Peregrinas, andarilhas e autoras: legados de Margery Kempe e Teresa d’Ávila

Este trabalho objetiva apresentar as obras The Book of Margery Kempe, da mística inglesa Margery Kempe (século XV) e o Libro de las Fundaciones, da espanhola Teresa d’Ávila (século XVI), dois escritos que advêm de contextos literários medievais distintos: o inglês e o espanhol, respectivamente. Sob a temática que envolve a peregrinação, no primeiro caso, e a jornada de fundações de mosteiros que fizeram Teresa d’Ávila ser conhecida como uma andarilha, ambos os casos resultaram no desenvolvimento de uma obra narrativa peculiar e que dá a esse nicho da Literatura Medieval a consistência de uma tradição de autoria feminina, pois está relacionado a várias outras produções intelectuais realizadas por mulheres. Como fundamentação teórica para a análise dos referidos textos, em seus contextos, faremos uso dos estudos de Atkinson (1983), Morrison (2000), Telles (2017), Egido (2002) e de outros/as estudiosos/as que contribuem para o alargamento das discussões que serão desenvolvidas. s.

Ghostly Consciousness in The Book of Margery Kempe

Jill Carter has spearheaded the interpretive practice of “red reading,” wherein a canonical text is read through an Indigenous perspective, and has proven the validity of approaching traditional texts or problems through a decolonized or non-European method. To date, the red reading methodology has been most noticeably used to decentralize a Eurocentric reading of Indigeneity in North American literature, though as this article illustrates, the concepts of red reading can be expanded to analyze texts from across temporal and cultural periodization, which allows us to approach texts from a new perspective. In red reading a text like The Book of Margery Kempe, with its emphasis on holism and fluid consciousness, we can reach past the orality and textuality at the forefront of the text to interrogate and explore the liminality of a third (ghostly) consciousness.

Darwin’s Cathedral, Bowlby’s Cloister: The Use of Attachment Theory for the Studies in Medieval Religion, with the Example of The Book of Margery Kempe

The article considers whether religion in general can be viewed as adaptation and if medieval Catholicism in particular can be seen as a reflection of the human necessity to be emotionally attached to a primary caregiver, especially in the early stages of people’s lives. It observes that in a period of high instability and often regressive child-rearing practices, God and/or a special saint could represent a stable and adequate attachment figure, facilitating relationships which contributed to mental well-being of the devotees. The article also suggests that, due to historic circumstances, the proportion of insecure attachment was probably higher among medieval populace than among modern people, and traces the evidence of such attachment style in The Book of Margery Kempe (late 1430s), arguably the first vernacular biography in English.