Better Living through Dread: Medieval Ascetics, Modern Philosophers, and the Long History of Existential Anxiety

PMLA ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 130 (5) ◽  
pp. 1285-1301 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Megna
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Devotional Literature ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Prime Mover ◽  
Existential Anxiety ◽  
Jean Paul ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ex Nihilo

Intellectual historians often credit S⊘ren Kierkegaard as existential anxiety's prime mover. Arguing against this popular sentiment, this essay reads Kierkegaard not as the ex nihilo inventor of existential anxiety but as a modern practitioner of a deep-historical, dread-based asceticism. Examining a wide range of Middle English devotional literature alongside some canonical works of modern existentialism, it argues that Kierkegaard and the existentialists who followed him participated in a Judeo-Christian tradition of dread-based asceticism, the popularity of which had dwindled since the Middle Ages but never vanished. Following medieval ascetics, modern philosophers like Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, and Jean-Paul Sartre cultivated and analyzed anxiety in an effort to embody authenticity. By considering premodern ascetics early existentialists and modern existentialists latter-day ascetics, the essay sees the long history of existential anxiety as an ascetic tradition built around the ethical goal of living better through dread.

Young Scholars Conference “Slavic World: Commonality and Diversity”. 21–22 May 2019. Session “Linguistics”

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 295-297
Author(s):  
Sergej A. Borisov
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
International Context ◽  
Slavic Languages ◽  
Russian Academy Of Sciences ◽  
Current State ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of ◽  
Academy Of Sciences

For more than twenty years, the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences celebrates the Day of Slavic Writing and Culture with a traditional scholarly conference.”. Since 2014, it has been held in the young scholars’ format. In 2019, participants from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan, Togliatti, Tyumen, Yekaterinburg, and Rostov-on-Don, as well as Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Romania continued this tradition. A wide range of problems related to the history of the Slavic peoples from the Middle Ages to the present time in the national, regional and international context were discussed again. Participants talked about the typology of Slavic languages and dialects, linguo-geography, socio- and ethnolinguistics, analyzed formation, development, current state, and prospects of Slavic literatures, etc.

The Oxford Handbook of Quintilian

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
The United States ◽  
Educational Programme ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Visual And Performing Arts ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of

M. Fabius Quintilianus was a prominent orator, declaimer, and teacher of eloquence in the first century ce. After his retirement he wrote the Institutio oratoria, a unique treatise in Antiquity because it is a handbook of rhetoric and an educational treatise in one. Quintilian’s fame and influence are not only based on the Institutio, but also on the two collections of Declamations which were attributed to him in late Antiquity. The Oxford Handbook of Quintilian aims to present Quintilian’s Institutio as a key treatise in the history of Graeco-Roman rhetoric and its influence on the theory and practice of rhetoric and education, from late Antiquity until the present day. It contains chapters on Quintilian’s educational programme, his concepts and classifications of rhetoric, his discussion of the five canons of rhetoric, his style, his views on literary criticism, declamation, and the relationship between rhetoric and law, and the importance of the visual and performing arts in his work. His huge legacy is presented in successive chapters devoted to Quintilian in late Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Italian Renaissance, Northern Europe during the Renaissance, Europe from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century, and the United States of America. There are also chapters devoted to the biographical tradition, the history of printed editions, and modern assessments of Quintilian. The twenty-one authors of the chapters represent a wide range of expertise and scholarly traditions and thus offer a unique mixture of current approaches to Quintilian from a multidisciplinary perspective.

The Middle English Life of Saint Dorothy in Trinity College, Dublin MS 319: Origins, Parallels, and Its Relationship to Osbern Bokenham's Legendys of Hooly Wummen

Traditio ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 62 ◽  
pp. 259-284
Author(s):  
Larissa Tracy
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Trinity College ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
The West ◽  
Trinity College Dublin ◽  
Greek Tradition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Legenda Aurea

During the Middle Ages, collections of hagiography were among the most widely circulated texts, serving as both inspirational and instructional stories. The legends of virgin martyrs were some of the most popular. These young women were venerated for their ability to withstand torture in defiance of tyranny and served as models for medieval piety. One of these accounts, the legend of Saint Dorothy, is extant in at least three different Middle English versions, including select manuscripts of the 1438 Gilte Legende and Osbern Bokenham's 1447 Legendys of Hooly Wummen. The earlier history of the legend of Saint Dorothy, unknown in Greek tradition and venerated in the West since the seventh century, has been well described by Kirsten Wolf in her edition of the Icelandic redaction. Despite its relationship to many of the other fictitious hagiographical legends that came into existence in the fourth and fifth centuries based on the various calendars and martyrologies, and its development as a virgin martyr legend, Jacobus de Voragine (ca. 1230–1298) did not include the legend of Saint Dorothy in his Legenda aurea, compiled between 1252 and 1260.

