Medieval safari

Leaving grad school, I vaguely knew that the brave new world of Nine-to-Five Desk Job I was stepping into would introduce changes into the lifestyle of the beautiful and fabulous that I had grown accustomed to, but, as everything goes in life, it doesn't quite hit you until you're in it. WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN'T SPEND THE AFTERNOON RESEARCHING?* Several weeks of not reading recently made me realize that intellectual stimulus is forever tied to my mental health, and so out came those life-long, marketable skills liberal arts graduates always gush about: reading scheduling and annotating. Somehow, things got out of control and I find myself in the middle of a medieval literary extravaganza. Even so, I've still felt out of sorts lately, which I'm diagnosing as a major case of writer's block; I thought I'd force some writing out of me by talking about what I've been reading.

After steady urging by my peers, I read Craig Carter's Interpreting Scripture with the Great Tradition, which is based on the assumption that the Enlightenment has undermined the foundation of Western culture by attacking its hermeneutic of reading, specifically in a biblical context. Carter had me at: "This book tries to restore the delicate balance between biblical exegesis, trinitarian dogma, and theological metaphysics that was upset by the heretical, one-sided, narrow-minded movement that is misnamed 'the Enlightenment'" (26). I've been saying for years that the Enlightenment ended Western Civilization, so I find it extremely satisfying to have this prejudice validated in an academic, peer-reviewed text. ANYWAY, Carter devotes the rest of his book to advocating a return to a medieval ethic of interpreting Scripture, specifically its use of allegory in tandem with literal readings of the texts. Much of this would be familiar to old-school English students, who are taught to approach reading as Keats did, as something that is self-reflexive and that necessarily changes those who encounter it. I'm still not entirely sure about how much I track Carter on his (reductionist?) analysis of Nominalism as the ultimate culprit (though as a Realist I have no sympathy for the movement), but it gives much to think about. I was also particularly interested in the juxtaposition of his extensive use of Tolkien and Lewis and his deflationary discussion of the idea of the "Christian Myth" - I think there are a lot of potential nuances waiting to be teased out here. All in all a book I thoroughly enjoyed reading.

I just finished Ian Levy's Introducing Medieval Biblical Interpretation. We share an alma mater, which thus gave him instant credibility with me. As you might suspect from the title, he takes a different approach from Carter by producing a survey of medieval writers, rather than pursuing a thesis-driven argument. While I would have enjoyed the latter more, I appreciated the chance to read this as a companion text to Carter, as it gave me the chance to see what the literary milieu Carter describes was doing on the ground. In the recurring game I play with myself, if I were a professor, I would definitely assign the two texts together.

Other books I’ve gotten through lately have been Madeleine Miller’s Circe, Rosaria Butterfield’s The Gospel Comes with a House Key, and The Church’s Book of Comfort (a collection of essays on the Heidelberg Catechism  put out by Reformation Heritage), and I’m currently reading Trueman’s Grace Alone. However, to keep these medieval vibes going, I’ve got my eye on Chris Armstrong’s Medieval Wisdom for Modern Christians and Christine de Pisan’s The Treasure of the City of Ladies. I still owe the blog my thoughts on Marie de France, because, months later, she is still a legend in my mind. But I’ll have to schedule all this writing in.

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*you know, chasing that dopamine high we all get when we encounter an out-of-print lyric text by Hercules Collins