Author: Ann W. Astell
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501733257
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
Calling into question the common assumption that the Middle Ages produced no secondary epics, Ann W. Astell here revises a key chapter in literary history. She examines the connections between the Book of Job and Boethius' s Consolation of Philosophy—texts closely associated with each other in the minds of medieval readers and writers—and demonstrates that these two works served as a conduit for the tradition of heroic poetry from antiquity through the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance. As she traces the complex influences of classical and biblical texts on vernacular literature, Astell offers provocative readings of works by Dante, Chaucer, Spenser, Malory, Milton, and many others. Astell looks at the relationship between the historical reception of the epic and successive imitative forms, showing how Boethius's Consolation and Johan biblical commentaries echo the allegorical treatment of" epic truth" in the poems of Homer and Virgil, and how in turn many works classified as "romance" take Job and Boethius as their models. She considers the influences of Job and Boethius on hagiographic romance, as exemplified by the stories of Eustace, Custance, and Griselda; on the amatory romances of Abelard and Heloise, Dante and Beatrice, and Troilus and Criseyde; and on the chivalric romances of Martin of Tours, Galahad, Lancelot, and Redcrosse. Finally, she explores an encyclopedic array of interpretations of Job and Boethius in Milton's Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes.
Job, Boethius, and Epic Truth
Author: Ann W. Astell
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501733257
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
Calling into question the common assumption that the Middle Ages produced no secondary epics, Ann W. Astell here revises a key chapter in literary history. She examines the connections between the Book of Job and Boethius' s Consolation of Philosophy—texts closely associated with each other in the minds of medieval readers and writers—and demonstrates that these two works served as a conduit for the tradition of heroic poetry from antiquity through the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance. As she traces the complex influences of classical and biblical texts on vernacular literature, Astell offers provocative readings of works by Dante, Chaucer, Spenser, Malory, Milton, and many others. Astell looks at the relationship between the historical reception of the epic and successive imitative forms, showing how Boethius's Consolation and Johan biblical commentaries echo the allegorical treatment of" epic truth" in the poems of Homer and Virgil, and how in turn many works classified as "romance" take Job and Boethius as their models. She considers the influences of Job and Boethius on hagiographic romance, as exemplified by the stories of Eustace, Custance, and Griselda; on the amatory romances of Abelard and Heloise, Dante and Beatrice, and Troilus and Criseyde; and on the chivalric romances of Martin of Tours, Galahad, Lancelot, and Redcrosse. Finally, she explores an encyclopedic array of interpretations of Job and Boethius in Milton's Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes.
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501733257
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
Calling into question the common assumption that the Middle Ages produced no secondary epics, Ann W. Astell here revises a key chapter in literary history. She examines the connections between the Book of Job and Boethius' s Consolation of Philosophy—texts closely associated with each other in the minds of medieval readers and writers—and demonstrates that these two works served as a conduit for the tradition of heroic poetry from antiquity through the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance. As she traces the complex influences of classical and biblical texts on vernacular literature, Astell offers provocative readings of works by Dante, Chaucer, Spenser, Malory, Milton, and many others. Astell looks at the relationship between the historical reception of the epic and successive imitative forms, showing how Boethius's Consolation and Johan biblical commentaries echo the allegorical treatment of" epic truth" in the poems of Homer and Virgil, and how in turn many works classified as "romance" take Job and Boethius as their models. She considers the influences of Job and Boethius on hagiographic romance, as exemplified by the stories of Eustace, Custance, and Griselda; on the amatory romances of Abelard and Heloise, Dante and Beatrice, and Troilus and Criseyde; and on the chivalric romances of Martin of Tours, Galahad, Lancelot, and Redcrosse. Finally, she explores an encyclopedic array of interpretations of Job and Boethius in Milton's Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes.
Have You Considered My Servant Job?
Author: Samuel E. Balentine
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 161117452X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 292
Book Description
An extensive history of how the Bible’s story of Job has been interpreted through the ages. The question that launches Job’s story is posed by God at the outset of the story: “Have you considered my servant Job?” (1:8; 2:3). By any estimation the answer to this question must be yes. The forty-two chapters that form the biblical story have in fact opened the story to an ongoing practice of reading and rereading, evaluating and reevaluating. Early Greek and Jewish translators emphasized some aspects of the story and omitted others; the Church Fathers interpreted Job as a forerunner of Christ, while medieval Jewish commentators debated conservative and liberal interpretations of God’s providential love. Artists, beginning at least in the Greco-Roman period, painted and sculpted their own interpretations of Job. Novelists, playwrights, poets, and musicians—religious and irreligious, from virtually all points of the globe—have added their own distinctive readings. In Have You Considered My Servant Job?, Samuel E. Balentine examines this rich and varied history of interpretation by focusing on the principal characters in the story—Job, God, the satan figure, Job’s wife, and Job’s friends. Each chapter begins with a concise analysis of the biblical description of these characters, then explores how subsequent readers have expanded or reduced the story, shifted its major emphases or retained them, read the story as history or as fiction, and applied the morals of the story to the present or dismissed them as irrelevant. Each new generation of readers is shaped by different historical, cultural, and political contexts, which in turn require new interpretations of an old yet continually mesmerizing story. Voltaire read Job one way in the eighteenth century, Herman Melville a different way in the nineteenth century. Goethe’s reading of the satan figure in Faust is not the same as Chaucer’s in The Canterbury Tales, and neither is fully consonant with the Testament of Job or the Qur’an. One need only compare the descriptions of God in the biblical account with the imaginative renderings by Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, and Franz Kafka to see that the effort to understand why God afflicts Job “for no reason” (2:3) continues to be both compelling and endlessly complicated. “A tour de force of cultural interaction with the book of Job. He guides today’s reader along the path of Job interpretation, exegesis, adaptation and imagining revealing the sheer variety of themes, meanings, creativity and re-readings that have been inspired by this one biblical book. Balentine shows us that not only is there “always someone playing Job” (MacLeish, J.B.) but there’s always someone, past or present, reading this ever-enigmatic book.” —Katharine J. Dell, University of Cambridge “Balentine “considers Job” for the countless ways this biblical book, in all its rich complexities, has inspired readers over the centuries. . . . Balentine’s volume sparkles with insightful theological commentary and rigorous scholarship, and any exegetical course or study on Job would benefit from it.” —Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 161117452X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 292
Book Description
An extensive history of how the Bible’s story of Job has been interpreted through the ages. The question that launches Job’s story is posed by God at the outset of the story: “Have you considered my servant Job?” (1:8; 2:3). By any estimation the answer to this question must be yes. The forty-two chapters that form the biblical story have in fact opened the story to an ongoing practice of reading and rereading, evaluating and reevaluating. Early Greek and Jewish translators emphasized some aspects of the story and omitted others; the Church Fathers interpreted Job as a forerunner of Christ, while medieval Jewish commentators debated conservative and liberal interpretations of God’s providential love. Artists, beginning at least in the Greco-Roman period, painted and sculpted their own interpretations of Job. Novelists, playwrights, poets, and musicians—religious and irreligious, from virtually all points of the globe—have added their own distinctive readings. In Have You Considered My Servant Job?, Samuel E. Balentine examines this rich and varied history of interpretation by focusing on the principal characters in the story—Job, God, the satan figure, Job’s wife, and Job’s friends. Each chapter begins with a concise analysis of the biblical description of these characters, then explores how subsequent readers have expanded or reduced the story, shifted its major emphases or retained them, read the story as history or as fiction, and applied the morals of the story to the present or dismissed them as irrelevant. Each new generation of readers is shaped by different historical, cultural, and political contexts, which in turn require new interpretations of an old yet continually mesmerizing story. Voltaire read Job one way in the eighteenth