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The Book of Margery Kempe - Coggle Diagram
The Book of Margery Kempe
What is virginity?
a construct based on the idea of purity; defines worth based on sexual activity, leveraged against women; it's about making value
Kempe's vow of celibacy helps expose the way virginity is a construct. She removes the physical from the concept:
the physical and mental toll of 14 pregnancies to term is BRUTAL
"and make my body free to God" -- sorry, what, you're going to argue against God? frameworks of agency/autonomy to appeal
switching your husband for god doesn't change the power structures of marriage tho...
what's the use of the sacrament of marriage:
(for sex), consolidating property, bodies, money, organizing family units
"Margery, if there came a man with a sword..." (427);
"the debt of matrimony" (428) -- it exposes the violence of assumed access to women's bodies in marriage; literally praying to God to keep her husband away; lays bare the transactional nature
Ideal marriage: "and yet, daughter," imagining ideal world (433).
What does Kempe's relationship to birth teach us about gender, care, the body in medieval era?
How does Kempe extend ideas of affective/lay piety?
again, emphasis on Passion and feeling like it's happening to her; "Sir, his death is as fresh to me" (435) -- the over performance of grief and pity as a marker? Hysterical women.
What does intimacy with Christ look like?
"ghostly and bodily comforts"
it's a multisensory experience (sweet smells in her nose
is this auto-erotic? does this pr
"wedded to his Godhead"
it brings the Trinity into the bedroom
flame of fire (432); this shows us how
The demand for the public performance of weeping and grief.
the body becomes a particularly gendered way to reflect on the spiritual
Pilgrimage: enhance spirituality; ties to healing
extreme passions and emotions
misrecognized for sickness