Overview

Language, Self and Love offers a unique insight into the development of the language of interiority in the medieval literature inspired by the Song of Songs and its commentaries. It traces the evolution of a medieval identity in the process of self-fashioning and, in showing the importance of mystical writing for understanding medieval subjectivity, suggests that the 'self' is not the early modern invention it is often claimed to be. Denis Renevey discusses the correspondences between the discourse of love in the Song of Songs and the language of mysticism in the writings of William of St Thierry and Richard Rolle, where the self is described in its attempts at establishing a direct relationship with God. He also shows how the textual strategies offered in mystical writing for the use of female recipients engage with questions of misogyny and the relationship between Latin and vernacular cultures.

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9780708316962

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'innovatory and important [...] this sounds a very exciting book' 'no other scholar [...] has covered the range of reference which Dr Renevey outlines in his proposal, and he is perhaps uniquely qualified among current scholars to provide an in-depth study' 'this study will break new ground and will give a firm intellectual basis to the study of mystical writings'

Author Information

Denis Renevey is a lecturer in Medieval Literature at the Universities of Fribourg and Lausanne. He is the co-editor of Writing Religious Women: Female Spiritual and Textual Practices in Late Medieval England and the author of numerous articles dealing with medieval mysticism.

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