scholarly journals The Ordinary Gloss on Jonah

PMLA ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 128 (2) ◽  
pp. 424-438
Author(s):  
Ryan McDermott
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Divine Comedy ◽  
Religious Literature ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Narratives ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
John Wyclif

THE ORDINARY GLOSS WAS THE MOST WIDELY USED EDITION OF THE BIBLE IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES AND WELL INTO THE SIXTEENTH century. Medievalists know the commentary element as the Gloss to which theologians as diverse as Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, John Wyclif, and Martin Luther habitually referred. As the foremost vehicle for medieval exegesis, the Gloss framed biblical narratives for a wide range of vernacular religious literature, from Dante's Divine Comedy to French drama to a Middle English retelling of the Jonah story, Patience.

scholarly journals NEW MONOGRAPH ON MEDIEVAL AZERBAIJAN WEAPONS. SABUKHI AKHMEDOV’S “AZERBAIJAN WEAPONS IN THE IX―XVII CENTURIES: EVOLUTION AND DEVELOPMENT”

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-91
Author(s):  
Farah A. Huseyn
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Chronological Order ◽  
Scientific Validity ◽  
Logical Consistency ◽  
Evolution And Development ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of ◽  
Made In ◽  
The Middle Ages

The article is a review on Ph.D. Sabukhi Akhmedov’s monograph «Azerbaijani weapons in the IX – XVII centuries: evolution and development», which considers the relevance and scientific validity of the issue as an «Azerbaijani weapons», noted that the problem of identification of various types of weapons made in Azerbaijan during the Middle Ages is relevant in geographical attribution, as well as belonging to a certain ethnocultural space established in a given territory.The article provides a general assessment of the wide range of diverse sources involved in the study, justifies the logical consistency of the structure of the monograph built on the principle of chronological order, recognizes the importance of the monograph in studying the history of military affairs in Azerbaijan and neighboring countries in the Middle Ages.

scholarly journals The Middle English Creolization Hypothesis: Persistence, Implications, and Language Ideology

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-132
Author(s):  
David O’Neil
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
World Language ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Haitian Creole ◽  
History Of ◽  
Norman French

AbstractBailey and Maroldt (1977) and Domingue (1977) were the first to argue that language contact during the Middle Ages between Old English and both Old Norse and Norman French resulted in linguistic creolization. This theory, known as the Middle English creolization hypothesis, implies that Middle English, and perhaps Modern English as well, should be classified as a creole. Though frequently discredited on historic, linguistic, and terminological grounds, the creolization hypothesis has attracted interest for longer than might be expected. This paper argues that the persistence of the hypothesis may be ideologically motivated. The first section examines connotations of the term “creole” and applies these connotations to an analysis of the initial presentations of the creolization hypothesis. The second and third section of the paper review and analyze the forty-year history of the debate, focusing separately on arguments for creolization (and koinezation) between Anglo-Norman French and Old Norse, respectively. The fourth and final section examines challenges presented by the concept of creole exceptionalism to common attitudes about language equality and the theory of Universal Grammar. It is argued that these issues attract greater interest when contextualized within a discussion of a “major” world language such as English than when creolization is understood as an atypical process restricted to “peripheral” languages such as Haitian Creole. This paper also references relevant political issues such as the current controversy among medievalists about the field’s historic lack of inclusivity.

Theologically Engaged Anthropology

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Social Resources ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Personal Change ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Anthropological Research ◽  
History Of ◽  
Engaged Anthropology ◽  
Meaningful Lives

This book emerged out of a three-year John Templeton grant sponsored collaboration between anthropologists and theologians who sought to discover frameworks which allow for a productive interchange between anthropologists and theologians. To these discussions, theologians brought a long history of using the intellectual and social resources of the Christian tradition to address issues of pressing concern, such as the nature and value of cultural and personal change, the ways meaningful lives are constructed, the nature of human morality, and the means by which ultimate concerns inform the conduct of everyday life. For their part, anthropologists brought their own traditions of investigation of these questions, and they also brought a rapidly growing body of material on how these issues play out in the lives of Christians hailing from all corners of the globe and living in a wide range of social and material circumstances. This collection of essays synthesizes and presents the important themes produced from this collaboration. Furthermore, this volume discusses deeply held theological assumptions that humans make about the nature of reality and illustrate how these assumptions manifest themselves in society. It provides anthropologists and theologians with a rationale and frameworks for using theology in anthropological research.

