“Clamor Iste Canor Est”
A. Lears
September 15, 2020 DOI: 10.7591/cornell/9781501749605.003.0002 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that Richard Rolle's love-language in the Incendium Amoris describes his relationship with God through the emotional and bodily feeling of a melancholic lover, that his nightingale persona draws on a literary tradition of passionate devotion and lament, and that his account of canor as an extrasemantic experience of sound makes him a foundational figure in a vernacular devotional tradition grounded in sound and noise. |
Abstract
This chapter begins with fourteenth-century hermit Richard Rolle's final chapter of the Incendium Amoris or “fire of love,” which recalls his early religious fervor. It analyses that Rolle's characteristic love-language demonstrates an impulse to describe his relationship with God in terms of the emotional bonds and bodily feeling of a melancholic lover. It also describes Rolle's choice of the nightingale as a persona for his youthful longing as drawing on a long literary tradition that linked the song of the nightingale to passionate devotion and lament. The chapter sketches how and why Rolle presents his experience on sensations of canor or mystical song as an extrasemantic experience of sound. It discusses extrasemantic experience that amplifies how Rolle's theology theorizes voice and establishes his place as a foundational figure in a vernacular devotional tradition grounded in sound and noise.