tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15231380.post114524837736039556..comments2023-10-19T07:54:32.841-04:00Comments on Quod She: Calling Margery Kempe crazy -- and why it mattersDr. Viragohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03960384082670286328noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15231380.post-48160302009828804042012-06-13T04:52:12.738-04:002012-06-13T04:52:12.738-04:00This is a really good article. I confess to readin...This is a really good article. I confess to reading the text eyebrows raised, and I have rethought this now - thank you. I like the idea that she seized control of her life through the medium of religion. I guess this, along with her *ah* distinctive method of worship, accounts for the negative reaction to her by people in her time. What do you think?Shanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13257804085701187723noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15231380.post-21251151044928313642011-03-18T21:52:08.382-04:002011-03-18T21:52:08.382-04:00I'm gearing up for a seminar paper on Margery ...I'm gearing up for a seminar paper on Margery Kempe's sanity. I'm working with the Norton edition of the text right now, which has been "translated," and I haven't made the switch to Middle English. But I have made one interesting observation about the way Margery describes many of her "psychotic" experiences.<br /><br />Margery sometimes uses the word "token" to denote those experiences we might want to call psychotic. "This creature had divers tokens in her bodily hearing," she writes in Book 1 ch. 36, and then goes on to list several auditory hallucinations. In 44, she asks God for a "token of lightning" which He then delivers. "Token" in these contexts seems to be used differently than in modern English usage. If anyone can think of uses of this word in other medieval English texts, I'd appreciate the help!<br /><br />Facing the deadlock of "is-she-or-isn't-she-or-does-it-matter-crazy" conversation, one way out is to go further in and try to see how the author herself understood those moments in her life, which we would intuitively register as "symptomatic."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15231380.post-27976120648353699502009-01-12T02:16:00.000-05:002009-01-12T02:16:00.000-05:00Hmm.. You might be right that this book invites th...Hmm.. You might be right that this book invites the 'crazy' scorn undergrads heap; that its very purpose is to lead the reader to think that the 'creatue' is crazy. But, it seems more likely that this text comes from a pityful, undeducated lady that suffered a stroke and found an outlet and solice for her illness in the church. I find it an very interesting and valuable text (role of women and the church, mental illness, etc.) If you try too hard to apologize for her 'crazy' you may be looking at phantoms and not the text's true value.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15261437194919615647noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15231380.post-59217378177754575322008-04-01T19:37:00.000-04:002008-04-01T19:37:00.000-04:00Oh! Wow! I'd never thought of her writing like tha...Oh! Wow! I'd never thought of her writing like that! <BR/><BR/>I'm afraid I'm one of those casual readers who followed Margery's journey with eyebrows raised throughout. You've got me looking at the text differently now. <BR/><BR/>It's a few years now since I was at uni, but I've just had another of those rare "Oh <I> yes, right!</I>" Eureka moments. Thanks for the insight!Rosiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10507663599361886504noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15231380.post-52163039661408330742007-05-19T11:34:00.000-04:002007-05-19T11:34:00.000-04:00A wonderful solution to a problem that does indeed...A wonderful solution to a problem that does indeed tend to come up with Margery's readers. I agree with the folks who criticize the new Norton, too. To judge by the changes both to Margery's and Julian's selections, it's less hospitable to the religious point of view, and I must say the annotations to the later poetry--Donne, Herbert, Marvell, for instance--can be ploddingly unimaginative and even plain wrong.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15231380.post-2660974501673575332007-04-24T21:54:00.000-04:002007-04-24T21:54:00.000-04:00I was one of the people that thought she was crazy...I was one of the people that thought she was crazy, and this is a view not fully expanded upon by my professor. Thank you for answering my personal questions.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15231380.post-1147127845940984812006-05-08T18:37:00.000-04:002006-05-08T18:37:00.000-04:00The obvious question to ask a religious person whe...<I>The obvious question to ask a religious person when they are calling someone else's beliefs 'mad', is precisely how those beliefs differ so much from their own, the distinction being typically one of flavour and presentation, not of intrinsic nature.