Manchester University Press
3 Monastic poetics
Abstract
This chapter expounds and lingers with the poetics of monasticism, specifically the poetics of monastic discretion or discernment, especially as it appears in the Conferences of John Cassian. In dialogue with Michel Foucault and Thomas Merton, as well as modern poets Marilyn Hacker, Jane Hirshfield and Melissa Range, this chapter suggests that monastic speech and monastic bodies take materiality seriously, as something seriously mysterious and seriously inchoate, even and especially when that materiality proves to be a limitation. To be monastic, in life and in language, is to be always beginning.
Abstract
This chapter expounds and lingers with the poetics of monasticism, specifically the poetics of monastic discretion or discernment, especially as it appears in the Conferences of John Cassian. In dialogue with Michel Foucault and Thomas Merton, as well as modern poets Marilyn Hacker, Jane Hirshfield and Melissa Range, this chapter suggests that monastic speech and monastic bodies take materiality seriously, as something seriously mysterious and seriously inchoate, even and especially when that materiality proves to be a limitation. To be monastic, in life and in language, is to be always beginning.
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- Acknowledgements vi
- Prelude x
- Introduction: Ave 1
- 1 Toward transfiguration 17
- 2 Saints, poets, and other crossover artists 34
- 3 Monastic poetics 52
- Interlude 1 72
- 4 Waiting for the Middle Ages 74
- 5 Bodies in waiting 91
- 6 Pas de deux 110
- Interlude 2 125
- 7 Lyric medievalism 127
- 8 Lyric theology 144
- Interlude 3 161
- 9 Make me 163
- Conclusion: Ecce 180
- Bibliography 182
- Index 187
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- Acknowledgements vi
- Prelude x
- Introduction: Ave 1
- 1 Toward transfiguration 17
- 2 Saints, poets, and other crossover artists 34
- 3 Monastic poetics 52
- Interlude 1 72
- 4 Waiting for the Middle Ages 74
- 5 Bodies in waiting 91
- 6 Pas de deux 110
- Interlude 2 125
- 7 Lyric medievalism 127
- 8 Lyric theology 144
- Interlude 3 161
- 9 Make me 163
- Conclusion: Ecce 180
- Bibliography 182
- Index 187
