The Virgin in Song
The Virgin in Song

Author: Thomas Arentzen

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2017-04-03

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 0812293916

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According to legend, the Virgin appeared one Christmas Eve to an artless young man standing in one of Constantinople's most famous Marian shrines. She offered him a scroll of papyrus with the injunction that he swallow it, and following the Virgin's command, he did so. Immediately his voice turned sweet and gentle as he spontaneously intoned his hymn "The Virgin today gives birth." So was born the career of Romanos the Melodist (ca. 485-560), one of the greatest liturgical poets of Byzantium, author of at least sixty long hymns, or kontakia, that were chanted during the night vigils preceding major feasts and festivals. In The Virgin in Song, Thomas Arentzen explores the characterization of Mary in these kontakia and the ways in which the kontakia echoed the cult of the Virgin. He focuses on three key moments in her story as marked in the liturgical calendar: her encounter with Gabriel at the Annunciation, her child's birth at Christmas, and the death of her son on Good Friday. Consistently, Arentzen contends, Romanos counters expectations by shifting emphasis away from Christ himself to focus on Mary—as the subject of the erotic gaze, as a breastfeeding figure of abundance and fertility, and finally as an authoritatively vocal woman who conveys the secrets of her son and the joys of the resurrection. Through his hymns, Romanos inspired an affective relationship between Mary and his audience, bringing the human and the holy into dialogue. By plumbing her emotional depths, the poet traces her process of understanding as she apprehends the mysteries that she embodies. By giving her a powerful voice, he grants subjectivity to a maiden who becomes a mediator. Romanos shaped a figure, Arentzen argues, who related intimately to her flock in a formative period of Christian orthodoxy.

The Flower of Paradise
The Flower of Paradise

Author: David J. Rothenberg

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2011-09-14

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 019987557X

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There is a striking similarity between Marian devotional songs and secular love songs of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Two disparate genres--one sacred, the other secular; one Latin, the other vernacular--both praise an idealized, impossibly virtuous woman. Each does so through highly stylized derivations of traditional medieval song forms--Marian prayer derived from earlier Gregorian chant, and love songs and lyrics from medieval courtly song. Yet despite their obvious similarities, the two musical and poetic traditions have rarely been studied together. Author David J. Rothenberg takes on this task with remarkable success, producing a useful and broad introduction to Marian music and liturgy, and then coupling that with an incisive comparative analysis of these devotional forms and the words and music of secular love songs of the period. The Flower of Paradise examines the interplay of Marian devotional and secular poetics within polyphonic music from ca. 1200 to ca. 1500. Through case studies of works that demonstrate a specific symbolic resonance between Marian devotion and secular song, the book illustrates the distinctive ethos of this period in European culture. Rothenberg makes use of an impressive command of liturgical and religious studies, literature and poetry, and art history to craft a study with wide application across disciplinary boundaries. With its broad scope and unique, incisive analysis, this book will open up new ways of thinking about the history and development of secular and sacred music and the Marian tradition for scholars, students, and anyone with an interest in medieval and Renaissance religious culture.

Sweet Song
Sweet Song

Author: Jane G. Meyer

Publisher:

Published: 2013-11-25

Total Pages: 32

ISBN-13: 9781936270439

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Young Romanos is devoted to Christ and His Mother and longs to be able to sing his praises to them. But when he tries, his voice croaks and the words won't come. The other cantors make fun of him--until one miraculous Christmas Eve. A picture book for children preschool age and up.

The Reception of the Virgin in Byzantium
The Reception of the Virgin in Byzantium

Author: Thomas Arentzen

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-08-15

Total Pages: 381

ISBN-13: 1108476287

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Images and texts tell various stories about the Virgin Mary in Byzantium, reflecting an important cult with strong doctrinal foundations.

Marian Devotion in Thirteenth-century French Lyric
Marian Devotion in Thirteenth-century French Lyric

Author: Daniel E. O'Sullivan

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2005-01-01

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 0802038859

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Texts centred on the mother of Jesus abound in religious traditions the world over, but thirteenth-century Old French lyric stands apart, both because of the enormous size of the Marian cult in thirteenth-century France and the lack of critical attention the genre has garnered from scholars. As hybrid texts, Old French Marian songs combine motifs from several genres and registers to articulate a devotional message. In this comprehensive and illuminating study, Daniel E. O'Sullivan examines the movement between secular and religious traditions in medieval culture that Old French religious song embodies. He demonstrates that Marian lyric was far more than a simple, mindless imitation of secular love song. On the contrary, Marian lyric participated in a dynamic interplay with the secular tradition that different composers shaped and reshaped in light of particular doctrinal and aesthetic concerns. It is a corpus that reveals itself to be far more malleable and supple than past readers have admitted. With an extensive index of musical and textual editions of dozens of songs, Marian Devotion in Thirteenth-Century French Lyric brings a heretofore neglected genre to light.

The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages
The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages

Author: Ann W. Astell

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 9780801482670

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'The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages is a wide-ranging and insightful book that is carefully researched and gracefully written. It is of importance alike to those interested in mysticism, Middle English, the twelfth century, the fourteenth century, and feminist approaches to literature.' --- Studia Mystica