Longing for Health: Richard rolle and the Medieval Medicine of Words.
Richard Rolle (c.1300–49), an extremely influential English hermit and religious writer, was certainly not a medical doctor. Yet, this fact often results in a form of critical misapprehension which views Rolle’s use of medical language as simply rhetorical ornament or flourish. As this talk will demonstrate, when Rolle asserts that his Psalter commentary is a ‘medicine of words’, he is not being arch or superficially clever. Rather, he is drawing upon widespread cultural understandings regarding the very definition of health, and the medicinal potential of the act of reading itself.
Date:
21 February 2018, 16:00 (Wednesday, 6th week, Hilary 2018)
Venue:
Pusey House
Venue Details:
3:30pm Tea and Coffee, Hood Room. 4pm Lecture, Ursell Room
Speaker:
Dr Daniel McCann (University of Oxford)
Organising department:
Faculty of Theology and Religion
Part of:
Pusey House Recollection Lectures Hilary 2018
Booking required?:
Not required
Audience:
Members of the University only
Editor:
Andreia Gomes Da Costa Leite
