Writing (Divine) Love : Blending the Sacred and the Secular in the Mystical Marriages of St Katherine and the Pearl-Maiden
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| Year of publication | 2018 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
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| Description | Written in the late fourteenth century, the Middle English Pearl and the Old Bohemian Legend of St Katherine share a number of similarities: both the poems were clearly intended for aristocratic audiences; both address the issues of God’s grace and female chastity; and both convey their respective doctrines by means of an otherworldly figure, encountered in a divine dream. The most remarkable affinity between the two works is the mystical marriage between the Pearl-Maiden and St Katherine, respectively, and Christ, which takes place in the lavish landscape of New Jerusalem and which, in both cases, marks the climactic point of the narrative. A striking common aspect of the two scenes is their combination of sacred and secular imagery, seemingly contrasting the idealised paradisal landscape and the language of secular love, typical of medieval chivalric poetry. In the presentation, I will argue that, just as the authors of earlier medieval courtly dream-visions (and allegorical poetry in general) often borrowed the language of religion so as to convey the intensity of their secular message, the authors of late medieval devotional dream-poems, too, used to adopt the language and techniques of secular literature for the purposes of representing their own spiritual doctrines. |
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