllis Trible (1994, 1996).


2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-65
Author(s):  
Birgit Sandkaulen

The question of the relationship between faith and reason marks one of the fundamental issues for classical German philosophy. The paper is guided by a systematic interest in identifying some common features in the approaches taken by Kant and Hegel that are also of interest for the contemporary discussion: 1. The specific modernity of Kant’s and Hegel’s considerations, evident in their rejection of the resources traditionally appealed to by religion and rationalist metaphysics; 2. the anti-naturalist conviction that, in contrast to animals, a metaphysical dimension is inscribed into the human mind; and 3. the thesis that metaphysical questions are existential questions arising from an impulse toward freedom, and hence that a purely theoretical approach is inadequate to address them.


Author(s):  
Victoria Brownlee

The recent upturn in biblically based films in Anglophone cinema is the departure point for this Afterword reflecting on the Bible’s impact on popular entertainment and literature in early modern England. Providing a survey of the book’s themes, and drawing together the central arguments, the discussion reminds that literary writers not only read and used the Bible in different ways to different ends, but also imbibed and scrutinized dominant interpretative principles and practices in their work. With this in mind, the Afterword outlines the need for further research into the relationship between biblical readings and literary writings in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe.


The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Dance is the first collection of essays to examine the relationship between William Shakespeare and dance. Despite recent academic interest in movement, materiality, and the body—and the growth of dance studies as a disciplinary field—Shakespeare’s employment of dance as both a theatrical device and thematic reference point remains under-studied. The reimagining of his writing as dance works is also neglected as a subject for research. Alan Brissenden’s 1981 Shakespeare and the Dance remains the seminal text for those interested in early modern dancing and its appearances within Shakespearean drama, but this new volume provides a single source of reference for dance as both an integral feature of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century culture and as a means of translating Shakespearean text into movement.


Traditio ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 73 ◽  
pp. 83-116
Author(s):  
PETER O'HAGAN

Peter Lombard's influential commentary on the Pauline Epistles, theCollectanea in omnes divi Pauli epistolas,has received little extended analysis in scholarly literature, despite its recognized importance both in its own right and as key for the development of hisSentences.This article presents a new approach to studying theCollectaneaby analyzing how Lombard's commentary builds on theGlossa “Ordinaria”on the Pauline Epistles. The article argues for treating theCollectaneaas a “historical act,” focusing on how Lombard engages with the biblical text and with authoritative sources within which he encounters the same biblical text embedded. The article further argues for the necessity of turning to the manuscripts of both theCollectaneaand theGlossa,rather than continuing to rely on inadequate early modern printed editions or thePatrologia Latina.The article then uses Lombard's discussion of faith at Romans 1:17 as a case study, demonstrating the way in which Lombard begins from theGlossa,clarifies its ambiguities, and moves his analysis forward through his use of otherauctoritatesand theologicalquaestiones.A comparison with Lombard's treatment of faith in theSentenceshighlights the close links between Lombard's biblical lectures and this later work. The article concludes by arguing that scholastic biblical exegesis and theology should be treated as primarily a classroom activity, with the glossed Bible as the central focus. Discussion of Lombard's work should draw on much recent scholarship that has begun to uncover the layers of orality within the textual history of scholastic works.


2007 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian M. Billing

In this article Christian M. Billing considers the relationship between female lament and acts of vengeance in fifth-century Athenian society and its theatre, with particular emphasis on the Hekabe of Euripides. He uses historical evidence to argue that female mourning was held to be a powerfully transgressive force in the classical period; that considerable social tensions existed as a result of the suppression of female roles in traditional funerary practices (social control arising from the move towards democracy and the development of forensic processes as a means of social redress); and that as a piece of transvestite theatre, authored and performed by men to an audience made up largely, if not entirely, of that sex, Euripides' Hekabe demonstrates significant gender-related anxiety regarding the supposedly horrific consequences of allowing women to speak at burials, or to engage in lament as part of uncontrolled funerary ritual. Christian M. Billing is an academic and theatre practitioner working in the fields of ancient Athenian and early modern English and European drama. He has worked extensively as a director and actor and has also taught at a number of universities in the United Kingdom and the USA. He is currently Lecturer in Drama at the University of Hull.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam D Rocha ◽  
Adi Burton

This essay is an extended reflection on the relationship between death and love expressed in a fragment from Song of Songs 8:6: «Strong as death is love». The passage will be analyzed through a Jewish, Orthodox, and Catholic exegesis and literary reflection. In particular, the essay describes the role of a particular form of love (eros) within a particular form of education (education at the end of time). While eros has frequently been ignored or resigned to a purely sexualized role, we will look closely at Augustine’s eulogy of his mother, Monica, in the Confessions, suggesting that perhaps the most visceral expression of eros is to be found in the phenomenology of death. We will also draw on the phenomenological manifestation of death by looking to the rich description of dying provided by Leo Tolstoy in his novella, The Death of Ivan Ilych.Together these investigations of eros and education yield a «curriculum of death», which draws on the re-conceptualist notion of curriculum. Our claim is that this curriculum of death offers a sense of urgency and seriousness found lacking in schools today, where death abounds, but is rarely if ever addressed in a humanistic way. This final methodological emphasis on the humanities elucidates more directly and critically the role of research for a curriculum of death within the dominance of social science in the field of education.


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