THE MOTEL CLERK’S SON STEPS ON THE GLASS at his wedding to recall his people’s suffering during his greatest joy. The stepping is shorthand: the shortest alphabet is steepest. A car horn to tell his ancestors, “I see you, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth should I forget.” He sounds out the glass because, as truckers say in the office, “If you can’t see them,…
By Kaedy Puckett Some see pain as memory and some see memory as pain Poetry, Art, and Literature, aestheticize the slain. Gruesome torment, captured through portraiture of inflicted sin Where seeing eyes are captivated by bittersweet disdain The moon, the stars, the cosmos hold no candle to the image Of torn and twisted flesh; of cruelty utterly inhumane. Does vivid horror unite the good, or does it please the bad?…
As society evolves so do the ways in which we convey different imagery. In this post, I tracked artwork depicting “The Expulsion,” from the year 1000 AD all the way to 2012.
Examining the role of gender in The Old English Life of Saint Margaret sheds light on many expected notions of martyrdom, femininity, and masculinity. “True” femininity seems to take place in Margaret, a pure, virginal woman. When discussing her holiness, Margaret’s connection to God seems to be very contingent on two things. One, she is above overly-humanistic feelings such as desire and anger. As someone who seems to be free…
By Julia Liu, Wren McMillan, Ann Rayburn This is a genuine question. For all we know, God most probably speaks a language. Or rather, language holds an incredibly role in the Bible as well as the Old Testament narratives. In Genesis, God created the world by commanding. He said, “let there be light”. And there was light. It was God’s words that made the world. In the Old Testament narrative,…
I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that the universal consensus is that suffering is something everyone experiences and tries to avoid. No one enjoys suffering, even people such as masochists, because the moment they begin to enjoy it they are no longer suffering. I would like to go so far as to say that no one deserves suffering, but I have trouble coming to that…
By Faryn Thomas, Jennifer Morse, Joseph Marques, and Robert Carhuayo How is witnessing acts of God treated across Genesis, Daniel, and Margaret? In Margaret, page 131, a huge crowd of people witness Margaret pray to God for salvation at the end, before her feet and hands are to be burned. God hears her and there is an earthquake, after which God speaks directly to her from the heavens. As…
By Clare Kemmerer, Dannie Griggs, Maya Ordonez, and Kaedy Puckett Part I How did medieval viewers experience martyr stories? Were they fascinated by the lurid details of martyrdom–the grievous bodily harm, the horrifying demons, the beautiful virgins? Did they become afraid or inspired, measuring themselves up to an unmeetable example of Christian virtue? Were they spiritually transported, or were they something nearer to a modern superhero story, a fanciful legend…
With the overt descriptions of violence and the anthropomorphization of Vices and Virtues into grandiose warriors, it is perhaps a foreign notion to consider Psychomachia as a properly Christian text. Yet while it may clash with a modern conception of Christianity, Psychomachia presents a notably Foucauldian sense of human community and utopia through the filter of Christian ideals, and the violence is more of a medium of storytelling, not a…
A repetition in the Old English Life of St. Margaret that stands out to me is the use of “dumb and deaf” to describe idols. This is a rejection of Pagan gods’ ability to witness, but not their existence. Previous discussions have focused on God’s status as a universal, perfect witness in Medieval thought. Humans may be fallible, but God’s omniscience enables Him to witness. Prior texts, however, have not…
