Titian, Colonna, and the Gender of Pictorial Devotion

Titian made a painting of Mary Magdalene for Vittoria Colonna, perhaps identifiable with a painting in the Pitti Palace. Despite considerable scholarly attention over the last thirty years, scholars have not reached a consensus about most aspects of this exchange. Central to the debate has been the question of nudity: was it possible to have a devotional image that so knowingly exhibits female flesh? Can a painting gleefully subvert the rules of decorum and still discharge its function as a devotional image? Recent scholarship on the visual culture of female spirituality at this time helps illuminate how the picture operated within contemporary devotional culture, as does attention to Colonna’s own religious verse.

A Bernese Fragment of Brother Philipp's 'Marienleben' Ein Berner Fragment von Bruder Philipps 'Marienleben'

Brother Philipp's 'Marienleben' (written around 1300) is the most widespread religious verse epic in Middle High German literature. Up to now, 120 textual witnesses have been known. The new fragment documents a slightly modified version that circulated in East Swabian around the middle of the 14 th century, it is therefore informative for the early reception of the work in this region. Bruder Philipps 'Marienleben' (entstanden um 1300) ist das am weitesten verbreitete geistliche Versepos der mittelhochdeutschen Literatur. Bis heute sind 120 Textzeugen bekannt. Das neue Fragment bezeugt eine leicht bearbeitete Version, die um die Mitte des 14. Jahrhunderts im Ostschwäbischen verbreitet war; es ist daher aufschlussreich für die frühe Rezeption des Werkes in diesem Gebiet.

The formation of stylistic peculiarities of the language of religious texts of the Russian and Serbian Orthodox Churches on the example of liturgical texts and folklore spiritual verses

The subject of this research is the analysis of formation of stylistic peculiarities of the language of religious texts of the Russian and Serbian Orthodox Churches on the example of liturgical texts and folklore spiritual verses. The object of this research is the stylistic peculiarities of the language in religious sphere of Russia and Serbia. The goal is to describe the current state of the functional style that serves the religious sphere of Russia and Serbia on the example of liturgical texts and folklore spiritual verses through the prism of their development. The author examines the church religious style, the concept of religious text in Russian and Serbian cultures. Attention is given to the concept of Russian and Serbian religious verse. The relevance of the selected topic is defined by its considerable contribution to the poorly studied areas of modern Slavic philology, as well as to the development of common culture and cooperation of the countries in the religious sphere. The acquired results can serve as the theoretical foundation for further study of the religious lexicon, as well as practically implemented in the special courses and research work. The conclusion is made that the analysis of formation of stylistic peculiarities of the language of religious texts of the Russian and Serbian Orthodox Churches on the example of liturgical texts and folklore spiritual verses is a relevant, although poorly studies area of research, from the perspective of linguistics, Slavic philology, and folklore studies, as well as pivotal area for studying religious lexicon within the framework of stylistics as part of common culture, literature, language, history, and religion of peoples.

Luminous Stuff: The Resurrection of the Flesh in Vaughan’s Religious Verse

Henry Vaughan asserts an understanding of resurrection as essentially and fundamentally about the body, and he understands resurrection to be “immanent” in the sense that signs of resurrection can already now be seen breaking into the here and now. Vaughan’s goal in his poetry is to uncover “Traces, and sounds of a strange kind,” as he puts it in “Vanity of Spirit.” Vaughan’s searching analysis of himself splits his bodily life into two: on the one hand, a socialized and historicized life and, on the other hand, a life that, in its material strangeness, is alien to his time and place and therefore the substrate of resurrection. At the same time, Vaughan is also interested in investigating the material stuff of the natural world separate from the uses and meanings that human languages impose upon it. By mystical attention to material stuff, including feathers, rocks, rainbows, and trees, Vaughan believes he can discover a perspective that transcends historical time. In that sense, Vaughan anticipates the Romantic poets. His formal experimentation is designed to make his poetry a tool to investigate the material strangeness of the person. As such, he develops a distinctively avant-garde poetics as theorized by Peter Bürger.

Poetry & Money

Poetry & Money: A Speculation is a study of relationships between poets, poetry, and money from Chaucer to contemporary times. It begins by showing how trust is essential to the creation of value in human exchange, and how money can, depending on conditions, both enable and disable such trustfully collaborative generations of value. Drawing upon a vast range of poetry for its exemplifications, the book includes studies of poetic hardship, religious verse and debt redeeming, the South Sea Bubble and the financial revolution, debates upon metallic and paper currency in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as modernist struggles with the gold standard, depression, inflation, and the realised groundlessness of exchange value. With its practitioner’s attention to the minutiae of poetic technique, it considers analogies between words and coins, and between poetic rhythm and the circulation of currencies in an economy. Through its close readings of poems over many centuries directly or indirectly engaged with money, it proposes ways in which, while we cannot escape monetary economies, we can resist, to some extent, being ensnared and diminished by them – through a fresh understanding of values money may serve to enable, ones which are nevertheless beyond price.

III Middle English

This chapter has 14 sections: 1. General and Miscellaneous; 2. Theory; 3. Manuscript and Technical Studies; 4. Religious Prose; 5. Secular Prose; 6. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Patience, and Cleanness; 7. Piers Plowman; 8. Gower; 9. Older Scots; 10. Drama; 11. Secular Verse; 12. Religious Verse; 13. Romance: Metrical, Alliterative, Prose; 14. Early Middle English. Section 1 is by Mary Bateman; section 2 is by R.D. Perry; section 3 is by Daniel Sawyer; section 4 is by Niamh Pattwell; section 5 is by Johannes Wolf; section 6 is by Rafael J. Pascual; section 7 is by Joel Grossman; section 8 is by Laurie Atkinson; section 9 is by Kate Ash-Irisarri; section 10 is by Daisy Black; section 11 is by Darragh Greene; sections 12 and 14 are by Ayoush Lazikani; section 13 is by Anna Dow, with contributions from Mary Bateman in section 13(a).