What is it about?
This article takes a closer look at the figure of the child in Julian of Norwich’s famous similitude of Christ as a mother and the Christian as his child in her contemplative work, A Revelation of Love. This essay demonstrates how Julian works within recognizable penitential and scriptural traditions of childhood imagery while transcending them. Julian’s depiction of the Christian as a “meke child” [meek child] strives to understand sin, guilt, and culpability within the constraints of humanity’s limited self-knowledge.
Featured Image
Why is it important?
Scholars have long focused on Julian’s innovative image of Christ as a Mother, but no one has directly addressed at length the theological and epistemological role of the child in her similitude. This article is the first to invite scholars in literature, theology, and history to consider the importance of the child in Julian’s work as both a hermeneutic model for reading A Revelation of Love and as an exploration of medieval conceptions of sin and self-knowledge.
Perspectives
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Julian of Norwich’s Children, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, January 2019, Duke University Press,
DOI: 10.1215/10829636-7279684.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page