This book offers a new history of a major medieval genre, affective meditations on the Passion. It argues that women were instrumental in the creation of this genre, and it illuminates how these scripts for the performance of prayer served to construct compassion itself as an intimate and feminine emotion.

Affective Meditation and the Invention of Medieval Compassion

Sarah McNamer

2009 | 304 pages | Cloth $59.95
Literature | Religion
View main book page

Table of Contents

Introduction: Intimate Scripts in the History of Emotion

PART I. THE ORIGINS OF AN AFFECTIVE MODE
1. Compassion and the Making of a True Sponsa Christi
2. The Genealogy of a Genre
3. Franciscan Meditation Reconsidered

PART II. PERFORMING COMPASSION IN LATE MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
4. Feeling Like a Woman
5. Marian Lament and the Rise of a Vernacular Ethics
6. Kyndenesse and Resistance in the Middle English Passion Lyric

Notes
Works Cited
Index of Manuscripts
Index
Acknowledgments