Poetics of Wonder: Testimonies of the New Christian Miracles in the Late Antique Latin World

by Giselle de Nie

The unexpected return of contemporary public Christian miracles in the late antique Latin west, after a centuries-long assumption that these had ceased after apostolic times, helped to create a religious mentality there that would continue to characterize the western European Middle Ages. While the social and political functions of the new miracles have been gaining greater scholarly attention, this study is the first in-depth treatment of their experiential dimension. It examines this dimension in the first reactions to the new phenomenon - enthusiasm, puzzlement, deep suspicion, and outright rejection - as they are reflected and, especially, imagined in the earliest contemporary narrative and poetic sources that describe them. And it traces how the new imaginative representations transformed, for many, the up to then precept-centered way of thinking about religion into one that immersed itself in the supralogical dynamics of symbolic images. The tendency of these image-clusters to precipitate transformations, not only in perception but also in physical condition, is examined for the period from 386, when a first public miracle caught everyone's attention in the ostensibly flourishing Christian Roman Empire, to c. 460, when this empire was crumbling under the onslaught of Germanic tribes.

530 pages, Hardcover

First published October 25, 2012

About the author

Dr. Giselle de Nie (B.A. Bryn Mawr College 1958, M.A. Harvard University 1959; dr. lett. Universiteit Utrecht 1987) doceerde middeleeuwse geschiedenis aan deze universiteit; haar onderzoek richt zich op de rol van de verbeelding in laatantieke christelijke auteurs. Haar Poetics of Wonder. Testimonies of the New Christian miracles in the Late Antique Latin World (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012) laat een mogelijk verband zien tussen de nieuwe wonderen en de gelijktijdige overgang naar een denken in beelden dat gestimuleerd werd door de toen opkomende kerkelijke allegorische exegese. Haar Engelse vertaling van en inleiding tot een aantal van de zesde-eeuwse bisschop Gregorius van Tours’ wonderverhalen zal binnenkort verschijnen in de bronnenserie Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library. H aar Views from a Many-Windowed Tower. Studies of Imagination in the Works of Gregory of Tours (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1987) behandelt de bepalende rol van mentale beelden in zijn religieuze mentaliteit; en een verzameling van een aantal van haar artikelen over diverse auteurs verscheen als Word, Image and Experience. Dynamics of Miracle and Self-Perception in Sixth-Century Gaul (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003). Naast andere publicaties hielp zij de bijdragen aan een internationaal multidisciplinair congres in Utrecht redigeren: Seeing the Invisible in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), alsmede die van een workshop in Notre Dame University: Envisioning Experience in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Dynamic Patterns in Texts and Images (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012).

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Dr Giselle de Nie (B.A. Bryn Mawr College 1958; M.A. Harvard University 1959; dr lett. University of Utrecht 1987) taught medieval history at the University of Utrecht; her research focuses upon the role of imagination in late antique Christian authors. Her Poetics of Wonder. Testimonies of the New Christian Miracles in the Late Antique Latin World (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012) shows a possible connection of the miracle experience with a contemporaneous transition to thinking in images that was stimulated by the Church Fathers’ then upcoming practice of allegorical exegesis. Her English translation of a number of the sixth-century bishop Gregory of Tours’ miracle books, with an introduction, will appear shortly in the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library series. Her Views from a Many-Windowed Tower. Studies of Imagination in the Works of Gregory of Tours (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1987) explored the central role of mental images in his religious mentality; a collection of a number of her articles on various authors appeared as Word, Image and Experience. Dynamics of Miracle and Self-Perception in Sixth-Century Gaul (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003). Alongside other publications she helped edit the papers of an international multidisciplinary conference at Utrecht: Seeing the Invisible in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), and those of a workshop at Notre Dame University: Envisioning Experience in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Dynamic Patterns in Texts and Images (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012).