Steven L. McKenzie
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195161496
- eISBN:
- 9780199850419
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195161496.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
More people read the Bible than any other book. Indeed, many try to live their lives according to its words. The question is, do they understand what they're reading? As this book shows, quite often ...
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More people read the Bible than any other book. Indeed, many try to live their lives according to its words. The question is, do they understand what they're reading? As this book shows, quite often the answer is, “No.” This book argues that to comprehend the Bible we must grasp the intentions of the biblical authors themselves—what sort of texts they thought they were writing and how they would have been understood by their intended audience. In short, we must recognize the genres to which these texts belong. The book examines several genres that are typically misunderstood, offering careful readings of specific texts to show how the confusion arises, and how knowing the genre produces a correct reading. The book of Jonah, for example, offers many clues that it is meant as a humorous satire, not a straight-faced historical account of a man who was swallowed by a fish. Likewise, the book explains that the very names “Adam” and “Eve” tell us that these are not historical characters, but figures who symbolize human origins (“Adam” means man, “Eve” is related to the word for life). Similarly, the authors of apocalyptic texts—including the Book of Revelation—were writing allegories of events that were happening in their own time. Not for a moment could they imagine that centuries afterwards, readers would be poring over their works for clues to the date of the Second Coming of Christ, or when and how the world would end.Less
More people read the Bible than any other book. Indeed, many try to live their lives according to its words. The question is, do they understand what they're reading? As this book shows, quite often the answer is, “No.” This book argues that to comprehend the Bible we must grasp the intentions of the biblical authors themselves—what sort of texts they thought they were writing and how they would have been understood by their intended audience. In short, we must recognize the genres to which these texts belong. The book examines several genres that are typically misunderstood, offering careful readings of specific texts to show how the confusion arises, and how knowing the genre produces a correct reading. The book of Jonah, for example, offers many clues that it is meant as a humorous satire, not a straight-faced historical account of a man who was swallowed by a fish. Likewise, the book explains that the very names “Adam” and “Eve” tell us that these are not historical characters, but figures who symbolize human origins (“Adam” means man, “Eve” is related to the word for life). Similarly, the authors of apocalyptic texts—including the Book of Revelation—were writing allegories of events that were happening in their own time. Not for a moment could they imagine that centuries afterwards, readers would be poring over their works for clues to the date of the Second Coming of Christ, or when and how the world would end.
Jennifer A. Glancy
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195328158
- eISBN:
- 9780199777143
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195328158.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Church History, Early Christian Studies
Chapter 4 examines the earliest representations of Mary in childbirth in writings dating from the second and early third centuries, including Odes of Solomon, Ascension of Isaiah, Protevangelium of ...
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Chapter 4 examines the earliest representations of Mary in childbirth in writings dating from the second and early third centuries, including Odes of Solomon, Ascension of Isaiah, Protevangelium of James, and works by Tertullian. In a period in which Mary is not yet canonized as a uniquely sinless Eve, her virginity is interpreted in multiple and complex ways. Mary’s childbearing body is located in the context of both ancient and modern discourses about childbirth. Drawing theoretically on the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty as well as feminist philosophers including Elizabeth Grosz, Luce Irigiray, and Julia Kristeva, chapter 4 considers the parturient body—Mary’s body and, by extension, the bodies of other childbearing women—as a site of corporal knowledge. Corporal knowing begins in the womb.Less
Chapter 4 examines the earliest representations of Mary in childbirth in writings dating from the second and early third centuries, including Odes of Solomon, Ascension of Isaiah, Protevangelium of James, and works by Tertullian. In a period in which Mary is not yet canonized as a uniquely sinless Eve, her virginity is interpreted in multiple and complex ways. Mary’s childbearing body is located in the context of both ancient and modern discourses about childbirth. Drawing theoretically on the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty as well as feminist philosophers including Elizabeth Grosz, Luce Irigiray, and Julia Kristeva, chapter 4 considers the parturient body—Mary’s body and, by extension, the bodies of other childbearing women—as a site of corporal knowledge. Corporal knowing begins in the womb.
Brian Murdoch
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199564149
- eISBN:
- 9780191721328
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199564149.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Literature
This book examines the development in medieval European literature of the story of Adam and Eve after the expulsion from paradise. The gaps in what the Bible records of their lives were filled in ...
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This book examines the development in medieval European literature of the story of Adam and Eve after the expulsion from paradise. The gaps in what the Bible records of their lives were filled in early and medieval times to a great extent by apocrypha or pseudepigrapha such as the Latin Life of Adam and Eve (which merges at some points with a series of legends of the Holy Rood). It describes their attempt to return to paradise by undertaking penance whilst immersed in a river, Eve's second temptation, and the ways in which Adam and Eve cope with the novelties of childbirth and death. The Vita Adae et Evae is part of a broad apocryphal tradition, but is not a unified text, and there are very many variations within the substantial number of extant versions. It was translated and adapted in prose, verse, and drama (as tracts, in chronicles, or as literary works) in virtually all western and some eastern European languages in the Middle Ages, and survived sometimes beyond that. These adaptations are examined on a comparative basis. There is a limited iconographical tradition. The book argues that the study of the apocryphal tradition demands examination of these vernacular texts; and also brings to light a very widespread aspect of European culture that disappeared to a large extent—though it did not die out completely—at the time of the Renaissance and Reformation, with their renewed insistence on canonicity and on the establishment of a foundation text for works of antiquity.Less
This book examines the development in medieval European literature of the story of Adam and Eve after the expulsion from paradise. The gaps in what the Bible records of their lives were filled in early and medieval times to a great extent by apocrypha or pseudepigrapha such as the Latin Life of Adam and Eve (which merges at some points with a series of legends of the Holy Rood). It describes their attempt to return to paradise by undertaking penance whilst immersed in a river, Eve's second temptation, and the ways in which Adam and Eve cope with the novelties of childbirth and death. The Vita Adae et Evae is part of a broad apocryphal tradition, but is not a unified text, and there are very many variations within the substantial number of extant versions. It was translated and adapted in prose, verse, and drama (as tracts, in chronicles, or as literary works) in virtually all western and some eastern European languages in the Middle Ages, and survived sometimes beyond that. These adaptations are examined on a comparative basis. There is a limited iconographical tradition. The book argues that the study of the apocryphal tradition demands examination of these vernacular texts; and also brings to light a very widespread aspect of European culture that disappeared to a large extent—though it did not die out completely—at the time of the Renaissance and Reformation, with their renewed insistence on canonicity and on the establishment of a foundation text for works of antiquity.
Rosanna Cox
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197264706
- eISBN:
- 9780191734557
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264706.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Milton Studies
This chapter investigates the seventeenth-century cultural and historical context of Milton's portrayal the relationship of Adam and Eve in Paradise Lost. This approach aims to bring the ...
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This chapter investigates the seventeenth-century cultural and historical context of Milton's portrayal the relationship of Adam and Eve in Paradise Lost. This approach aims to bring the intellectual, doctrinal, and political debates with which he engaged in his portrayal of the relationship between the sexes. The chapter examines Milton' understanding of the ideas of woman, womanhood, and the cultural debates about the relationship of man and woman in marriage and in the household, and the ways in which these conceptions formed his political and theological outlook. Milton's thoughts on gender and marriage, which were grounded in reformation and seventeenth-century Puritan teachings, in political debates on family and political obligation, and in the ideological and imaginative relationships between politics and gender, formed his prose and poetry on the relationship of man and woman.Less
This chapter investigates the seventeenth-century cultural and historical context of Milton's portrayal the relationship of Adam and Eve in Paradise Lost. This approach aims to bring the intellectual, doctrinal, and political debates with which he engaged in his portrayal of the relationship between the sexes. The chapter examines Milton' understanding of the ideas of woman, womanhood, and the cultural debates about the relationship of man and woman in marriage and in the household, and the ways in which these conceptions formed his political and theological outlook. Milton's thoughts on gender and marriage, which were grounded in reformation and seventeenth-century Puritan teachings, in political debates on family and political obligation, and in the ideological and imaginative relationships between politics and gender, formed his prose and poetry on the relationship of man and woman.
Louise Antony
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199576739
- eISBN:
- 9780191595165
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199576739.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
God is often conceived as a loving Father. It's argued in this chapter, however, that he is anything but. The God of the Hebrew Bible is far more concerned with his own glorification than with the ...
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God is often conceived as a loving Father. It's argued in this chapter, however, that he is anything but. The God of the Hebrew Bible is far more concerned with his own glorification than with the well-being of his human ‘children’. Indeed, his actions would constitute child abuse if perpetrated by a human parent. The author supports this indictment primarily through a close reading of the story of the Fall: in his relations with Adam and Eve, Yahweh's attitudes, motives, and methods contrast with those of the genuinely loving parent depicted in a parallel tale of prohibition and disobedience, the contemporary children's story Heckedy Peg. Corroborating evidence is drawn from narratives throughout the Hebrew Bible, including the story of the binding of Isaac and the testing of Job.Less
God is often conceived as a loving Father. It's argued in this chapter, however, that he is anything but. The God of the Hebrew Bible is far more concerned with his own glorification than with the well-being of his human ‘children’. Indeed, his actions would constitute child abuse if perpetrated by a human parent. The author supports this indictment primarily through a close reading of the story of the Fall: in his relations with Adam and Eve, Yahweh's attitudes, motives, and methods contrast with those of the genuinely loving parent depicted in a parallel tale of prohibition and disobedience, the contemporary children's story Heckedy Peg. Corroborating evidence is drawn from narratives throughout the Hebrew Bible, including the story of the binding of Isaac and the testing of Job.
David Quint
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691161914
- eISBN:
- 9781400850488
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691161914.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter relates the separate falls of Eve and Adam in book 9, respectively, to deeply held wishes that Milton reveals in other writings throughout his career. The fall of Eve grows out of the ...
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This chapter relates the separate falls of Eve and Adam in book 9, respectively, to deeply held wishes that Milton reveals in other writings throughout his career. The fall of Eve grows out of the desire to make trial of an otherwise cloistered virtue and to stand approved in the eyes of God: individual recognition, which Milton uneasily assimilates with the wish for fame. Adam, on the other hand, falls in the name of marital love. Both Eve and Adam have good reasons that go wrong when they disobey God, and their respective wishes—the proof, in Eve's case, of one's solitary spiritual worth and sufficiency, the remedying, in Adam's, of one's social deficiency through human love and companionship—survive and are ratified after the Fall when the couple appear to have switched positions. Adam at the poem's end asserts his vertical dependence on the only God, while Eve declares her love for and inseparability from Adam.Less
This chapter relates the separate falls of Eve and Adam in book 9, respectively, to deeply held wishes that Milton reveals in other writings throughout his career. The fall of Eve grows out of the desire to make trial of an otherwise cloistered virtue and to stand approved in the eyes of God: individual recognition, which Milton uneasily assimilates with the wish for fame. Adam, on the other hand, falls in the name of marital love. Both Eve and Adam have good reasons that go wrong when they disobey God, and their respective wishes—the proof, in Eve's case, of one's solitary spiritual worth and sufficiency, the remedying, in Adam's, of one's social deficiency through human love and companionship—survive and are ratified after the Fall when the couple appear to have switched positions. Adam at the poem's end asserts his vertical dependence on the only God, while Eve declares her love for and inseparability from Adam.
David Quint
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691161914
- eISBN:
- 9781400850488
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691161914.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter places the reconciliation of Adam and Eve in book 10 against the preceding first two-thirds of book 10, which have described the building by Sin and Death of their bridge over Chaos and ...
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This chapter places the reconciliation of Adam and Eve in book 10 against the preceding first two-thirds of book 10, which have described the building by Sin and Death of their bridge over Chaos and Satan's return to hell. Each of these appears to be a “triumphal act,” allusively associated with the triumph of Augustus depicted on the shield of Aeneas in Aeneid 8, the chronological “ending” of Virgil's poem. However, allusion equally returns both demonic acts to the beginning of the Aeneid, the storm and shipwreck off of Carthage, and suggests the recursive shape of evil in the larger book 10—a book in which the narrative sequence of events seems to run in a loop. Therefore, these satanic acts of heroism are now understood as mock-triumphs that parody the real triumphs of the Son—true endings that foreshadow apocalyptic ones—at the respective ends of books 6 and 7.Less
This chapter places the reconciliation of Adam and Eve in book 10 against the preceding first two-thirds of book 10, which have described the building by Sin and Death of their bridge over Chaos and Satan's return to hell. Each of these appears to be a “triumphal act,” allusively associated with the triumph of Augustus depicted on the shield of Aeneas in Aeneid 8, the chronological “ending” of Virgil's poem. However, allusion equally returns both demonic acts to the beginning of the Aeneid, the storm and shipwreck off of Carthage, and suggests the recursive shape of evil in the larger book 10—a book in which the narrative sequence of events seems to run in a loop. Therefore, these satanic acts of heroism are now understood as mock-triumphs that parody the real triumphs of the Son—true endings that foreshadow apocalyptic ones—at the respective ends of books 6 and 7.
Katherine Bergeron
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195337051
- eISBN:
- 9780199864201
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195337051.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
The origins of the mélodie are sketched in both figurative and literal terms in this chapter through a close reading of Gabriel Fauré's ambitious song cycle, La Chanson d'Eve. The ten songs of this ...
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The origins of the mélodie are sketched in both figurative and literal terms in this chapter through a close reading of Gabriel Fauré's ambitious song cycle, La Chanson d'Eve. The ten songs of this cycle, begun in 1906 just after Fauré had assumed the directorship of the Conservatoire, reflect the importance that song had assumed in France at the turn of the 20th century. The story of Eve's first taste of language is analogized to the advances of French poetry and French science circa 1900, while the shifting musical styles of the ten songs is read as a very practical guide what a French composer should and should not do in writing French melody.Less
The origins of the mélodie are sketched in both figurative and literal terms in this chapter through a close reading of Gabriel Fauré's ambitious song cycle, La Chanson d'Eve. The ten songs of this cycle, begun in 1906 just after Fauré had assumed the directorship of the Conservatoire, reflect the importance that song had assumed in France at the turn of the 20th century. The story of Eve's first taste of language is analogized to the advances of French poetry and French science circa 1900, while the shifting musical styles of the ten songs is read as a very practical guide what a French composer should and should not do in writing French melody.
Norman A. Johnson
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195306750
- eISBN:
- 9780199790203
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195306750.003.0006
- Subject:
- Biology, Evolutionary Biology / Genetics
Unlike most of our genes, mitochondrial DNA is transmitted solely by mothers; males are a dead-end for the mitochondria. Evolutionary biologists have determined that the most recent common ancestor ...
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Unlike most of our genes, mitochondrial DNA is transmitted solely by mothers; males are a dead-end for the mitochondria. Evolutionary biologists have determined that the most recent common ancestor of all mitochondrial genetic variants was a woman who lived in Africa about 200,000 years ago. That we can trace back all mitochondrial DNA back to a single female (the mitochondrial Eve) is not a surprise. In fact, it is a simple consequence of population genetics. The location in time and place of this common ancestor does inform us about human demography and evolution. However, genetic recombination coupled with evolutionary forces will cause different genes to vary in their evolutionary histories. The mitochondrial “Eve” did not know the common ancestor of Y chromosomes, “Adam”. In fact, it is likely that the Y-chromosome Adam lived tens of thousands of years after the mitochondrial Eve.Less
Unlike most of our genes, mitochondrial DNA is transmitted solely by mothers; males are a dead-end for the mitochondria. Evolutionary biologists have determined that the most recent common ancestor of all mitochondrial genetic variants was a woman who lived in Africa about 200,000 years ago. That we can trace back all mitochondrial DNA back to a single female (the mitochondrial Eve) is not a surprise. In fact, it is a simple consequence of population genetics. The location in time and place of this common ancestor does inform us about human demography and evolution. However, genetic recombination coupled with evolutionary forces will cause different genes to vary in their evolutionary histories. The mitochondrial “Eve” did not know the common ancestor of Y chromosomes, “Adam”. In fact, it is likely that the Y-chromosome Adam lived tens of thousands of years after the mitochondrial Eve.
Porscha Fermanis
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748637805
- eISBN:
- 9780748652181
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748637805.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
John Keats is generally considered to be the least intellectually sophisticated of all the major Romantic poets, but he was a more serious thinker than either his contemporaries or later scholars ...
