Island, Grove, Bark, and Pith: Nature Metaphors in Teresa de Cartagena
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Connie L. Scarborough
Abstract
Teresa de Cartagena was born in 1424 or 1425 to one of the most important Judeo-Converso families in Spain. She professed as a nun, initially in the order of the Clarisas, and lost her hearing when she was about 29 years old. Some 20 years after becoming deaf, sometime between 1473 and 1479, Teresa penned her first work, Arboleda de los enfermos [Grove of the Infirm]. In it, she seeks to console other disabled or infirm individuals by relating her own path toward acceptance of her condition. She uses a series of metaphors from the natural world to illustrate the spiritual awakening brought on by her deafness. Teresa’s discussion of her physical impairment and the spiritual journey it engendered is so subtle and sophisticated that her role as the author of Arboleda was called into question. The text she wrote in response to those who doubted that she had written Arboleda is entitled Admiraçión operum Dei [Wonders at the Work of God]. Again, to defend her God-given ability to write, she resorts to metaphors from nature in defense of women’s intellect.
Abstract
Teresa de Cartagena was born in 1424 or 1425 to one of the most important Judeo-Converso families in Spain. She professed as a nun, initially in the order of the Clarisas, and lost her hearing when she was about 29 years old. Some 20 years after becoming deaf, sometime between 1473 and 1479, Teresa penned her first work, Arboleda de los enfermos [Grove of the Infirm]. In it, she seeks to console other disabled or infirm individuals by relating her own path toward acceptance of her condition. She uses a series of metaphors from the natural world to illustrate the spiritual awakening brought on by her deafness. Teresa’s discussion of her physical impairment and the spiritual journey it engendered is so subtle and sophisticated that her role as the author of Arboleda was called into question. The text she wrote in response to those who doubted that she had written Arboleda is entitled Admiraçión operum Dei [Wonders at the Work of God]. Again, to defend her God-given ability to write, she resorts to metaphors from nature in defense of women’s intellect.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Contents VII
- Introduction 1
- Nature and Human Society in the Pre-Modern World 29
- Unnatural Humans: The Misbegotten Monsters of Beowulf 97
- Natural Environment in the Old English Orosius: Ohthere’s Travel Accounts in Norway 135
- When Is a Good Time? Health Advice and the Months of the Year 153
- Humans Serving Nature: Beekeeping and Bee Products in Piero de Crescenzi’s Ruralia commoda 169
- Medieval Epistemology and the Perception of Nature: From the Physiologus to John of Garland and the Niederrheinische Orientbericht. Bestiaries and the ‘Book of Nature’ 189
- Waste, Excess, and Profligacy as Critiques of Authority in Fourteenth-Century English Literature 217
- “A New Flood Was Released from the Heavens”: The Literary Responses to the Disaster of 1333 253
- The Environmental Causes of the Plague and their Terminology in the German Pestbücher of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries 301
- Island, Grove, Bark, and Pith: Nature Metaphors in Teresa de Cartagena 331
- Nature, Art, and Human Perception in Giulio Romano’s Room of the Giants at the Palazzo del Te, Mantua (1532–1535) 353
- Human Body, Natural Causes, and Aging of the World in Czech-Language Sources of the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period 383
- Perception of Air Quality in the Czech Lands of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries 415
- Johann Arndt’s Book of Nature: Medieval Ideas During the German Reformation 435
- Imitation vs. Allegorization: Martin Opitz’s Influential Proposal Concerning Poetic Reflections on Nature 459
- François Bernier and Nature in Kashmir: Belonging in Paradise? 485
- Cosmology and Pre-Modern Anthropology 505
- Praising Perchta as the Embodiment of Nature’s Cycles: Worship and Demonization of Perchta and Holda in Medieval and Early Modern Culture 549
- List of Illustrations 581
- Biographies of the Contributors 583
- Index 589
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Contents VII
- Introduction 1
- Nature and Human Society in the Pre-Modern World 29
- Unnatural Humans: The Misbegotten Monsters of Beowulf 97
- Natural Environment in the Old English Orosius: Ohthere’s Travel Accounts in Norway 135
- When Is a Good Time? Health Advice and the Months of the Year 153
- Humans Serving Nature: Beekeeping and Bee Products in Piero de Crescenzi’s Ruralia commoda 169
- Medieval Epistemology and the Perception of Nature: From the Physiologus to John of Garland and the Niederrheinische Orientbericht. Bestiaries and the ‘Book of Nature’ 189
- Waste, Excess, and Profligacy as Critiques of Authority in Fourteenth-Century English Literature 217
- “A New Flood Was Released from the Heavens”: The Literary Responses to the Disaster of 1333 253
- The Environmental Causes of the Plague and their Terminology in the German Pestbücher of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries 301
- Island, Grove, Bark, and Pith: Nature Metaphors in Teresa de Cartagena 331
- Nature, Art, and Human Perception in Giulio Romano’s Room of the Giants at the Palazzo del Te, Mantua (1532–1535) 353
- Human Body, Natural Causes, and Aging of the World in Czech-Language Sources of the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period 383
- Perception of Air Quality in the Czech Lands of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries 415
- Johann Arndt’s Book of Nature: Medieval Ideas During the German Reformation 435
- Imitation vs. Allegorization: Martin Opitz’s Influential Proposal Concerning Poetic Reflections on Nature 459
- François Bernier and Nature in Kashmir: Belonging in Paradise? 485
- Cosmology and Pre-Modern Anthropology 505
- Praising Perchta as the Embodiment of Nature’s Cycles: Worship and Demonization of Perchta and Holda in Medieval and Early Modern Culture 549
- List of Illustrations 581
- Biographies of the Contributors 583
- Index 589