</I><BR/><BR/>Oh, I *do* do that -- as the beginning of my post suggested. But the point of this post was to reconsider whether that was necessary or productive in a literature classroom discussing this *particular* text. What I was arguing is that the text constructs its ideal readers, and those ideal reader aren't simply those who take Margery seriously, for those who find her mad (or simply annoying, or more strongly heretical, or anything else negative, across the spectrum of accusations) are actually responding in the way the text wants. If my students identify with the people who attack Kempe, they're still participating in the text, and, I think, being manipulated by it. I want to bring that manipulation to the fore next time I teach it.<BR/><BR/>And that's a more productive discussion, I think, for a *literature* classroom, where our mission is to analyze language and texts. It's also in the spirit of Kempe's text in particular, where any accusation against Kempe (and it's not just about madness -- notice some of my students and Kempe's contemporaries find her simply irritating) only strengthens her construction of herself as a martyr and her book as hagiography.<BR/><BR/>That said, when my students insult or simply dismiss medieval religious practices they get a gentle rebuke from me. In other words, I never let them get away with calling MK crazy (or any other such thing). But now I think I've found a useful way of harnessing their reactions.<BR/><BR/>Btw, point of information, Margery Kempe is orthodox in her beliefs (and, according to her text, was found to be so by the Archbishop of York, among others). And even her expression of those beliefs is not *so* out of the ordinary -- she doesn't arise out of vacuum after all, and she has plenty of followers and supporters in the text. But for *some* people -- both then and now -- she's a little over the top.Dr. Viragohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03960384082670286328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15231380.post-1147037500452387792006-05-07T17:31:00.000-04:002006-05-07T17:31:00.000-04:00Any student who holds religious beliefs cannot cal...<I>Any student who holds religious beliefs cannot call Kempe mad.</I><BR/><BR/>Since people who encounter Kempe in person also perceived her mad (or so her text claims) I don't think this is true (especially since some of those people were pilgrims and people in religious orders). Not only that, but some of my self-proclaimed religious students were the ones calling her mad. It simply wasn't how <I>they</I> expressed faith. The same can be said of Kempe's contemporaries. 15th century England was in no way monolithic in its expression or understanding of faith.<BR/><BR/>But aside from all that, one actually could say she's mad, both in and outside of a religious point of view. She very clearly relates experience with post-partum depression/psychosis as the instigating moment for her deeper experience of and commitment to her faith. What I'm arguing is that that "diagnosis" isn't necessarily a dismissal of her work, but rather <I>exactly what she wants</I>. To be called mad and to be reviled only strengthens Kempe's "imitatio christi" and imitation of the saints.Dr. Viragohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03960384082670286328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15231380.post-1146529038916885742006-05-01T20:17:00.000-04:002006-05-01T20:17:00.000-04:00Brandon, Lynn Staley talks about most of the margi...Brandon, Lynn Staley talks about most of the marginalia in her introduction to the TEAMS edition, which you can access online <A HREF="http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/kempint.htm" REL="nofollow">here</A>.Dr. Viragohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03960384082670286328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15231380.post-1146519486468136662006-05-01T17:38:00.000-04:002006-05-01T17:38:00.000-04:00This is an awesome post, particularly since I like...This is an awesome post, particularly since I like Kempe a lot. A question, though, from a non-medievalist: where can <I>I</I> learn about the marginalia on The Book of Margery Kempe?Brandonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06698839146562734910noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15231380.post-1145455224619304652006-04-19T10:00:00.000-04:002006-04-19T10:00:00.000-04:00And History Geek (as well as Wiseass) -- I agree t...And History Geek (as well as Wiseass) -- I agree totally (as I think many of my students did). I also commented over at your place, Geek.<BR/><BR/>Oh, and an addendum to my last comment: I meant my religious *Christian* students. Other students are so outside of it all that they just find MK either fascinating or weird or both.Dr. Viragohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03960384082670286328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15231380.post-1145455101399524792006-04-19T09:58:00.000-04:002006-04-19T09:58:00.000-04:00I love the way she rewrites that into a completely...