Abstract
Many medieval women mystics undermined misogyny with persuasive eloquence. This essay does a comparative rhetorical analysis of Julian of Norwich's Showings and the Ancrene Riwle, positing that the fourteenth-century English mystic knew the twelfth-century text and developed her theology, in part, as a corrective to its Augustinian dogma.
Notes
1 Rhetoric Review reviewers James Murphy and Jan Swearingen provided patient, meticulous guidance through revisions of this essay.
2For example, Paulist Press publishes works by Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Avila, Gertrude of Helfta, Bridget of Sweden, and others.
3See Baker's discussion, 125–26, of Augustine's De Trinitate, Book 12.
4I Corinthians 14:34; I Timothy 2: 11–12.
5Luke 9:10.
6My translations preserve syntactical and semantic elements wherever possible. Julian's Short Version is abbreviated as SV and the Long as LV.
7By the late fourteenth century, Latin technical terms of grammar and rhetoric were anglicized (Irvine and Thompson). Moreover, Julian probably developed an ear for technê listening to sermons through a sanctuary portal in the church where she was immured.
8Colledge and Walsh observe that Julian uses a rare form of the word food here (“soule,” or “sufol”), perhaps punning on the same form in the Riwle. Footnote 35, LV 306.
9Luke 4:2–13.