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John Keats is generally considered to be the least intellectually sophisticated of all the major Romantic poets, but he was a more serious thinker than either his contemporaries or later scholars have acknowledged. This book provides a major reassessment of Keats' intellectual life by considering his engagement with a formidable body of eighteenth-century thought from the work of Voltaire, Robertson, and Gibbon to Hutcheson, Hume, and Smith. The book re-examines some of Keats' most important poems, including The Eve of St Agnes, Hyperion, Lamia, and Ode to Psyche, in the light of a range of Enlightenment ideas and contexts from literary history and cultural progress to anthropology, political economy, and moral philosophy. By demonstrating that the language and ideas of the Enlightenment played a key role in establishing his poetic agenda, Keats' poetry is shown to be less the expression of an intuitive young genius than the product of the cultural and intellectual contexts of his time. The book contributes to one of the most important current debates in literary scholarship — the understanding of the relationship between the Romantic period and the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century.Less
John Keats is generally considered to be the least intellectually sophisticated of all the major Romantic poets, but he was a more serious thinker than either his contemporaries or later scholars have acknowledged. This book provides a major reassessment of Keats' intellectual life by considering his engagement with a formidable body of eighteenth-century thought from the work of Voltaire, Robertson, and Gibbon to Hutcheson, Hume, and Smith. The book re-examines some of Keats' most important poems, including The Eve of St Agnes, Hyperion, Lamia, and Ode to Psyche, in the light of a range of Enlightenment ideas and contexts from literary history and cultural progress to anthropology, political economy, and moral philosophy. By demonstrating that the language and ideas of the Enlightenment played a key role in establishing his poetic agenda, Keats' poetry is shown to be less the expression of an intuitive young genius than the product of the cultural and intellectual contexts of his time. The book contributes to one of the most important current debates in literary scholarship — the understanding of the relationship between the Romantic period and the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century.
E. W. Heaton
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- April 2004
- ISBN:
- 9780198263623
- eISBN:
- 9780191601156
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198263627.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
An examination is made of the narrative skills of the Jerusalem school tradition in the stories of the Old Testament. The illustrations include the stories of Joseph, Daniel, Ruth, Rebecca, Adam and ...
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An examination is made of the narrative skills of the Jerusalem school tradition in the stories of the Old Testament. The illustrations include the stories of Joseph, Daniel, Ruth, Rebecca, Adam and Eve, David, and numerous other examples are also given. Comparisons are drawn with various earlier stories from Egyptian school-books. The last part of the chapter looks at the style of Solomon’s Song of Songs, which uses the literary genre to which the Arabic term wasf (meaning extravagant metaphorical language) has been ascribed.Less
An examination is made of the narrative skills of the Jerusalem school tradition in the stories of the Old Testament. The illustrations include the stories of Joseph, Daniel, Ruth, Rebecca, Adam and Eve, David, and numerous other examples are also given. Comparisons are drawn with various earlier stories from Egyptian school-books. The last part of the chapter looks at the style of Solomon’s Song of Songs, which uses the literary genre to which the Arabic term wasf (meaning extravagant metaphorical language) has been ascribed.
Carol Harrison
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199281664
- eISBN:
- 9780191603402
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199281661.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
This chapter examines the various ways in which Augustine talks about human fallenness and sin in the early works, and how these relate both to this understanding of creation from nothing and to the ...
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This chapter examines the various ways in which Augustine talks about human fallenness and sin in the early works, and how these relate both to this understanding of creation from nothing and to the Fall of Adam and Eve. It considers how far ‘original sin’ can be legitimately spoken of in these works, and concludes that its characteristic features — human solidarity in Adam’s sin, ignorance and difficulty in willing, the role of habit, concupiscence and inability to do the good without grace — shape Augustine’s understanding from the beginning.Less
This chapter examines the various ways in which Augustine talks about human fallenness and sin in the early works, and how these relate both to this understanding of creation from nothing and to the Fall of Adam and Eve. It considers how far ‘original sin’ can be legitimately spoken of in these works, and concludes that its characteristic features — human solidarity in Adam’s sin, ignorance and difficulty in willing, the role of habit, concupiscence and inability to do the good without grace — shape Augustine’s understanding from the beginning.