<I>I love the way she rewrites that into a completely ordinary lay medieval context, and at the same time, writes herself into the Holy Family.</I><BR/><BR/>Oh I love that bit too! She makes the Virgin a nice cup of hot broth or something, doesn't she? She's like someone's English grandmother: "Here, my dear, have a nice cuppa tea."<BR/><BR/>And you know, my students didn't really have a problem with that, mainly because the religious ones are either Catholic or mega-church Christians, and they're used to "relating Jesus to their own lives" either in the same tradition as Margery's piety or in the new, high-tech stadium-seating mega-church way.Dr. Viragohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03960384082670286328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15231380.post-1145416062257316152006-04-18T23:07:00.000-04:002006-04-18T23:07:00.000-04:00Coming to this late, but this is a great post, and...Coming to this late, but this is a great post, and I'm going to have to keep it in mind for the next time I teach MK. (Which will be next fall, in my Medieval Women course, for which I'm supposed to have turned in a book order...yesterday. Yeah. Didn't happen. But MK will figure in the reading somehow, for sure.) I just love the ways in which Margery is able to use religion/piety to reframe her life in ways that are more acceptable to her (I think especially of taking care of her disabled husband here). Teaching her from a historical context, one of the things I emphasize is that she gives us a chance to see how an ordinary, secular, sexual (14 kids!), lay woman copes with medieval Christianity and translates it into something strangely mundane and compatible with the ordinary (for instance, Margery as handmaid to St Anne, bustling around at the hearth at the time of the Virgin's birth. I love the way she rewrites that into a completely ordinary lay medieval context, and at the same time, writes herself into the Holy Family). As much as students respond to Margery as nuts, there's something about the way she makes Christianity her own that I find really appealing. (No, students don't usually agree with me!)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15231380.post-1145352266774901192006-04-18T05:24:00.000-04:002006-04-18T05:24:00.000-04:00Interesting post, Dr. V.! I'm right there with you...Interesting post, Dr. V.! I'm right there with you on the eye-rolling when people start calling Kempe "crazy." It's just such a boring, unimaginative, unsympathetic response. And it's odd that many people who have that reaction don't seem to notice, as you've so aptly pointed out, that they're mirroring her persecutors' behavior.<BR/><BR/>Quoting HG:<BR/><I>If she's crazy, she's crazy like a fox. Whether or not she had her visions due to mental illness, a imaginative mind, or true visions from God, she seems to have believed in them. She was also smart enough to know what she had to do, ie cultivate the right friendships, not cross certain lines, to keep from being burned as a heretic.</I><BR/><BR/>Damn straight. And, in the bargain, with all the odds against her, she outwitted one learned man after another, traveled the world on her own, negotiated herself into a position of autonomy over her own body and its reproductive capacities, and managed to get her story written down. If that's crazy, it's a kind of crazy I sure wouldn't mind being.Ancrene Wiseasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02075637582360688845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15231380.post-1145325231084894342006-04-17T21:53:00.000-04:002006-04-17T21:53:00.000-04:00Collis, not Collins. Sorry about that.Collis, not Collins. Sorry about that.History Geekhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04253687974407447459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15231380.post-1145321089964355732006-04-17T20:44:00.000-04:002006-04-17T20:44:00.000-04:00Wonderful post! Timely too, since I'm re-reading C...Wonderful post! Timely too, since I'm re-reading Collins' book on her at the moment. <BR/><BR/>When I first read Kempe I thought she was a fascinating woman with a hell of self-confidence. She might be a 'freak', but she's a interesting one. <BR/><BR/>If she's crazy, she crazy like a fox. Whether or not she had her visions due to mental illness, a imaginative mind, or true visions from God, she seems to have believed in them. She was also smart enough to know what she had to do, ie cultivate the right friendships, not cross certain lines, to keep from being burned as a heretic. <BR/><BR/>Consciously or unconsciously she probably knew she needed to persecuted to be a saint. I think she rather liked it too.<BR/><BR/>Again wonderful post.History Geekhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04253687974407447459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15231380.post-1145299380926843502006-04-17T14:43:00.000-04:002006-04-17T14:43:00.000-04:00You know I really need to read that particular JJC...You know I really need to read that particular JJC book. (If you're read, Jeffrey, I have relied greatly on the masculinities volume! Just haven't gotten around to Identity Machines...yet.)