After Eden, out of Zion: Defining the Christian in early English literature

358 Pages·1996·13.764 MB·English

by  Lisa Renee Lampert

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After Eden, Out of Zion:
Defining the Christian in Early English Literature
by
Lisa Renee Lampert
B.A. (University of California, Los Angeles) 1989
A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in
English
in the
GRADUATE DIVISION
of the
UNIVERSITY Of CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY
Committee in charge:
Professor Carolyn L. Dinshaw, Chair
Professor Anne L. Middleton
Professor Daniel Boyarin
Professor Elaine C. Tennant
1996
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
UMI Number: 9723069
Copyright 1996 by
Lampert, Lisa Renee
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University of California, Berkeley
1996
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
After Eden, Out of Zion:
Defining the Christian in Early English Literature
Copyright 1996
by
Lisa Renee Lampert
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Table of Contents
Preface vi-xxii
Chapter One
Introduction 1-33
Chapter Two
Lifting the Veil: Hermeneutics
and Christian Identity in
Bernard of Clairvaux's Sermones
super Cantica Canticorum 34-79
Chapter Three
Reprioritizing The Prioress's Tale 80-150
Chapter Four
Out of Bounds: The Eucharist
and Christian Identity in
the Croxton Play of the Sacrament
and the Digby Mary Magdalen 151-212
Chapter Five
"0 what goodly outside falsehood hath!" :
Exegesis and Identity in The Merchant of
Venice 213-274
Coda
Sinsheimer's Shylock 275-302
Bibliography 303-329
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iv
Acknowledgement s
I am fortunate to have had so much help and support in
writing this dissertation. The University of California at
Berkeley, the American Association of University Women, the
Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst and the Leo Baeck
Institute have provided generous dissertation funding.
Special thanks are owed to my dissertation committee.
I am especially grateful to Carolyn Dinshaw, my committee
chair, who has been a guide and inspiration since my first
day at Berkeley. Anne Middleton's passion for teaching and
scholarship is infectious and her eloquence will always be a
model for me. Daniel Boyarin's work has been fundamental to
my thinking about the questions addressed in this project
and his enthusiastic support always kicked in just when I
needed a boost. Elaine Tennant kept me afloat during some
difficult times and her encouragement and assistance made
possible my continued work in German studies and my research
on Hermann Sinsheimer.
While in Germany, my experience was immeasurably
enriched by Edith Wenzel, of the Humboldt University, who
provided generous intellectual and material support. In
Berkeley, Professors Paul Alpers, Joel Altman, Christhard
Hoffmann, Geoffrey Koziol, Steven Justice and Alan Nelson
offered advice and encouragement.
The English department staff, especially Donna Holloway
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V
and Nora Woods, provided material and emotional support and
UC Berkeley librarians Michaelynn Burnette and Jim Spohrer
have been tremendous resources. In Berlin, Urte Scheunemann
and Helga Neumann of the Humboldt University greatly
facilitated my work.
A host of friends and colleagues both far and near have
read and contributed to this project: Mary Becker, Susan
Booth, Willis Johnson, Donna Kaiser, Ann-Marie Karlsson,
Laura King, Romy Kozak, Elisa Narin Van Court, Nancy Nenno,
Ruth Shklar, Kathryn Starkey and Katherine Zieman. Beth
Quitslund coined this dissertation's title. Special thanks
go to "the Group": Andrew Escobedo, Mary Ann Koory and
Wendy Roth read and reread and were constant sources of
encouragement and support.
Eric Deam, Dori Ahana, Jonathan Laba, Steve McKieman,
David Rynin and especially Carrie Swenson provided
affection, support and perspectives on life beyond campus.
For love, support and encouragement spiced with humor, I
thank my family, especially my aunt, Sylvia Tapper, and my
mother, Frances. My sister, Lynn, never failed to make me
laugh even as she dispensed expert advice. This
dissertation is dedicated to the memory of my father, who
did not see it completed, but whose support and love made it
possible.
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vi
Preface
In the past few years a number of innovative studies
have examined the complex interrelationship between
antisemitism and misogyny in Western European literature of
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This dissertation
extends this inquiry further back in time by examining how
representations of Jews and women inform one another in
medieval and early modem English literature.1 In this
preface I would like to address some of the terminological
and methodological issues dealt with in this project,
setting up my usage of the terms antisemitism, misogyny, and
Christian and the questions and issues that prompted me to
examine them in conjunction with one another.
Antisemitism is a contested term in medieval studies.2
Coined by Wilhelm Marr in 1879 to describe a "policy toward
Jews based on 'racism' that he and others advocated."3 The
term entered English, according to the Oxford English
Dictionary, in 1881. In keeping with this modem coinage,
some scholars wish to maintain a strong distinction between
medieval prejudices against Jews and modem manifestations
of them, such as National Socialist antisemitism, arguing
that the racial ideas involved in modem antisemitism and
the concept of "race" itself were unknown in pagan antiquity
and medieval Europe. Jeremy Cohen, for example, considers
what he calls thirteenth-century mendicant "anti-Judaism" to
be "an important development in the evolution of anti-
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