Search results for ""Author Ann W. Astell""

Hailed in Sacred Scripture as the “beginning of wisdom” (Ps 111:10), the “fear of the Lord” is seldom mentioned and little understood today. A gift of the Spirit and a moral virtue or disposition, the “fear of the Lord” also frequently entails emotional experiences of differing kinds: compunction, dread, reverence, wonderment, and awe. Starting with the Bible itself, this collection of seventeen essays explores the place of holy fear in Christian spirituality from the early church to the present and argues that this fear is paradoxically linked in various ways to fear’s seeming opposite, love. Indeed, the charged dynamic of love and fear accounts for different experiences and expressions of Christian life in response to changing historical circumstances and events. The writings of the theologians, mystics, philosophers, saints, and artists studied here reveal the relationship between the fear and the love of God to be profoundly challenging and mysterious, its elements paradoxically conjoined in a creative tension with each other, but also tending to oscillate back-and-forth in the history of Christian spirituality as first one, then the other, comes to the fore, sometimes to correct a perceived imbalance, sometimes at the risk of losing its companion altogether. Given this historical pattern, clearly evident in these chronologically arranged essays, the palpable absence of a discourse of holy fear from the mainstream theological landscape should give us pause and invite us to consider if and how—under what aspect, in which contexts—a holy fear, inseparable from love, might be regained or discovered anew within Christian spirituality as a remedy both for a crippling anxiety and for a presumptive recklessness. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Christian spirituality, theology, biblical studies, religious studies, and religion and literature. Contributors: Ann W. Astell, Pieter G. R. de Villiers, Donna R. Hawk-Reinhard, John Sehorn, Catherine Rose Cavadini, Joseph Wawrykow, Robert Boenig, Ralph Keen, Wendy M. Wright, Ephraim Radner, Julia A. Lamm, Cyril O’Regan, Brenna Moore, Maj-Britt Frenze, and Todd Walatka

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Inspired by Vatican II, which attributed a special apostolate to the laity and affirmed their calling to holiness, this volume of original essays focuses on the shifting points of intersection between changing historical definitions of laity and sanctity. Ann W. Astell and ten other scholars examine a series of medieval and modern lay "saints" in order to explore how these figures perceived their own lay status and how this status has been perceived by others. Through its examination of a series of specific historical figures and movements, Lay Sanctity, Medieval and Modern seeks answers to a set of recurring questions, such as what actually distinguishes the sanctity of the laity from that of the religious, why so few lay persons have been canonized, and to what extent the pursuit of sanctity requires lay saints to either deny or affirm their lay condition. Six essays seek to recover models for lay sanctity in the lives of early saints such as Catherine of Sienna and Angela of Foligno. The five studies of twentieth-century figures such as Elizabeth Leseuer and Jacques and Raissa Maritain suggest the emergence of new, secular ideals of lay sanctity.

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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.

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Included among the sacred books of Judaism and Christianity alike, the Song of Songs does not mention God at all; on the surface it is a lyrical exchange between unnamed lovers who articulate the range of emotions associated with sexual love. Ann W. Astell here examines medieval reader response, both interpretive and imitative, to the Song. Disputing the common view that the literal meaning of Canticles had no value for medieval readers, Astell points to twelfth-century commentaries on the Song, as well as an array of Middle English works, as evidence that the Song's sensuous imagery played an essential part in its tropological appeal. Emphasizing the ways in which a complex fusion of the Song's carnal and spiritual meanings appealed rhetorically to a variety of audiences, Astell first considers interpretive responses to Canticles, contrasting Origen's dialectical exposition with the affective commentaries of the twelfth century—ecclesiastical, Marian, and mystical. According to Astell, these commentaries present Canticles as a marriage song that mirrors a series of analogous marriages, both within the individual and between human and divine persons. Astell describes interpretations of the Song of Songs in terms of the various feminine archetypes that the expositors emphasize—the Virgin, Mother, Hetaira, or Medium. She maintains that the commentat5ors encourage the auditor's identification with the figure of the Bride so as to evoke and direct the feminine, affective powers of the soul. Turning to literature influenced by the Song, she then discusses how the reading process is reinscribed in selected works in Middle English, including Richard Rolle's autobiographical writings, Pearl, religious love lyrics, and cycle dramas. The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages provides an innovative model of reader response that opens the way for a deeper understanding of the literary influence of biblical texts.

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Through close examination of ancient, medieval, and modern Lives of the saints, Ann W. Astell demonstrates how the historical transformation of hagiography as a genre correlates with similar changes in biblical studies.Christian hagiography flourished from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries, illuminating the gospel through the overlapping forms of exempla and vita. Originally, the Lives of the saints were understood as hermeneutical extensions of the BibleGod authors the saint, just as God authors the divinely inspired scriptures. During the medieval period, a sense of dual authorship between God and the cooperating saint developed, paralleling the Scholastic impulse to assign greater agency to the human writers of scripture. Then, in the sixteenth century, powerful new anxieties about historical truth pushed hagiography aside for biography, its successor.Drawing on her expertise in the history of Christianity and