century, Herman Melville a different way in the nineteenth century. Goethe’s reading of the satan figure in Faust is not the same as Chaucer’s in The Canterbury Tales, and neither is fully consonant with the Testament of Job or the Qur’an. One need only compare the descriptions of God in the biblical account with the imaginative renderings by Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, and Franz Kafka to see that the effort to understand why God afflicts Job “for no reason” (2:3) continues to be both compelling and endlessly complicated. “A tour de force of cultural interaction with the book of Job. He guides today’s reader along the path of Job interpretation, exegesis, adaptation and imagining revealing the sheer variety of themes, meanings, creativity and re-readings that have been inspired by this one biblical book. Balentine shows us that not only is there “always someone playing Job” (MacLeish, J.B.) but there’s always someone, past or present, reading this ever-enigmatic book.” —Katharine J. Dell, University of Cambridge “Balentine “considers Job” for the countless ways this biblical book, in all its rich complexities, has inspired readers over the centuries. . . . Balentine’s volume sparkles with insightful theological commentary and rigorous scholarship, and any exegetical course or study on Job would benefit from it.” —Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology
A Companion to Boethius in the Middle Ages
Author: Noel Harold Kaylor
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900418354X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 685
Book Description
The articles in this volume focus upon Boethius's extant works: his De arithmetica and a fragmentary De musica, his translations and commentaries on logic, his five theological texts, and, of course, his Consolation of Philosophy. They examine the effects that Boethian thought has exercised upon the learning of later generations of scholars.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900418354X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 685
Book Description
The articles in this volume focus upon Boethius's extant works: his De arithmetica and a fragmentary De musica, his translations and commentaries on logic, his five theological texts, and, of course, his Consolation of Philosophy. They examine the effects that Boethian thought has exercised upon the learning of later generations of scholars.
The Pious Sage in Job
Author: Kyle C. Dunham
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1498274595
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Book Description
Due to the complexity of the speech-cycles in the book of Job, scholars have struggled to resolve interpretive tensions in the author's characterization of Job's three friends. This book focuses on the significance of the ancient Near Eastern social and wisdom contexts for understanding the role that Eliphaz, the leading sage-counselor, fulfills in Job. Given the likely Edomite provenance of Eliphaz and the archaeological evidence linking the respective Israelite and Edomite schools of wisdom, Eliphaz articulates a polished wisdom tradition, the epitome of a worldview shared by Job prior to his calamity. Beyond a simplistic retribution perspective, Eliphaz draws from and refines each of the established sources of wisdom--experience, tradition, and revelation--to ground his counsel and censure of Job. Although Eliphaz is expected to exemplify the role of distinguished counselor-advocate in leading Job out of suffering into reconciliation with God, his ineffectual efforts highlight a significant purpose for the book of Job. The Joban author masterfully undermines conventional wisdom theodicy by exposing its inadequacy to reconcile the suffering of the righteous with divine compassion and sovereignty.
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1498274595
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Book Description
Due to the complexity of the speech-cycles in the book of Job, scholars have struggled to resolve interpretive tensions in the author's characterization of Job's three friends. This book focuses on the significance of the ancient Near Eastern social and wisdom contexts for understanding the role that Eliphaz, the leading sage-counselor, fulfills in Job. Given the likely Edomite provenance of Eliphaz and the archaeological evidence linking the respective Israelite and Edomite schools of wisdom, Eliphaz articulates a polished wisdom tradition, the epitome of a worldview shared by Job prior to his calamity. Beyond a simplistic retribution perspective, Eliphaz draws from and refines each of the established sources of wisdom--experience, tradition, and revelation--to ground his counsel and censure of Job. Although Eliphaz is expected to exemplify the role of distinguished counselor-advocate in leading Job out of suffering into reconciliation with God, his ineffectual efforts highlight a significant purpose for the book of Job. The Joban author masterfully undermines conventional wisdom theodicy by exposing its inadequacy to reconcile the suffering of the righteous with divine compassion and sovereignty.
