Description
Book SynopsisA consideration of the theme of demons as teachers in early English literature. In early English literature ca 700-1000 C.E., demons are represented as teachers who use methods of persuasion and argumentation to influence their "pupils". By deploying these methods, related to the liberal arts of rhetoric anddialectic, demons become masters of verbal manipulation. Their pupils are frequently women or Jews, seemingly marginal figures but who often oppose the authority of demonic pedagogues and challenge their deceptive lessons. In poetic accounts of the Fall of the Angels, the Fall of Adam and Eve, and the lives of the saints, those who debate with demons redefine the significance of narrative, authority, and resistance in early medieval pedagogy. This book argues that these encounters between demonic teachers and their pupils are both epistemological, altering the pupils' knowledge, and ontological, affecting their state of being. As the pupils "learn", the physical locations theyoccupy align with rhetorical and dialectical topoi, or conceptual spaces in the mind, as minds, souls, bodies, and places are integrated into cohesive lived experience. The volume thus explores early medieval pedagogy as a spirituo-material practice, both embodied and emplaced, with the potential to alter the onto-epistemological dynamics of the world.
Trade ReviewThis book offers useful studies of the role of the demon-as-teacher in Old English literature. It demonstrates that education in the early Middle Ages was threatened by, but in need of, corruptive demons and their malign pedagogical and verbal art. It is a useful and forward thinking contribution to the subject of learning [..] in the period. * SPECULUM *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Devil's Secret Chamber Spirituo-Materiality in the Early Middle Ages The Artes Liberales in the Early Middle Ages The Devil Within: Perils of Pedagogy in the Monastic School The Origin of the Teaching Demon: Lucifer as Magister Demonic Teaching and the Fall in the Old English Genesis Demonic Teaching and Saintly Discretio in Cynewulf's Juliana Inventing Materia: The True Cross and Saintly Disputation in Cynewulf's Elene Conclusion: The Mysteries of Pedagogy Bibliography Acknowledgements