Thomas L. Brodie
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195138368
- eISBN:
- 9780199834037
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195138368.003.0017
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
Having given two complementary viewpoints of creation, Genesis gives two complementary accounts of sin, the first involving the couple in the garden, and the second involving the brothers in the ...
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Having given two complementary viewpoints of creation, Genesis gives two complementary accounts of sin, the first involving the couple in the garden, and the second involving the brothers in the field. As with the two creation accounts, the sin accounts vary between emphasis on the higher level (the first sin, Adam and Eve) and emphasis on the lower level (the down‐to‐earth murder, Cain and Abel). Many of the complementarities were noted by Claus Westermann. One of the features of the larger text (creation plus sin, 1:1–4:16), is that the greater the emphasis on the earthly and sinful, the closer is the divinity.Less
Having given two complementary viewpoints of creation, Genesis gives two complementary accounts of sin, the first involving the couple in the garden, and the second involving the brothers in the field. As with the two creation accounts, the sin accounts vary between emphasis on the higher level (the first sin, Adam and Eve) and emphasis on the lower level (the down‐to‐earth murder, Cain and Abel). Many of the complementarities were noted by Claus Westermann. One of the features of the larger text (creation plus sin, 1:1–4:16), is that the greater the emphasis on the earthly and sinful, the closer is the divinity.
Gerard O'Daly
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199263950
- eISBN:
- 9780191741364
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199263950.003.0004
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter discusses the poem's presentation of appropriate Christian diet, moderate, avoiding the meat of quadrupeds, with meals preceded by prayer. Praise of food as the divine creator's gift is ...
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This chapter discusses the poem's presentation of appropriate Christian diet, moderate, avoiding the meat of quadrupeds, with meals preceded by prayer. Praise of food as the divine creator's gift is combined with the narrative of paradise and the fall of Adam and Eve, and subsequent human degeneration, until Christ, the gentle saviour, brings victory over the serpent Satan: the Christian hope is heavenly immortality of soul and resurrected body. The poem stresses the Adam-Christ and Eve-Mary contrasts. The appropriation of themes from Virgil and Ovid is discussed.Less
This chapter discusses the poem's presentation of appropriate Christian diet, moderate, avoiding the meat of quadrupeds, with meals preceded by prayer. Praise of food as the divine creator's gift is combined with the narrative of paradise and the fall of Adam and Eve, and subsequent human degeneration, until Christ, the gentle saviour, brings victory over the serpent Satan: the Christian hope is heavenly immortality of soul and resurrected body. The poem stresses the Adam-Christ and Eve-Mary contrasts. The appropriation of themes from Virgil and Ovid is discussed.
James Barr
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198263760
- eISBN:
- 9780191600395
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198263767.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
Studies Jewish works originating between the Old and New Testaments, some of them from the ‘Apocrypha’ but going back to early times.
Studies Jewish works originating between the Old and New Testaments, some of them from the ‘Apocrypha’ but going back to early times.
James Barr
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198263760
- eISBN:
- 9780191600395
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198263767.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
The biblical expression that humanity is created ‘in the image of God’ has been taken as evidence in the debate about natural theology. Various interpretations, ancient and modern, are here discussed.
The biblical expression that humanity is created ‘in the image of God’ has been taken as evidence in the debate about natural theology. Various interpretations, ancient and modern, are here discussed.
Lana Lin
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780823277711
- eISBN:
- 9780823280568
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823277711.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Gender Studies
Freud’s Jaw and Other Lost Objects examines the vulnerabilities of the human body, in particular how cancer disrupts feelings of bodily integrity and agency. Employing psychoanalytic and literary ...
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Freud’s Jaw and Other Lost Objects examines the vulnerabilities of the human body, in particular how cancer disrupts feelings of bodily integrity and agency. Employing psychoanalytic and literary analysis of atypical autopathographies, the book tracks three exemplary figures, psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, poet Audre Lorde, and literary and queer theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. Freud’s sixteen-year ordeal with a prosthetic jaw, the result of oral cancer, demonstrates the powers and failures of prosthetic objects in warding off physical and psychic fragmentation. Lorde’s life writing reveals how the loss of a breast to cancer is experienced as yet another attack directed toward her racially and sexually vilified body. Sedgwick’s memoir and breast cancer advice column negotiate her morbidity and mortality by disseminating a public discourse of love and pedagogy. Freud’s Jaw suggests that violences stemming from social, cultural, and biological environments condition the burden of surviving in proximity to one’s mortality. Drawing on psychoanalyst Melanie Klein’s concept of “reparation,” wherein constructive forces are harnessed to repair damage to internal psychic objects, Freud’s Jaw proposes that the prospect of imminent destruction paradoxically incites creativity. The afflicted are obliged to devise means to reinstate, at least temporarily, their destabilized physical and psychic unity through creative reparative projects such as love or writing. The book concludes with an analysis of reparative efforts at the rival Freud Museums. The disassembled Freudian archive, like the subjectivities-in-dissolution upon which the book focuses, shows how the labor of integration is tethered to persistent discontinuities.Less
Freud’s Jaw and Other Lost Objects examines the vulnerabilities of the human body, in particular how cancer disrupts feelings of bodily integrity and agency. Employing psychoanalytic and literary analysis of atypical autopathographies, the book tracks three exemplary figures, psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, poet Audre Lorde, and literary and queer theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. Freud’s sixteen-year ordeal with a prosthetic jaw, the result of oral cancer, demonstrates the powers and failures of prosthetic objects in warding off physical and psychic fragmentation. Lorde’s life writing reveals how the loss of a breast to cancer is experienced as yet another attack directed toward her racially and sexually vilified body. Sedgwick’s memoir and breast cancer advice column negotiate her morbidity and mortality by disseminating a public discourse of love and pedagogy. Freud’s Jaw suggests that violences stemming from social, cultural, and biological environments condition the burden of surviving in proximity to one’s mortality. Drawing on psychoanalyst Melanie Klein’s concept of “reparation,” wherein constructive forces are harnessed to repair damage to internal psychic objects, Freud’s Jaw proposes that the prospect of imminent destruction paradoxically incites creativity. The afflicted are obliged to devise means to reinstate, at least temporarily, their destabilized physical and psychic unity through creative reparative projects such as love or writing. The book concludes with an analysis of reparative efforts at the rival Freud Museums. The disassembled Freudian archive, like the subjectivities-in-dissolution upon which the book focuses, shows how the labor of integration is tethered to persistent discontinuities.
H. L. Meakin
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198184553
- eISBN:
- 9780191674297
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198184553.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This book is a historical and theoretical study of some of John Donne's less frequently discussed poetry and prose; it interrogates various trends that have dominated Donne criticism, such as the ...
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This book is a historical and theoretical study of some of John Donne's less frequently discussed poetry and prose; it interrogates various trends that have dominated Donne criticism, such as the widely divergent views about his attitudes towards women, the focus on the Songs and Sonnets to the exclusion of his other works, and the tendency to separate discussions of his poetry and prose. On a broader scale, it joins a small but growing number of feminist re-readings of Donne's works. Using the cultural criticism of French feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray, the book explores works throughout Donne's career, from his earliest verse letters to sermons preached while Divinity Reader at Lincoln's Inn and Dean of St. Paul's in London. Donne's articulations of four feminine figures in particular are examined: the Muse, Sappho, Eve as ‘the mother of mankind’, and a young girl who lived and died in Donne's own time, Elizabeth Drury. The book's reading of Donne's self-described ‘masculine persuasive force’ asserting itself upon the ‘incomprehensibleness’ of the feminine suggests that the Donne canon needs to be reassessed as even richer and more complex than previously asserted, and that his reputation as a supreme Renaissance poet — revived at the beginning of this century — needs to be carried into the next.Less
This book is a historical and theoretical study of some of John Donne's less frequently discussed poetry and prose; it interrogates various trends that have dominated Donne criticism, such as the widely divergent views about his attitudes towards women, the focus on the Songs and Sonnets to the exclusion of his other works, and the tendency to separate discussions of his poetry and prose. On a broader scale, it joins a small but growing number of feminist re-readings of Donne's works. Using the cultural criticism of French feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray, the book explores works throughout Donne's career, from his earliest verse letters to sermons preached while Divinity Reader at Lincoln's Inn and Dean of St. Paul's in London. Donne's articulations of four feminine figures in particular are examined: the Muse, Sappho, Eve as ‘the mother of mankind’, and a young girl who lived and died in Donne's own time, Elizabeth Drury. The book's reading of Donne's self-described ‘masculine persuasive force’ asserting itself upon the ‘incomprehensibleness’ of the feminine suggests that the Donne canon needs to be reassessed as even richer and more complex than previously asserted, and that his reputation as a supreme Renaissance poet — revived at the beginning of this century — needs to be carried into the next.
