Discussions of abjection in medieval devotional literature have largely been limited to depiction... more Discussions of abjection in medieval devotional literature have largely been limited to depictions of Christ's bloodied body. I examine the expression of abjection in tearful responses to the Passion instead, responses characteristic of the practice of affective piety. The argument mimics the path of medieval aesthetics, beginning by examining abjection and then tracking the connection between the depth of abjection and the height of beauty. I observe the ways in which tears are abject, and how this appears to contradict the manner in which they are considered beautiful, before resolving the contradiction. Tears are not abject or beautiful but abject and beautiful – beautiful precisely because they are abject. The apparent irreconcilability of abjection and beauty is shown to be a paradox, and I conclude that abjection holds an aesthetic value as the basis for beauty.
This essay looks at female objectification through literary depictions of Chinese porcelain in t... more This essay looks at female objectification through literary depictions of Chinese porcelain in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, examining how porcelain was used as a literary motif for women's suppression and was simultaneously used to fight back:
'European importation of Chinese porcelain begun in the sixteenth century, but truly flourished in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Happening alongside this economic trend was the establishment of women as economic players in the market; as Alexandra Shepard argues, ‘women in England have […] been acknowledged as significant creditors of the economic growth that is discernible from the mid seventeenth century if not earlier.’ Women were appraising and buying wares, and many flocked to the fashionable New Exchange (built 1609), the main site of the Chinahouses. It is not surprising, then, that Chinese porcelain became a symbol of women’s position as a consumer and the problems that meant for male economic, sexual and domestic authority. This foreign object, brought into the domestic sphere, served as a metonym for effect that being consumers had on women.'
This essay reconsiders the role of subjectivity and spectatorial remove in the experience of the ... more This essay reconsiders the role of subjectivity and spectatorial remove in the experience of the sublime:
'Like a figure on the shore gazing out to sea, the sublime is, to the subject, an incredible spectacle so far removed as to be safe. In that removal is the tendency to confuse the source of sublimity, attributing it to the spectacle, as in William Falconer’s The Shipwreck (1762), rather than to the viewing subject whose terror stems from the forced comprehension of the frailty and inconsequentiality of its existence. Considering the coexistence of pleasure and terror in the experience of the sublime, the subject’s terror must be reconciled with corresponding pleasure, which is evident in the redemption structure of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798) where truly sublime experience is not found in the whirling waters of the ocean, but in the meeting of the humbled soul with the divine.'
Discussions of abjection in medieval devotional literature have largely been limited to depiction... more Discussions of abjection in medieval devotional literature have largely been limited to depictions of Christ's bloodied body. I examine the expression of abjection in tearful responses to the Passion instead, responses characteristic of the practice of affective piety. The argument mimics the path of medieval aesthetics, beginning by examining abjection and then tracking the connection between the depth of abjection and the height of beauty. I observe the ways in which tears are abject, and how this appears to contradict the manner in which they are considered beautiful, before resolving the contradiction. Tears are not abject or beautiful but abject and beautiful – beautiful precisely because they are abject. The apparent irreconcilability of abjection and beauty is shown to be a paradox, and I conclude that abjection holds an aesthetic value as the basis for beauty.
This essay looks at female objectification through literary depictions of Chinese porcelain in t... more This essay looks at female objectification through literary depictions of Chinese porcelain in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, examining how porcelain was used as a literary motif for women's suppression and was simultaneously used to fight back:
'European importation of Chinese porcelain begun in the sixteenth century, but truly flourished in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Happening alongside this economic trend was the establishment of women as economic players in the market; as Alexandra Shepard argues, ‘women in England have […] been acknowledged as significant creditors of the economic growth that is discernible from the mid seventeenth century if not earlier.’ Women were appraising and buying wares, and many flocked to the fashionable New Exchange (built 1609), the main site of the Chinahouses. It is not surprising, then, that Chinese porcelain became a symbol of women’s position as a consumer and the problems that meant for male economic, sexual and domestic authority. This foreign object, brought into the domestic sphere, served as a metonym for effect that being consumers had on women.'
This essay reconsiders the role of subjectivity and spectatorial remove in the experience of the ... more This essay reconsiders the role of subjectivity and spectatorial remove in the experience of the sublime:
'Like a figure on the shore gazing out to sea, the sublime is, to the subject, an incredible spectacle so far removed as to be safe. In that removal is the tendency to confuse the source of sublimity, attributing it to the spectacle, as in William Falconer’s The Shipwreck (1762), rather than to the viewing subject whose terror stems from the forced comprehension of the frailty and inconsequentiality of its existence. Considering the coexistence of pleasure and terror in the experience of the sublime, the subject’s terror must be reconciled with corresponding pleasure, which is evident in the redemption structure of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798) where truly sublime experience is not found in the whirling waters of the ocean, but in the meeting of the humbled soul with the divine.'
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'European importation of Chinese porcelain begun in the sixteenth century, but truly flourished in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Happening alongside this economic trend was the establishment of women as economic players in the market; as Alexandra Shepard argues, ‘women in England have […] been acknowledged as significant creditors of the economic growth that is discernible from the mid seventeenth century if not earlier.’ Women were appraising and buying wares, and many flocked to the fashionable New Exchange (built 1609), the main site of the Chinahouses. It is not surprising, then, that Chinese porcelain became a symbol of women’s position as a consumer and the problems that meant for male economic, sexual and domestic authority. This foreign object, brought into the domestic sphere, served as a metonym for effect that being consumers had on women.'
'Like a figure on the shore gazing out to sea, the sublime is, to the subject, an incredible spectacle so far removed as to be safe. In that removal is the tendency to confuse the source of sublimity, attributing it to the spectacle, as in William Falconer’s The Shipwreck (1762), rather than to the viewing subject whose terror stems from the forced comprehension of the frailty and inconsequentiality of its existence. Considering the coexistence of pleasure and terror in the experience of the sublime, the subject’s terror must be reconciled with corresponding pleasure, which is evident in the redemption structure of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798) where truly sublime experience is not found in the whirling waters of the ocean, but in the meeting of the humbled soul with the divine.'
'European importation of Chinese porcelain begun in the sixteenth century, but truly flourished in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Happening alongside this economic trend was the establishment of women as economic players in the market; as Alexandra Shepard argues, ‘women in England have […] been acknowledged as significant creditors of the economic growth that is discernible from the mid seventeenth century if not earlier.’ Women were appraising and buying wares, and many flocked to the fashionable New Exchange (built 1609), the main site of the Chinahouses. It is not surprising, then, that Chinese porcelain became a symbol of women’s position as a consumer and the problems that meant for male economic, sexual and domestic authority. This foreign object, brought into the domestic sphere, served as a metonym for effect that being consumers had on women.'
'Like a figure on the shore gazing out to sea, the sublime is, to the subject, an incredible spectacle so far removed as to be safe. In that removal is the tendency to confuse the source of sublimity, attributing it to the spectacle, as in William Falconer’s The Shipwreck (1762), rather than to the viewing subject whose terror stems from the forced comprehension of the frailty and inconsequentiality of its existence. Considering the coexistence of pleasure and terror in the experience of the sublime, the subject’s terror must be reconciled with corresponding pleasure, which is evident in the redemption structure of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798) where truly sublime experience is not found in the whirling waters of the ocean, but in the meeting of the humbled soul with the divine.'