AhhhAhhh!
............(?)
Imagine when JK once back from his Grand Tour will review the last month of
Poetry ect
and find this absurd sequence of posts
about Saints. How funny. I laugh all by myself imagining the expression on
his face while
asking himself "Good Lord! What the HELL is it happening here!"
(Quando il gatto dorme... i topi ballano!)
Meaning "when the Great Atheist is away, the mystics relapse into orgies of
visions."
Love, Erminia
(AhhhAhhhhh! Help......Can't stop! Ahhhhhhh Ahhhhhhhhhhh)
----- Original Message -----
From: <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, August 10, 2000 3:30 PM
Subject: Re: St Jerome, Geoffrey Hill and Antonello Da Messina
> Alison wrote:
> >I like Saint Bride (or Brigid), of whom many improving and domestic
> >miracles are told concerning mead, cows, milk, lepers and devils.
>
> <snip>
>
> >An early blow for feminism, of a kind, I guess; tho self mutilation still
> >persists as a resistance, and without the miraculous healing.
>
>
> I love miracle stories myself and, as a teenager, went to see
> Carroll Baker in _The Nun's Story_ 3 or 4 times (well, ok, in the
> spirit of this thread, should confess that I saw _Blue Denim_ just
> as many times). Then, as a grad student in a Chaucer seminar, I wrote
> a paper on "The 2d Nun's Tale," which didn't appear to interest anyone
> else in the class.
>
> The kind of miracle-as-teaching-tool story you cited, Alison, is more
> typical of female saints/mystics, I think, so it probably did strike a
> real blow for feminism. And it's what the former brewster and wannabe
> mystic Margery Kempe picked up on to imitate when she launched her
> mystic "career," along with such fashion statements as wearing only
> blue and/or white (the Virgin's colors), although when Margery started
> dressing exclusively in white, her neighbors responded by pouring their
> "morning water" (as it was politely termed) out the bedroom window as
> she passed below. She was tried for heresy more than once, though, so
> the authorities at least took her seriously. There's a nice (feminist)
> moment recorded in her "boke" from one of those trials: on being asked
> if it were true that she'd counseled Lady So-and-So to stop sleeping
> with her husband, Margery emphatically denied it, saying that on the
> contrary she'd urged the Lady to "love her enemies."
>
> But which Brigid is yours (i.e., where is she from)? There's Brigid of
> Sweden, who's quite famous for mysticism, but I've never heard her called
> "Bride," which is an Irish nickname for Bridget (one of my family's New
> York "courtesy aunts," Auntie Bridie, was one Bridget Conlon of the Old
> Sod). Since your Brigid is also associated with cows, she's probably the
> Irish one, given the _Tain_ (Ireland's great cattle-rustling epic)--
> wouldn't you agree, Randolph?
>
> Candice
>
>
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