<BR/><BR/>And as for MK's rhetoric and performance, I think I'm going to emphasize that more next time -- though we did spend some time talking about her imitation of genres, especially the saint's life.Dr. Viragohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03960384082670286328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15231380.post-1145298630105604962006-04-17T14:30:00.000-04:002006-04-17T14:30:00.000-04:00No time to say much, and speaking as someone who's...No time to say much, and speaking as someone who's read next to nothing on MK (apart from the Staley in Staley and Aers, and that was ages ago) except I like this reading. <BR/><BR/>Another approach, which I think harmonizes with yours, is to dissuade students from thinking of MK's behavior as unwilled. She's performing piety (way to suggest that is to find other pious people exhibiting--and I choose this verb deliberately--similar behaviors), which doesn't mean, of course, that she "authentic," or "inauthentic," or "faking it," except in the sense that <I>any</I> rhetoric is faking it. That's the condition of expression, you know?<BR/><BR/>Thinking of her behavior rhetorically also gets us to your absolutely salutory conclusions.<BR/><BR/>But good lord maybe I'm doing something similar to JJ Cohen in Med. Identity Machines: I think I read his chapter on MK in that, but for the life of me I can't consciously remember it. Who knows? Back to work!Karl Steelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03353370018006849747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15231380.post-1145285453348784252006-04-17T10:50:00.000-04:002006-04-17T10:50:00.000-04:00Lecturess: For the miscellanies (as I call them -...Lecturess: For the miscellanies (as I call them -- we talk a lot about the "miscellaneous" manuscript as perhaps being less miscellaneous to medieval readers) I have them buy those black-covered composition notebooks. They're cheap, but they're sewn like manuscript and the the ruling is a lot like manuscript ruling. Plus their hard cardboard covers suggest the wood covers of manuscripts, even if they're much lighter.<BR/><BR/>As for the Norton's new selections -- you're right, I hadn't noticed that. (I had them reading from the Norton Critical edition.) But that's interesting because it's those kind of passages that the Carthusian friars annotated in the manuscript -- so maybe it's not a totally un-medieval way of reading her, though it is definitely containing and taming her. I suggest bringing in photocopies of other parts of the texts, if you can.<BR/><BR/>Laustic: Yes, I know Salih's article and in my grad seminar, students read that. In the current class, though, since we were using the Norton critical edition, I had them read various articles in it. They found Gail McMurray Gibson's "St. Margery" especially informative. Since we'd done some saints lives, they could see how Kempe was constructing her life and book on saintly models pretty readily. I also pointed out a lot of the text that reveals *other* people's devotional practices and sent them to the Mapping Margery Kempe website to see pictures of East Anglian devotional art. And I have pictures and guidebooks from Norwich that give them a sense of the fervor of devotion in the 15th century.Dr. Viragohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03960384082670286328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15231380.post-1145284235762559512006-04-17T10:30:00.000-04:002006-04-17T10:30:00.000-04:00Thank you for this post. As a fellow teacher of K...Thank you for this post. As a fellow teacher of Kempe's <I>The Book</I>, I am consoled by your conclusions. Have you looked at Sarah Salih's chapter in the recently published Companion? Last month I asked my students to read it and I think it made them aware of some of the issues you bring up in your post. <BR/><BR/>Thanks again! Fabulous post!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15231380.post-1145283934370092652006-04-17T10:25:00.000-04:002006-04-17T10:25:00.000-04:00What an awesome (and for a non-medievalist especia...What an awesome (and for a non-medievalist especially useful) post, Dr. V., on everyone's favorite crazy person/visionary.<BR/><BR/>I know that you don't use the Norton Anthology, but this is the one true depredation that I've discovered in Greenblatt's new edition: the selections from MK are totally different from those in the old edition. There's nothing about MK's pride, her attempts to start a business. . . and the entire scene with the Archbishop is cut! It's all about her visions. <BR/><BR/>And I LOVE your miscellany project--I'd love to do something similar with a class in my own period one of these days. (What are your students using for paper/books?)La Lecturesshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09892747650463978861noreply@blogger.com