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This collection of essays focuses on sacrifice in the context of Jewish and Christian scripture and is inspired by the thought and writings of René Girard. The contributors engage in a dialogue with Girard in their search for answers to key questions about the relation between religion and violence. The book is divided into two parts. The first opens with a conversation in which René Girard and Sandor Goodhart explore the relation between imitation and violence throughout human history, especially in religious culture. It is followed by essays on the subject of sacrifice contributed by some of the most distinguished scholars in the field, including Bruce Chilton, Robert Daly, Louis Feldman, Michael Fishbane, Erich Gruen, and Alan Segal. The second part contains essays on specific scriptural texts (Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22 and the book of Job in the Jewish tradition, the Gospel and Epistles in the Christian tradition). The authors explore new ways of applying Girardian analysis to episodes of sacrifice and scapegoating, demonstrating that fertile ground remains to further our understanding of violence in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. Contributors: Sandor Goodhart, Ann W. Astell, René Girard, Thomas Ryba, Michael Fishbane, Bruce Chilton, Robert Daly, S.J., Alan F. Segal, Louis H. Feldman, Erich S. Gruen, Stuart D. Robertson, Matthew Pattillo, Stephen Stern, Chris Allen Carter, William Morrow, William Martin Aiken, Gérard Rossé, Christopher S. Morrissey, Poong-In Lee, Anthony Bartlett

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The order of the fragments making up the Canterbury Tales and the structure of that collection have long been questioned. Ann W. Astell proposes that Chaucer intended the order that is preserved in what is known as the Ellesmere manuscript. In supporting her claim, Astell reveals a wealth of insights into the world of medieval learning, Chaucer's expected audience, and the meaning of the Canterbury Tales. 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. Assimilated to each other in a kind of transparent overlay, these two outlines, which were frequently joined in the literature with which Chaucer was familiar, accommodate the actual structural divisions of the Tales (in the order in which they appear in the Ellesmere manuscript), define the story blocks as topical units, and show the pilgrims' progress from London to Canterbury to be simultaneously a planetary pilgrimage and a philosophical journey of the soul. The two patterns, Astell maintains, locate Chaucer's work in relation to that of both Gower and Dante, philosophical poets who shared Chaucer's relatively novel status as lay clerk, and who were, like him, members of the educated, secular bourgeoisie. The whole of the Canterbury Tales is thus revealed to be in dialogue with Gower's Confessio and Dante's Paradiso. Indeed, it represents an elaborately detailed response to the images used, and the stories related, in Dante's successive heavens.

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This collection of essays focuses on sacrifice in the context of Jewish and Christian scripture and is inspired by the thought and writings of René Girard. The contributors engage in a dialogue with Girard in their search for answers to key questions about the relation between religion and violence. The book is divided into two parts. The first opens with a conversation in which René Girard and Sandor Goodhart explore the relation between imitation and violence throughout human history, especially in religious culture. It is followed by essays on the subject of sacrifice contributed by some of the most distinguished scholars in the field, including Bruce Chilton, Robert Daly, Louis Feldman, Michael Fishbane, Erich Gruen, and Alan Segal. The second part contains essays on specific scriptural texts (Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22 and the book of Job in the Jewish tradition, the Gospel and Epistles in the Christian tradition). The authors explore new ways of applying Girardian analysis to episodes of sacrifice and scapegoating, demonstrating that fertile ground remains to further our understanding of violence in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. Contributors: Sandor Goodhart, Ann W. Astell, René Girard, Thomas Ryba, Michael Fishbane, Bruce Chilton, Robert Daly, S.J., Alan F. Segal, Louis H. Feldman, Erich S. Gruen, Stuart D. Robertson, Matthew Pattillo, Stephen Stern, Chris Allen Carter, William Morrow, William Martin Aiken, Gérard Rossé, Christopher S. Morrissey, Poong-In Lee, Anthony Bartlett

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The abbreviated Psalms commentary by Honorius Augustodunensis (ca. 1070 – ca. 1140)—a redaction of his own, much larger commentary on the entire Psalter—participates in a long tradition of Christian interpretation of the Book of Psalms. A prolific author closely associated with Anselm of Canterbury, Rupert of Deutz, and Gilbert of Poitiers, Honorius wrote a massive commentary on the Psalms when the so-called “school of Laon” was at work on the Glossa ordinaria. Honorius’s work shares the academic interest of that school, while simultaneously serving the devotion of the Benedictine Reform. His Exposition of Selected Psalms highlights a tripartite division of the Psalter, even as it discovers in the psalms an apocalypticism fitting to the Church in its last age.

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The abbreviated Psalms commentary by Honorius Augustodunensis (ca. 1070 - ca. 1140)-a redaction of his own, much larger commentary on the entire Psalter-participates in a long tradition of Christian interpretation of the Book of Psalms. A prolific author closely associated with Anselm of Canterbury, Rupert of Deutz, and Gilbert of Poitiers, Honorius wrote a massive commentary on the Psalms when the so-called "school of Laon" was at work on the Glossa ordinaria. Honorius's work shares the academic interest of that school, while simultaneously serving the devotion of the Benedictine Reform. His Exposition of Selected Psalms highlights a tripartite division of the Psalter, even as it discovers in the psalms an apocalypticism fitting to the Church in its last age.

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The editors of this volume use its title to honor Bonnie Wheeler for her many scholarly achievements and to celebrate her wide-ranging contributions to medieval studies in the United States. There are sections on Old and Middle English Literature, Arthuriana Then and Now, Joan of Arc Then and Now, Nuns and Spirituality, and Royal Women. As the editors note in the introduction, the volume "confirms Bonnie's commitment to the multidisciplinary study of the Middle Ages" and affirms her conviction "that the medieval and the modern are best viewed not as 'the past' and 'the present' but as interpenetrative categories."

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