The Oxford Handbook of Chaucer
Author: Suzanne Conklin Akbari
Publisher: Oxford Handbooks
ISBN: 0199582653
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 689
Book Description
This handbook addresses Chaucer's poetry in the context of several disciplines, including late medieval philosophy and science, Mediterranean culture, comparative European literature, vernacular theology and popular devotion.
Publisher: Oxford Handbooks
ISBN: 0199582653
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 689
Book Description
This handbook addresses Chaucer's poetry in the context of several disciplines, including late medieval philosophy and science, Mediterranean culture, comparative European literature, vernacular theology and popular devotion.
Anglo-Saxon England: Volume 26
Author: Michael Lapidge
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521592529
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 352
Book Description
In the present volume, the two essays that frame the book provide exciting insight into the mental world of the Anglo-Saxons by showing on the one hand how they understood the processes of reading and assimilating knowledge and, on the other, how they conceived of time and the passage of the seasons. In the field of art history, two essays treat two of the best-known Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. The lavish symbol pages in the 'Book of Durrow' are shown to reflect a programmatic exposition of the meaning of Easter, and a posthumous essay by a distinguished art historian shows how the Anglo-Saxon illustrations added to the 'Galba Psalter' are best to be understood in the context of the programme of learning instituted by King Alfred. The usual comprehensive bibliography of the previous year's publications in all branches of Anglo-Saxon studies rounds off the book.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521592529
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 352
Book Description
In the present volume, the two essays that frame the book provide exciting insight into the mental world of the Anglo-Saxons by showing on the one hand how they understood the processes of reading and assimilating knowledge and, on the other, how they conceived of time and the passage of the seasons. In the field of art history, two essays treat two of the best-known Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. The lavish symbol pages in the 'Book of Durrow' are shown to reflect a programmatic exposition of the meaning of Easter, and a posthumous essay by a distinguished art historian shows how the Anglo-Saxon illustrations added to the 'Galba Psalter' are best to be understood in the context of the programme of learning instituted by King Alfred. The usual comprehensive bibliography of the previous year's publications in all branches of Anglo-Saxon studies rounds off the book.
The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Wisdom Literature
Author: Katherine J. Dell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108665810
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 533
Book Description
Study of the wisdom literature in the Hebrew Bible and the contemporary cultures in the ancient Near Eastern world is evolving rapidly as old definitions and assumptions are questioned. Scholars are now interrogating the role of oral culture, the rhetoric of teaching and didacticism, the understanding of genre, and the relationship of these factors to the corpus of writings. The scribal culture in which wisdom literature arose is also under investigation, alongside questions of social context and character formation. This Companion serves as an essential guide to wisdom texts, a body of biblical literature with ancient origins that continue to have universal and timeless appeal. Reflecting new interpretive approaches, including virtue ethics and intertextuality, the volume includes essays by an international team of leading scholars. They engage with the texts, provide authoritative summaries of the state of the field, and open up to readers the exciting world of biblical wisdom.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108665810
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 533
Book Description
Study of the wisdom literature in the Hebrew Bible and the contemporary cultures in the ancient Near Eastern world is evolving rapidly as old definitions and assumptions are questioned. Scholars are now interrogating the role of oral culture, the rhetoric of teaching and didacticism, the understanding of genre, and the relationship of these factors to the corpus of writings. The scribal culture in which wisdom literature arose is also under investigation, alongside questions of social context and character formation. This Companion serves as an essential guide to wisdom texts, a body of biblical literature with ancient origins that continue to have universal and timeless appeal. Reflecting new interpretive approaches, including virtue ethics and intertextuality, the volume includes essays by an international team of leading scholars. They engage with the texts, provide authoritative summaries of the state of the field, and open up to readers the exciting world of biblical wisdom.
