The artificiality of Christianity : essays on the poetics of monasticism / M.B. Pranger.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pranger, M. B.

Series:

Figurae (Stanford, Calif.)

Figurae

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Monastic and religious life.

Christianity and literature.

Physical Description:

xv, 332 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, 2003.

Summary:

In The Artificiality of Christianity, the author's primary goal is to distill from monastic literature a poetical tool that can be used to decipher the literary structure of religious texts; a secondary goal is to show the centrality of monasticism to the specific experiences of Christian reading.

Contents:

Part I Violence

1. The Artifice of Eternity 17

2. Monastic Cruelty: Bernard of Clairvaux's Staging of the Past 39

3. Andre Malraux, Charles de Gaulle, and Bernard of Clairvaux on Action and Contemplation 59

4. Violent Embraces: Monastic Representations of the Old Testament 69

5. Killing Time: Some Remarks about the Monastic Concept of Speed 84

Part II Density

6. Anselm of Canterbury and the Art of Despair 107

7. The Mirror of Dialectics: Reason, Image, Word 136

8. Anselm's Brevity 151

9. Reading Anselm 162

10. Death and Pleasure: The Poetics of Cur deus homo 177

Part III Exile

11. Narrative Superiority: Peter the Venerable and the Miracle of the Bees 199

12. Text and Soul: Calvin, Ignatius, Eckhart 212

13. The Scholastic Lyricism of John of the Cross 233

14. Baroque Devotion: Aspects of Perspective and Constraint in the Work of Pierre de Berulle 261

15. Images of Iron: Ignatius of Loyola and Joyce 278.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [323]-332).

ISBN:

0804745242

OCLC:

50422848