The Paradox of the Mystical Text in Medieval English Literature
- Author / Editor
- Jenkins, Charles M.
The Paradox of the Mystical Text in Medieval English Literature
- Published
- Lewiston, N.Y.: Mellen, 2003.
- Physical Description
- [viii], 268 pp.
- Series
- Studies in Mediaeval Literature, no. 25.
- Description
- Jenkins surveys scriptural, Latin patristic, Anglo-Saxon, and late-medieval English representations and appropriations of mysticism, arguing that "medieval indeterminacy" is in many ways epistemologically and theologically grounded in mysticism. Includes discussion of Pearl in comparison with BD as, respectively, failed mysticism and mockery of mysticism. Also reads TC as a "satirical parody" of motifs drawn from mysticism that leads its audience to "true spiritual desire."
- Chaucer Subjects
- Book of the Duchess.
- Troilus and Criseyde.