Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
I. Active Understanding and the Rhetoric of Passivity
II. Knowing in the Middle Ages: Ratio and Intellectus
III. Education and Revelation as Paths to Dream Knowledge: Three Case Studies
2. Marguerite d’Oingt: Active Reading and the Language of God
I. The Pagina Meditationum: Active Reading as Devotional Practice
II. The Speculum: Spiritual Imitation as Textual Emendation
III. Vehemens: Linguistic Understanding and Divine Truth
3. The Will to Know: Volition and Intellect in Gertrude of Helfta
I. Liturgical Practice and the Union with God
II. The Role of the Will: Validating Intellectual Enquiry
4. The Vision Is Not Enough: Active Knowing in Julian of Norwich
I. Un-Gendering Knowledge: Affect and Intellect
II. “And yet I merveyled”: Reason’s Inadequacy and the Limits of Revelation
III. Knowing and the Body
5. Worldly Attachment and Visionary Resistance in Pearl
I. Materiality, Desire, and the Limits of Reason
II. The Jeweler’s Language of Resistance
III. The Will as Obstacle
IV. Mystical Renunciation and the Jeweler’s Desire
6. The Critique of Revelation in Piers Plowman
I. Language and Sapientia in the Quest for Dowel
II. Allegories of the Faculties: The Trouble with Reason
III. Becoming a Fool: Unknowing to Know God
7. Discrediting the Vision: The House of Fame
I. Unstable Authority: The Revelation that Never Comes
II. Uncertain Meanings: The Power of the Reader
III. Anxieties of Interpretation in Fame and the Visionary Tradition
8. Knowledge Is Power: Negotiating Authority in The Book of Margery Kempe
I: Fact or Fiction: Generic Considerations
II: “To answer euery clerke”: Margery’s Problems with Authority
III: The Doubting Saint: Affirmations of Holiness and the Audience of the Book
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index