An Obituary for "Wisdom Literature"
Author: Will Kynes
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191083186
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 343
Book Description
An Obituary for "Wisdom Literature" considers the definitional issues long plaguing Wisdom scholarship. Will Kynes argues that Wisdom Literature is not a category used in early Jewish and Christian interpretation. It first emerged in modern scholarship, shaped by its birthplace in nineteenth-century Germany. Kynes casts new light on the traits long associated with the category, such as universalism, humanism, rationalism, empiricism, and secularism, which so closely reflect the ideals of that time. Since it was originally assembled to reflect modern ideals, it is not surprising that biblical scholars have faced serious difficulties defining the corpus on another basis or integrating it into the theology of the Old Testament. The problem, however, is not only why the texts were perceived in this one way, but that they are perceived in only one way at all. The book builds on recent theories from literary studies and cognitive science to create a new alternative approach to genre that integrates hermeneutical insight from various genre proposals. This theory is then applied to Job, Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs, mapping out the complex textual network contributing to their meaning. With the death of the Wisdom Literature category, both the so-called Wisdom texts and the concept of wisdom find new life.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191083186
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 343
Book Description
An Obituary for "Wisdom Literature" considers the definitional issues long plaguing Wisdom scholarship. Will Kynes argues that Wisdom Literature is not a category used in early Jewish and Christian interpretation. It first emerged in modern scholarship, shaped by its birthplace in nineteenth-century Germany. Kynes casts new light on the traits long associated with the category, such as universalism, humanism, rationalism, empiricism, and secularism, which so closely reflect the ideals of that time. Since it was originally assembled to reflect modern ideals, it is not surprising that biblical scholars have faced serious difficulties defining the corpus on another basis or integrating it into the theology of the Old Testament. The problem, however, is not only why the texts were perceived in this one way, but that they are perceived in only one way at all. The book builds on recent theories from literary studies and cognitive science to create a new alternative approach to genre that integrates hermeneutical insight from various genre proposals. This theory is then applied to Job, Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs, mapping out the complex textual network contributing to their meaning. With the death of the Wisdom Literature category, both the so-called Wisdom texts and the concept of wisdom find new life.
Chaucer and the Universe of Learning
Author: Ann W. Astell
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801432699
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 280
Book Description
Astell examines the conventions of medieval learning familiar to Chaucer and discovers in two related topical outlines, those of the seven planets and of the divisions of philosophy, an important key.
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801432699
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 280
Book Description
Astell examines the conventions of medieval learning familiar to Chaucer and discovers in two related topical outlines, those of the seven planets and of the divisions of philosophy, an important key.
From Paradise to Paradigm
Author: Willemien Otten
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047406176
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346
Book Description
This book presents a study of twelfth-century humanism seen as an all-embracing discourse in which the human and the divine interact on equal terms. The book focuses on a number of twelfth-century intellectuals, especially Thierry of Chartres, Peter Abelard, William of Conches, Bernard Silvestris, and Alan of Lille. Defining characteristic of their texts is the fact that God, nature and humanity enter into a trialogue of sorts involving many disparate subjects and aiming to bring out the archetypal relatedness of all kinds of knowledge with respect to human nature. As the authors studied here engage the divine and the universe in a joint conversation, the book ultimately concentrates on trying both to understand its appeal and to explain its subsequent demise.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047406176
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346
Book Description
This book presents a study of twelfth-century humanism seen as an all-embracing discourse in which the human and the divine interact on equal terms. The book focuses on a number of twelfth-century intellectuals, especially Thierry of Chartres, Peter Abelard, William of Conches, Bernard Silvestris, and Alan of Lille. Defining characteristic of their texts is the fact that God, nature and humanity enter into a trialogue of sorts involving many disparate subjects and aiming to bring out the archetypal relatedness of all kinds of knowledge with respect to human nature. As the authors studied here engage the divine and the universe in a joint conversation, the book ultimately concentrates on trying both to understand its appeal and to explain its subsequent demise.