Paradoxes of conscience in the High Middle Ages : Abelard, Heloise, and the archpoet / Peter Godman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Godman, Peter, author.

Series:

Cambridge studies in medieval literature ; 75.

Cambridge studies in medieval literature ; 75

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Abelard, Peter, 1079-1142.

Abelard, Peter.

Héloïse, approximately 1095-1163 or 1164.

Héloïse.

Conscience.

Conscience--Religious aspects--Catholic Church.

Christian ethics--History--Middle Ages, 600-1500.

Christian ethics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiv, 224) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The autobiographical and confessional writings of Abelard, Heloise and the Archpoet were concerned with religious authenticity, spiritual sincerity and their opposite - fictio, a composite of hypocrisy and dissimulation, lying and irony. How and why moral identity could be feigned or falsified were seen as issues of primary importance, and Peter Godman here restores them to the prominence they once occupied in twelfth-century thought. This book is an account of the relationship between ethics and literature in the work of the most famous authors of the Latin Middle Ages. Combining conceptual analysis with close attention to style and form, it offers a major contribution to the history of the medieval conscience.

Contents:

Moral moments

The neurotic and the penitent

True, false, and feigned penance

Fame without conscience

Cain and conscience

Feminine paradoxes

Sincere hypocrisy

The poetical consience

Envoi : spiritual sophistry.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 199-214) and indexes.

ISBN:

1-107-19190-4

1-107-41261-7

1-282-30291-4

9786612302916

0-511-58109-2

0-511-58077-0

0-511-57924-1

0-511-57850-4

0-511-57998-5

OCLC:

609843013