Jeffrey J. Kripal
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226453804
- eISBN:
- 9780226453828
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226453828.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
“Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field.” With those words in Genesis, God condemns the serpent for tempting Adam and Eve, and the serpent ...
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“Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field.” With those words in Genesis, God condemns the serpent for tempting Adam and Eve, and the serpent has shouldered the blame ever since. But how would the study of religion change if we looked at the Fall from the snake's point of view? Would he appear as a bringer of wisdom, more generous than the God who wishes to keep his creation ignorant? Inspired by the early Gnostics who took that view, this book uses the serpent as a starting point for a reconsideration of religious studies and its methods. In a series of related essays, the author moves beyond both rational and faith-based approaches to religion, exploring the erotics of the gospels and the sexualities of Jesus, John, and Mary Magdalene. He considers Feuerbach's Gnosticism, the untapped mystical potential of comparative religion, and even the modern mythology of the X-Men. Ultimately, the book is a call for a complete reorientation of religious studies, aimed at a larger understanding of the world, the self, and the divine.Less
“Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field.” With those words in Genesis, God condemns the serpent for tempting Adam and Eve, and the serpent has shouldered the blame ever since. But how would the study of religion change if we looked at the Fall from the snake's point of view? Would he appear as a bringer of wisdom, more generous than the God who wishes to keep his creation ignorant? Inspired by the early Gnostics who took that view, this book uses the serpent as a starting point for a reconsideration of religious studies and its methods. In a series of related essays, the author moves beyond both rational and faith-based approaches to religion, exploring the erotics of the gospels and the sexualities of Jesus, John, and Mary Magdalene. He considers Feuerbach's Gnosticism, the untapped mystical potential of comparative religion, and even the modern mythology of the X-Men. Ultimately, the book is a call for a complete reorientation of religious studies, aimed at a larger understanding of the world, the self, and the divine.
Anne Cotterill
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199261178
- eISBN:
- 9780191717598
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199261178.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter argues that Milton's Paradise Lost represents the ‘grateful digressions’ (8.55) of unfallen Adam and Eve, like the angels' labyrinth dances and mazes of Paradise as examples of heavenly ...
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This chapter argues that Milton's Paradise Lost represents the ‘grateful digressions’ (8.55) of unfallen Adam and Eve, like the angels' labyrinth dances and mazes of Paradise as examples of heavenly order, in contrast to Satan's unswerving line of hateful pride. Sensitive to the pressures on the psyche created by voices entering the brain through the ever-permeable folds of the ear's labyrinth and their potential to affect ones own voice and ability to hear the divine within, Milton dramatizes through Eve a process of falling into self-knowledge; from her first delight with the world's reflecting surfaces and first experience of having her vision corrected at her ear, she falls through inexperienced, shallow self-reflection toward the bottom of despair before reaching an experience of deepest reflection. Eve's voice of penitence sounds the depths of her fallen knowledge; ventriloquizing all of the voices Milton suggests the difficulty of finding ones own.Less
This chapter argues that Milton's Paradise Lost represents the ‘grateful digressions’ (8.55) of unfallen Adam and Eve, like the angels' labyrinth dances and mazes of Paradise as examples of heavenly order, in contrast to Satan's unswerving line of hateful pride. Sensitive to the pressures on the psyche created by voices entering the brain through the ever-permeable folds of the ear's labyrinth and their potential to affect ones own voice and ability to hear the divine within, Milton dramatizes through Eve a process of falling into self-knowledge; from her first delight with the world's reflecting surfaces and first experience of having her vision corrected at her ear, she falls through inexperienced, shallow self-reflection toward the bottom of despair before reaching an experience of deepest reflection. Eve's voice of penitence sounds the depths of her fallen knowledge; ventriloquizing all of the voices Milton suggests the difficulty of finding ones own.
