The brothers knew just how to plant their mother’s remains, but were at a loss over the girl left... more The brothers knew just how to plant their mother’s remains, but were at a loss over the girl left alive. The eldest brother said, “She’s not yet ripe for marriage.” The middle brother said, “She needs meat and manners.” The youngest brother said, “I’m making a list of bachelors with arable land and ready cash. Maybe horses. Houses. Boats. Lakes.” After tucking their mother into the earth, the first brother caught his sister in his arms, saying, “Sit on my lap and weep on my neck.” To her last breath their mother had reproached him, “Let her go.” The walls of the house remembered, murmuring, “Let her go.” The second brother socked his sister until her flesh looked like plums in a porcelain bowl. The third brother called his sister ugly and poked her with his fork. The girl hid beneath the stairs and under the impression that she could make herself invisible.
... Emma or Pauline, Matthew or Jack: How I've loved you, how I've drea... more ... Emma or Pauline, Matthew or Jack: How I've loved you, how I've dreamed of you" (178). ... As with some other fiction, say that of Ann Patchett or Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the locus of the saint is in question, as the embodiment of spirit seems to catch hold in ignorance. ...
Among many symbol-systems of the Christian culture, perhaps one of the least likely survivors is ... more Among many symbol-systems of the Christian culture, perhaps one of the least likely survivors is the Tarot. Yet it has endured for five centuries without a protective cult or literary framework. Speculation upon the sources and functions are largely fruitless and based upon preconceived notions, except that the Tarot pack appeared in fifteenth-century Italy, as a game of playing cards. The excessive claims that have been made for its pictures generate a cluster of issues concerning the nature of religion and culture. These issues are: first and fundamentally, if as Huizinga and others have suggested, play is the primary element in the formation of culture, those arts and artifacts designated as playful may reveal deep and pervasive (religious) aspects of their cultural tradition; second and following, those playthings are the texts of the culture, revealing how what is real is what is read, and particularly the ways in which sacred text is created and carried; third and ultimately, both play and sacred text are aspects of metaphor. This study is not an attempt to create a theory of play, text, or metaphor; rather it is to use the Tarot as an example which is paradigmatic of these. The Tarot serves, in this study, to illuminate the issues of play, text, and metaphor in our on-going search into the complex of religion and culture. Game--or play--discloses metaphor by means of metaphor. The Introduction establishes some metaphorical qualities of game and text, and characterized by the foolish interplay between iconoclasm and re-mythologizing, by the wit of error. In designating the correspondence between game and the sacred, and by playing the most commonly applied game of Tarot (that of seeking its false origins), the common metaphorical base or dynamic is established. The figure of the Fool in the Tarot pack, the paradoxical figure of sacred and secular literature, illuminates that metaphorical perspective which includes the primary concerns of the study. Moreover, the Fool and the feminine, exemplify the boundary figures which do the work of iconoclastic imagination. Utilizing the Tarot as a paradigm of sacred text and defining some of the elements of text, it is argued as that which hides and reveals, remembers and invents, divines and interprets, all through story, and all through charting the necessity of deviance--of error. ..
... No, says Morgan, "The sublime and the pro-saic go ha... more ... No, says Morgan, "The sublime and the pro-saic go hand in hand-they always have ... Yet, if the stricter iconoclasts "stripped the altars" and banned reli-gious images from the church ... love was (to remember David and Jonathan) "wonderful, surpassing the love of women" (2 Sam 1 ...
Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality, 2002
... Emma or Pauline, Matthew or Jack: How I've loved you, how I've dreamed of you"... more ... Emma or Pauline, Matthew or Jack: How I've loved you, how I've dreamed of you" (178). ... As with some other fiction, say that of Ann Patchett or Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the locus of the saint is in question, as the embodiment of spirit seems to catch hold in ignorance. ...
... No, says Morgan, "The sublime and the pro-saic go hand in ha... more ... No, says Morgan, "The sublime and the pro-saic go hand in hand-they always have ... Yet, if the stricter iconoclasts "stripped the altars" and banned reli-gious images from the church ... love was (to remember David and Jonathan) "wonderful, surpassing the love of women" (2 Sam 1 ...
Of the things that may be doubted was a man named Descartes who abandoned the study of letters to... more Of the things that may be doubted was a man named Descartes who abandoned the study of letters to live among the abattoirs on Kalverstraat. He packed home carcasses of cows, like girls slung over his shoulder. He stretched them out and peeled back their layers. He obtained human corpses and did the same. He pierced more than a dozen wombs in which there were small calves, some as big as mice, others like rats, and yet others like small dogs. He flayed a calf alive. He dissected the heads of animals to explore memory and imagination. On the noisy and noisome street his autopsies and vivisections were respected as the art of butchery.
The brothers knew just how to plant their mother’s remains, but were at a loss over the girl left... more The brothers knew just how to plant their mother’s remains, but were at a loss over the girl left alive. The eldest brother said, “She’s not yet ripe for marriage.” The middle brother said, “She needs meat and manners.” The youngest brother said, “I’m making a list of bachelors with arable land and ready cash. Maybe horses. Houses. Boats. Lakes.” After tucking their mother into the earth, the first brother caught his sister in his arms, saying, “Sit on my lap and weep on my neck.” To her last breath their mother had reproached him, “Let her go.” The walls of the house remembered, murmuring, “Let her go.” The second brother socked his sister until her flesh looked like plums in a porcelain bowl. The third brother called his sister ugly and poked her with his fork. The girl hid beneath the stairs and under the impression that she could make herself invisible.
... This is the law and the lie that Isak Dinesen unravels and re-knits into her miniature narrat... more ... This is the law and the lie that Isak Dinesen unravels and re-knits into her miniature narrative, "The Blank Page." The story, more a proposal than a plot, calls out: Look where the 'tokens of virginity' might have been and in that place read an empty sheet. ... Dinesen loves the bride. ...
Sylvia Schein's contributions to medieval history and especially to the history of the crusad... more Sylvia Schein's contributions to medieval history and especially to the history of the crusades are well known. Her early death has deprived us and the University of Haifa of a valuable colleague and an innovative scholar. In the present work, she has left us with an insightful study of changing Latin views of Jerusalem from the age of Constantine to the end of the twelfth century. She has systematically combed the sources and shown how the vision of earthly and heavenly Jerusalem waxed and waned during this long period. What emerges is a kind of tension between the view that the earthly Jerusalem stood as the center of the earth and that of the Heavenly Jerusalem as the real goal of Christian striving. Schein also explores the tension between the Temple and Christ's Sepulcher as the focal point of the city and earth, as well as the development or the emphasis placed on the Resurrection in the crusader period. She is superbly qualified to work with both the Old and New Testaments in giving us a detailed and highly complex picture of these developments. There are many facets to this work, but I think the discussion of Jerusalem and apocalypticism deserved careful attention. There can be no question that Jerusalem came to represent the Last Days in a special way. This study suggests, however, that the high eschatalogical tension that marked the pre-crusade period subsided with the conquest of Jerusalem, only to be revived during periods of intense angst. I believe that this observation also holds true for the episodes of anti-Semitism that were associated with the Crusades. I agree with Schein that "the fall of Jerusalem on 20 October 1187, and the subsequent renewal of the struggle between Christendom and Islam over the Holy City, produced as its byproduct intensified eschatalogical expectations" (155). What is especially interesting in this regard is the visit of St. Francis of Assisi to Damietta in 1219, since Francis seems to have combined emphasis on conversion with a message of peace. Readers will be aware that this book leaves us with a sense that Sylvia Schein would have carried various interesting points further had she lived, but we can only be grateful that we have this stimulating work as her legacy.
The brothers knew just how to plant their mother’s remains, but were at a loss over the girl left... more The brothers knew just how to plant their mother’s remains, but were at a loss over the girl left alive. The eldest brother said, “She’s not yet ripe for marriage.” The middle brother said, “She needs meat and manners.” The youngest brother said, “I’m making a list of bachelors with arable land and ready cash. Maybe horses. Houses. Boats. Lakes.” After tucking their mother into the earth, the first brother caught his sister in his arms, saying, “Sit on my lap and weep on my neck.” To her last breath their mother had reproached him, “Let her go.” The walls of the house remembered, murmuring, “Let her go.” The second brother socked his sister until her flesh looked like plums in a porcelain bowl. The third brother called his sister ugly and poked her with his fork. The girl hid beneath the stairs and under the impression that she could make herself invisible.
... Emma or Pauline, Matthew or Jack: How I've loved you, how I've drea... more ... Emma or Pauline, Matthew or Jack: How I've loved you, how I've dreamed of you" (178). ... As with some other fiction, say that of Ann Patchett or Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the locus of the saint is in question, as the embodiment of spirit seems to catch hold in ignorance. ...
Among many symbol-systems of the Christian culture, perhaps one of the least likely survivors is ... more Among many symbol-systems of the Christian culture, perhaps one of the least likely survivors is the Tarot. Yet it has endured for five centuries without a protective cult or literary framework. Speculation upon the sources and functions are largely fruitless and based upon preconceived notions, except that the Tarot pack appeared in fifteenth-century Italy, as a game of playing cards. The excessive claims that have been made for its pictures generate a cluster of issues concerning the nature of religion and culture. These issues are: first and fundamentally, if as Huizinga and others have suggested, play is the primary element in the formation of culture, those arts and artifacts designated as playful may reveal deep and pervasive (religious) aspects of their cultural tradition; second and following, those playthings are the texts of the culture, revealing how what is real is what is read, and particularly the ways in which sacred text is created and carried; third and ultimately, both play and sacred text are aspects of metaphor. This study is not an attempt to create a theory of play, text, or metaphor; rather it is to use the Tarot as an example which is paradigmatic of these. The Tarot serves, in this study, to illuminate the issues of play, text, and metaphor in our on-going search into the complex of religion and culture. Game--or play--discloses metaphor by means of metaphor. The Introduction establishes some metaphorical qualities of game and text, and characterized by the foolish interplay between iconoclasm and re-mythologizing, by the wit of error. In designating the correspondence between game and the sacred, and by playing the most commonly applied game of Tarot (that of seeking its false origins), the common metaphorical base or dynamic is established. The figure of the Fool in the Tarot pack, the paradoxical figure of sacred and secular literature, illuminates that metaphorical perspective which includes the primary concerns of the study. Moreover, the Fool and the feminine, exemplify the boundary figures which do the work of iconoclastic imagination. Utilizing the Tarot as a paradigm of sacred text and defining some of the elements of text, it is argued as that which hides and reveals, remembers and invents, divines and interprets, all through story, and all through charting the necessity of deviance--of error. ..
... No, says Morgan, "The sublime and the pro-saic go ha... more ... No, says Morgan, "The sublime and the pro-saic go hand in hand-they always have ... Yet, if the stricter iconoclasts "stripped the altars" and banned reli-gious images from the church ... love was (to remember David and Jonathan) "wonderful, surpassing the love of women" (2 Sam 1 ...
Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality, 2002
... Emma or Pauline, Matthew or Jack: How I've loved you, how I've dreamed of you"... more ... Emma or Pauline, Matthew or Jack: How I've loved you, how I've dreamed of you" (178). ... As with some other fiction, say that of Ann Patchett or Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the locus of the saint is in question, as the embodiment of spirit seems to catch hold in ignorance. ...
... No, says Morgan, "The sublime and the pro-saic go hand in ha... more ... No, says Morgan, "The sublime and the pro-saic go hand in hand-they always have ... Yet, if the stricter iconoclasts "stripped the altars" and banned reli-gious images from the church ... love was (to remember David and Jonathan) "wonderful, surpassing the love of women" (2 Sam 1 ...
Of the things that may be doubted was a man named Descartes who abandoned the study of letters to... more Of the things that may be doubted was a man named Descartes who abandoned the study of letters to live among the abattoirs on Kalverstraat. He packed home carcasses of cows, like girls slung over his shoulder. He stretched them out and peeled back their layers. He obtained human corpses and did the same. He pierced more than a dozen wombs in which there were small calves, some as big as mice, others like rats, and yet others like small dogs. He flayed a calf alive. He dissected the heads of animals to explore memory and imagination. On the noisy and noisome street his autopsies and vivisections were respected as the art of butchery.
The brothers knew just how to plant their mother’s remains, but were at a loss over the girl left... more The brothers knew just how to plant their mother’s remains, but were at a loss over the girl left alive. The eldest brother said, “She’s not yet ripe for marriage.” The middle brother said, “She needs meat and manners.” The youngest brother said, “I’m making a list of bachelors with arable land and ready cash. Maybe horses. Houses. Boats. Lakes.” After tucking their mother into the earth, the first brother caught his sister in his arms, saying, “Sit on my lap and weep on my neck.” To her last breath their mother had reproached him, “Let her go.” The walls of the house remembered, murmuring, “Let her go.” The second brother socked his sister until her flesh looked like plums in a porcelain bowl. The third brother called his sister ugly and poked her with his fork. The girl hid beneath the stairs and under the impression that she could make herself invisible.
... This is the law and the lie that Isak Dinesen unravels and re-knits into her miniature narrat... more ... This is the law and the lie that Isak Dinesen unravels and re-knits into her miniature narrative, "The Blank Page." The story, more a proposal than a plot, calls out: Look where the 'tokens of virginity' might have been and in that place read an empty sheet. ... Dinesen loves the bride. ...
Sylvia Schein's contributions to medieval history and especially to the history of the crusad... more Sylvia Schein's contributions to medieval history and especially to the history of the crusades are well known. Her early death has deprived us and the University of Haifa of a valuable colleague and an innovative scholar. In the present work, she has left us with an insightful study of changing Latin views of Jerusalem from the age of Constantine to the end of the twelfth century. She has systematically combed the sources and shown how the vision of earthly and heavenly Jerusalem waxed and waned during this long period. What emerges is a kind of tension between the view that the earthly Jerusalem stood as the center of the earth and that of the Heavenly Jerusalem as the real goal of Christian striving. Schein also explores the tension between the Temple and Christ's Sepulcher as the focal point of the city and earth, as well as the development or the emphasis placed on the Resurrection in the crusader period. She is superbly qualified to work with both the Old and New Testaments in giving us a detailed and highly complex picture of these developments. There are many facets to this work, but I think the discussion of Jerusalem and apocalypticism deserved careful attention. There can be no question that Jerusalem came to represent the Last Days in a special way. This study suggests, however, that the high eschatalogical tension that marked the pre-crusade period subsided with the conquest of Jerusalem, only to be revived during periods of intense angst. I believe that this observation also holds true for the episodes of anti-Semitism that were associated with the Crusades. I agree with Schein that "the fall of Jerusalem on 20 October 1187, and the subsequent renewal of the struggle between Christendom and Islam over the Holy City, produced as its byproduct intensified eschatalogical expectations" (155). What is especially interesting in this regard is the visit of St. Francis of Assisi to Damietta in 1219, since Francis seems to have combined emphasis on conversion with a message of peace. Readers will be aware that this book leaves us with a sense that Sylvia Schein would have carried various interesting points further had she lived, but we can only be grateful that we have this stimulating work as her legacy.
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