Cultural Exchange

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Shatzmiller
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
Christian Churches ◽  
Christian Art ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of ◽  
Archival Documentation ◽  
Artistic Values

Demonstrating that similarities between Jewish and Christian art in the Middle Ages were more than coincidental, this book combines a wide range of sources to show how Jews and Christians exchanged artistic and material culture. The book focuses on communities in northern Europe, Iberia, and other Mediterranean societies where Jews and Christians coexisted for centuries, and it synthesizes the most current research to describe the daily encounters that enabled both societies to appreciate common artistic values. Detailing the transmission of cultural sensibilities in the medieval money market and the world of Jewish money lenders, the book examines objects pawned by peasants and humble citizens, sacred relics exchanged by the clergy as security for loans, and aesthetic goods given up by the Christian well-to-do who required financial assistance. The work also explores frescoes and decorations likely painted by non-Jews in medieval and early modern Jewish homes located in Germanic lands, and the ways in which Jews hired Christian artists and craftsmen to decorate Hebrew prayer books and create liturgical objects. Conversely, Christians frequently hired Jewish craftsmen to produce liturgical objects used in Christian churches. With rich archival documentation, the book sheds light on the social and economic history of the creation of Jewish and Christian art, and expands the general understanding of cultural exchange in brand-new ways.

The Classical Sources of Evangelical Devotion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Bruce Hindmarsh
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Reception History ◽  
Church History ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Imitation Of Christ ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Catholic Tradition ◽  
Devotional Reading

For all its seeming newness, evangelicalism revived ancient ideals. Evangelical use of Scripture was especially similar to ancient patterns of devotional reading. Moreover, evangelicals routinely appealed to confessional formularies (Anglican and Reformed) and creedal standards, and to precedents in church history from the Puritans, the Reformation, and beyond, stretching back to the early church. Evangelicals’ concern for true religion meant that they were also able to assimilate spiritually edifying sources from the Catholic tradition and from the Middle Ages. The reception history of Henry Scougal’s Life of God in the Soul of Man and Thomas à‎ Kempis’s Imitation of Christ illustrate a process of simplification, naturalization, and democratization of mystical and ascetical ideals. The libraries, book lists, and church histories of evangelicals further illustrate a wide range of sources, critical to evangelical spiritual life and identity.

The problem of formation of romantic historicism and rehabilitation of medieval culture in the creative heritage of F. R. de Chateaubriand

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gandalif Kazakova
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Subsequent Development ◽  
Medieval Art ◽  
Medieval Architecture ◽  
Gothic Architecture ◽  
Scientific Heritage ◽  
Xviii Century ◽  
French Writer ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of

The monograph is devoted to the literary and scientific heritage of the famous French writer, historian, philosopher, thinker, diplomat and statesman F. R. de Chateaubriand, whose scientific works were practically unknown to the Russian reader for many decades. Being the founder of French romanticism and laying the main elements of this direction of culture, F. R. de Chateaubriand nevertheless causes numerous disputes and questions. The monograph shows the process of formation of the writer's romantic worldview on the example of his early works, which still retain traces of the literature of the XVIII century and already carry new romantic trends of the XIX century. The author also presents the facts of the writer's biography and analyzes a number of his historical works devoted to medieval France. From the Renaissance until the end of the XVIII century, one of the elements of medieval architecture and Christian religion-Gothic architecture — was perceived as something negative, barbaric, rude, completely inconsistent with the aesthetics of the XVI — XVIII centuries. F. R. de Chateaubriand was one of the first researchers who discovered the beauty of Gothic churches and the color of national history to the mass reader at the turn of the XVIII—XIX centuries. The rehabilitation of Gothic architecture was accomplished by F. R. de Chateaubriand in his Treatise "the genius of Christianity". The famous "forest theory" of the origin of Gothic helped to "remove" negative assessments of the middle Ages and influenced the formation and development of romanticism both in France and in other European countries. It was F. R. de Chateaubriand's idea of the relationship between medieval architecture and Christian consciousness that influenced all the subsequent development and formation of the history of medieval art. For a wide range of readers interested in the history of literature.

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