My Secret is Mine
Studies on Religion and Eros in the German Middle Ages
By (author) H.E. Keller
Erotic, sexual and marital images belong to the fundamental stock of human symbols for commitment and union as well as for the endangering of such a union. Their inexhaustible potential has shaped religious and cultural history, giving rise to rich artistic creations during the Christian Middle Ages. Such pictorial and textual sources – here drawn mainly from German secular and religious literature between the 12th and the 17th centuries – form a veritable archive of gender history. What from a Christian point of view had been presented as a principal purpose of human existence – being ‘God’s free daughter, His Son’s bride’ – took on an increasingly sexual character and became the particular domain of religious women. Beginning with this eroticized concept of God, this book examines its multiple implications: for the texts themselves as well as their authors and readers, for the relationship with a transcendent partner, and for the secular experience of marriage. After the initial theoretical groundwork, a general survey exemplifying brides of God precedes a detailed study of prominent individuals. My Secret is Mine thus invites very diverse literary brides and their beloveds to shed some light on their experience of that inexpressible, and yet immensely productive, promise of union with love itself.
- By (author) H.E. Keller
Other Titles in this Series
Being Seen in God
(Human Hiddenness and) Kierkegaard’s Call to Gaze in the Mirror of the Word
Volume 29
Jacob Frank’s ‘Book of the Words of the Lord’
Mystical Automythography, Religious Nihilism and the Messianic Vision of Freedom as a Realizationof Myth and Metaphor
Volume 31
Spiritual Awakening
The Hidden Key to Peace and Security, Just and Sustainable Economics, A Responsible European Union
Volume 16
Seeing the Seeker. Explorations in the Discipline of Spirituality
A Festschrift for Kees Waaijman on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday
Volume 19
Dialogical Transformation
Exploring Avenues of Interreligious Dialogue as a Practice Promoting Spiritual Growth
Volume 25
Modernity, Melancholy and Predestination
Cultural Historical, Philosophical and Psychoanalytical Perspectives on the Modern Religious Subject
Volume 33
The Spiritual Tradition in Eastern Christianity
Ascetic Psychology, Mystical Experience, and Physical Practices
Volume 26
Seeing Marguerite in the Mirror
A Linguistic Analysis of Porete's «Mirror of Simple Souls»
Volume 21
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The Therapeutae as the Best Paradigm for the Contemplative Life
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