God and the Goddesses: Vision, Poetry, and Belief in the Middle Ages

Barbara Newman

Published by University of Pennsylvania Press 2003

God and the Goddesses

Vision, Poetry, and Belief in the Middle Ages

Barbara Newman

In the series The Middle Ages Series

https://doi.org/10.9783/9780812202915

Overview
Contents

About this book

Explores the idea that the medieval religious imagination did not restrict itself to masculine images of God but envisaged the divine in multiple forms.

Author / Editor information

Barbara Newman is Professor of English and Religion at Northwestern University and author of From Virile Woman to WomanChrist, also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Reviews

"In this provocatively and eloquently written study, Barbara Newman has directed her lifelong passion for the feminine in medieval Christian literature toward a finely tuned reading of female figures who have previously been approached (or misunderstood?) as allegories, personifications, symbols, or perhaps at best as feminine archetypes."—Speculum

"Rich and absorbing."—Modern Philology

"Extraordinary. . . . Although it is impossible to do justice to the breadth of knowledge so impressively displayed in this book, it is important to note how pleasurable it is to follow Newman's path through the alternatingly familiar and strange material she examines."—Journal of the American Academy of Religion

"Newman has challenged and confused the established ways of medievalists. . . . When we look back fifty years from now, we will see this book as one that changed the face of scholarship and maybe even our understanding of Christianity itself."—Caroline Walker Bynum, Common Knowledge

"A wonderful book that makes a very big, new interdisciplinary argument. It will have as marked an effect on the field of medieval religious studies as anything published in the last few decades."—Nicholas Watson, Harvard University

"In her erudite and provocative book, Newman has given historians of Christianity much to discuss and to ponder."—International Review of Biblical Studies

"This is a big book, not simply in pages but in sheer breadth of vision."—Medium Aevum

"The thesis is succinctly rendered by the book's title God (not Gods) and the Goddesses. This thesis suggests that the Church failed in its efforts to create a truly monotheistic religion. . . . An important contribution to medieval historical and literary scholarship."—Utopian Studies

"When Barbara Newman refers to 'goddesses' in the context of medieval belief, she is entirely serious. She cautions us that uncompromising monotheism should not be thought of as an inflexible norm. . . . Her range of evidence is phenomenal. . . . The lack of easy recognizability has impeded us from seeing what Barbara Newman has now placed majestically before us."—Times Literary Supplement

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
List of Illustrations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Preface Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xi
I. God and the Goddesses Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. Natura (I): Nature and Nature's God Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	51
3. Natura (II): Goddess of the Normative Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	90
4. Love Divine, All Loves Excelling Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	138
5. Sapientia: The Goddess Incarnate Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	190
6. Maria: Holy Trinity as Holy Family Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	245
7. Goddesses and the One God Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	291
List of Abbreviations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	329
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	331
Works Cited Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	409
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	437

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 464
Illustrations
- Other: 49 illus.
Keywords: Women's Studies; Gender Studies; Religion; Literature; Medieval and Renaissance Studies; Literature; Cultural Studies; Gender Studies; Religious Studies

eBook

Published: January 14, 2016
ISBN: 9780812202915