Promised Bodies: Time, Language, and Corporeality in Medieval Women's Mystical Texts

Dailey, Patricia

ISBN 10: 0231161204 / ISBN 13: 9780231161206

Published by Columbia University Press, New York, 2013

About this Item

Red faux-leather binding lightly rubbed, else Near Fine. Dust jacket rubbed & lightly creased, now protected in a clear mylar cover. ; GENDER, THEORY, AND RELIGION SERIES Series; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 260 pages.

Seller Inventory # 54647

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Promised Bodies: Time, Language, and Corporeality in Medieval Women's Mystical Texts
• Publisher: Columbia University Press, New York
• Publication Date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0231161204
• ISBN 13: 9780231161206
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Very Good+
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

In the Christian tradition, especially in the works of Paul, Augustine, and the exegetes of the Middle Ages, the body is a twofold entity consisting of inner and outer persons that promises to find its true materiality in a time to come. A potentially transformative vehicle, it is a dynamic mirror that can reflect the work of the divine within and substantially alter its own materiality if receptive to divine grace.

The writings of Hadewijch of Brabant, a thirteenth-century beguine, engage with this tradition in sophisticated ways both singular to her mysticism and indicative of the theological milieu of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Crossing linguistic and historical boundaries, Patricia Dailey connects the embodied poetics of Hadewijch's visions, writings, and letters to the work of Julian of Norwich, Hildegard of Bingen, Marguerite of Oingt, and other mystics and visionaries. She establishes new criteria to more consistently understand and assess the singularity of women's mystical texts and, by underscoring the similarities between men's and women's writings of the time, collapses traditional conceptions of gender as they relate to differences in style, language, interpretative practices, forms of literacy, and uses of textuality.

About the Author

Patricia Dailey is an associate professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University.