Signs of Power and the Power of Signs: Medieval Modes of Address to the Problem of Magical and Miraculous Signifiers
- Author/Editor
- Fanger, Claire.
- Title
- Signs of Power and the Power of Signs: Medieval Modes of Address to the Problem of Magical and Miraculous Signifiers
- Published
- Fanger, Claire. Signs of Power and the Power of Signs: Medieval Modes of Address to the Problem of Magical and Miraculous Signifiers. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Toronto, 1994. ii, 353 pp. Dissertation Abstracts International A55.12. Fully accessible via ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.
- Review
- "This study concerns the relationship between signs and phenomena as it is elaborated in selected medieval texts. Part I discusses the basic difficulties of accounting for magical and miraculous phenomena at the level of theory. In Part I.1 I compare the discussions of several modern anthropologists on the topic of magic and cultural translation. Part I.2 is an analysis of the problematics of magic, miracle and sign theory in certain writings of St Augustine. Part II approaches the problems of miracle and magic at the level of practice. The problems which two Anglo-Saxon hagiographers encounter in their attempts to explain and account for individual miracles is discussed in Part II.1. Part II.2 illustrates the function of language in practical magic through analysis of some Old English charms. Part III treats several late medieval attempts to synthesize practice and theory. In Part III.1 I focus on the way natural philosophy is used by Roger Bacon in his attempt to give new legitimacy to the use of words in practical magic. In Part III.2 I look at how another thirteenth-century writer, Henry of Avranches, uses natural philosophy to resolve some of the problems miracles present the hagiographer. Part III.3 discusses the understanding of magic and morality implicit in the fourteenth-century 'Confessio Amantis' of John Gower. My conclusion draws together the main threads of the preceding parts and suggests some alternative ways of looking at the problematics of magic and miracle." Fanger's section on CA (pp. 278-318) addresses how "Gower's coupling of magic with gluttony becomes significant in a cosmological sense: like gluttony, magic seems to represent a type of intemperance with respect to worldly things" (317). She also shows how Gower's views relate to those of Augustine and Roger Bacon, and how, for Gower, magic "is given a place among human properties or powers which are, like speech and language, special, and yet more natural than supernatural; liable to abuse, and yet not wholly diabolic" (318).
- Date
- 1994
- Gower Subjects
- Confessio Amantis
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations