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Poetry and the Fate of the Senses

Poetry and the Fate of the Senses BOOK REVIEWS/263 for a kind of “epistemological break” in the Christian tradition. Tertullian and Augustine, in Leupin’s account, transformed the inheritance of Ciceronian rhetoric into an art of preaching, a technique of reading scripture, and a theory of signification. Most of Leupin’s material, and many of his arguments, will be familiar to students and scholars of this history, and his epigrammatic simplifications (though not without rhetorical flourish) mask many of the subtleties that texture the one-thousand-year history he limns. Anyone, for example, who comes to Augustine through the researches of Peter Brown, Brian Stock, and J.J. O’Donnell will be impatient with the off-hand treatment of the early books of the Confessions here. What can Leupin mean when he avers, parenthetically, in a discussion of the young Augustine that his father, Patricius, is “well named” (p. 54)? Certainly, there is more to this appellation than mere irony—and certainly, whatever irony there is may be enhanced by the fact, missed by Leupin, that Patricius is unnamed at this moment in the Confessions: indeed, he is hardly named at all.1 Or, in the treatment of Isidore’s Etymologiae, how can any scholar of early medieval culture engage constructively with statements such as http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Comparative Literature Duke University Press

Poetry and the Fate of the Senses

Comparative Literature , Volume 56 (3) – Jan 1, 2004

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Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
Copyright 2004 by University of Oregon
ISSN
0010-4124
eISSN
1945-8517
DOI
10.1215/-56-3-269
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS/263 for a kind of “epistemological break” in the Christian tradition. Tertullian and Augustine, in Leupin’s account, transformed the inheritance of Ciceronian rhetoric into an art of preaching, a technique of reading scripture, and a theory of signification. Most of Leupin’s material, and many of his arguments, will be familiar to students and scholars of this history, and his epigrammatic simplifications (though not without rhetorical flourish) mask many of the subtleties that texture the one-thousand-year history he limns. Anyone, for example, who comes to Augustine through the researches of Peter Brown, Brian Stock, and J.J. O’Donnell will be impatient with the off-hand treatment of the early books of the Confessions here. What can Leupin mean when he avers, parenthetically, in a discussion of the young Augustine that his father, Patricius, is “well named” (p. 54)? Certainly, there is more to this appellation than mere irony—and certainly, whatever irony there is may be enhanced by the fact, missed by Leupin, that Patricius is unnamed at this moment in the Confessions: indeed, he is hardly named at all.1 Or, in the treatment of Isidore’s Etymologiae, how can any scholar of early medieval culture engage constructively with statements such as

Journal

Comparative LiteratureDuke University Press

Published: Jan 1, 2004

There are no references for this article.