St. Teresa of Avila: Author of an Heroic Life.Slade's well-balanced reading is informed by current theory of autobiography, feminist theory Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, or philosophical, ground. It encompasses work done in a broad variety of disciplines, prominently including the approaches to women's roles and lives and feminist politics in anthropology and sociology, economics, , scriptural hermeneutics hermeneutics, the theory and practice of interpretation. During the Reformation hermeneutics came into being as a special discipline concerned with biblical criticism. , hagiography hagiography Literature describing the lives of the saints. Christian hagiography includes stories of saintly monks, bishops, princes, and virgins, with accounts of their martyrdom and of the miracles connected with their relics, tombs, icons, or statues. and Inquisition studies. The aim is to read Teresa's public "project of self representation" within the appropriate generic descriptions. Accordingly, Slade differentiates and carefully contextualizes three distinct autobiographical genres in sixteenth-century Spain: judicial confession, penitential pen·i·ten·tial adj. 1. Of, relating to, or expressing penitence. 2. Of or relating to penance. n. 1. A book or set of church rules concerning the sacrament of penance. 2. A penitent. confession and spiritual testimony. Deriving from Inquisitional practices, judicial confession implies self-incrimination. Giving the words the accent of other genres, Teresa subdues and manipulates this self-condemnatory voice in her Life - described as "dialogized heteroglossia In linguistics, the term heteroglossia describes the coexistence of distinct varieties within a single linguistic code. The term translates the Russian raznorechie " (12) - creating "an eclectic work that defies easy identification with respect to genre" (11). Slade examines the "hermeneutic her·me·neu·tic also her·me·neu·ti·cal adj. Interpretive; explanatory. [Greek herm that may be considered feminine and feminist" (40) implied in Teresa's concept of Scripture. She demonstrates convincingly that Teresa's tropological commentary on the Song of Songs - the one that created the worst reaction from the Inquisitors - "argue[d] that the Church denies women historical experience" (49). The author pays special attention to Teresa's divided tropological sense, emphasizing the importance she accorded her apostolic mission, her perception of the obstacles for a woman to her "ethical subfulfillment" of Scripture (45), and her despair at the Church's constriction constriction /con·stric·tion/ (kon-strik´shun) 1. a narrowing or compression of a part; a stricture.constric´tive 2. a diminution in range of thinking or feeling, associated with diminished spontaneity. of her active role in Christian history. Serving as scriptural models for Teresa's Life are the Samaritan woman and Mary Magdalene Mary Magdalene (măg`dələn; formerly, and still in Magdalen College, Oxford, and Magdalene College, Cambridge, môd`lən, hence maudlin, i.e. - whose significance is modified, emphasizing her role as apostle rather than "her traditional identity as prostitute" (59). Slade divides Teresa's narrative into three phases. The old life (narrated in the ten first chapters of the Life) can be understood, in Bakhtinian terms, as a "hidden polemic against the genre of judicial confession conducted with the inflections of hagiography and Christian spiritual autobiography" (67). Teresa's textual strategies introduce the self-interpretive aspect of Christian autobiography in the Augustinian tradition, adapting the concepts "found inapplicable in·ap·pli·ca·ble adj. Not applicable: rules inapplicable to day students. in·ap to the female experience in general" (xii). Extremely innovative is Slade's reading of the saint's mystical experience (based on Life, chapters 11 to 22, and the Interior Castle) as "treatises on mystical theology in the form of anatomies of her own soul" (85). Identifying them as analogies, she rejects the traditional interpretation of Teresa's comparisons as allegories. These analogical an·a·log·i·cal adj. Of, expressing, composed of, or based on an analogy: the analogical use of a metaphor. an constructs adapt Augustine's vocabulary for the faculties of the soul (memory, intellect and will) towards self-interpretation rather than knowledge of God. Teresa "often appears to be attempting to extend her own understanding of her spiritual experience by trying out various analogical avenues" (85). The representation of Teresa's new life (chapters 32 to 36; Life and Foundations) is elaborated in her evocation of the genre of the New World chronicle, as she portrays herself as a governor as well as a founder (119). As Slade points out, the "interplay of political with evangelical motives in Cortes's writings provides a way of understanding Teresa's self-representation in the Foundations" (112). The biographical narratives of women in the Foundations the "stones" and "cement" of her work (121) - constitute Teresa's allegory of female authority. Slade concludes that Teresa's "foundations did challenge the social and economic order of patriarchy" (122). Considering the role that Teresa's books played in her canonization canonization (kăn'ənĭzā`shən), in the Roman Catholic Church, process by which a person is classified as a saint. It is now performed at Rome alone, although in the Middle Ages and earlier bishops elsewhere used to canonize. , Slade remarks: "In giving Teresa sainthood, the church deprived her of authorship, or tried to" (129). Resorting to Lacan, Irigaray and Kristeva, the epilogue concentrates on psychoanalytical interpretations of Teresa's mystical experience. The appendices include English versions of Banez's Censure and the Judgment attributed to Pedro Ibanez. Slade's nuanced study constitutes a major contribution in contextualizing and understanding Teresa's complex autobiographical discourse. CARMEN PERAITA Villanova University |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion