The

Theology Reading Group

invites you to our next session on

Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love

 

Julian of Norwich received her sixteen Revelations of Divine Love in 1373 while she lay dangerously ill. She made her initial record of them in the late 1380s, around the time that she became an anchoress, and then again, in a much longer revised version, sometime between 1395 and 1416. Very little known through the fifteenth century and after, these Revelations have risen in prominence over the last eighty years to become, arguably, the most popular of all medieval mystical texts within the contemporary devotional marketplace. On the one hand, Julian’s writings have been utilised in many kinds of ways within modern devotional settings. On the other, she has also generated great respect and attention in recent years within the academic community (particularly within medieval literary studies), where she is now increasingly being read, not solely as a devotional exemplar or visionary, but as an early vernacular theologian. Together we will discuss some extracts from her Revelations: her vision of the Passion; her anxieties about sin and salvation illustrated by the famous parable of the Lord and Servant, and her emphasis on the motherhood of Christ.

You can download the three excerpts (in Modern English translation) from our Reading Materials page, and you can find the Middle English original in Nicholas Watson and Jacqueline Jenkins’s edition of The writings of Julian of Norwich.

This session will be chaired by Dr.Christiania Whitehead (Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies).