Emma’s embarrassment

Last updated on: April 17, 2007 at 6:37 pm By Peter Leithart

David Southward suggests in a fascinating study of embarrassment in Austen’s novels, Emma “seems more concerned about ‘being looked at’ than she is about ‘doing wrong.’” When she holds a dinner party for the Eltons, it’s intended to avoid being “exposed to odious suspicions” that she is full of “pitiful resentment” for Elton’s marriage to someone else: “In Emma’s mind, the embarrassment of ‘odious suspicions’ far outweighs the shamefulness of her actual resentment, which is itself only an evil when... Read more

Emma’s embarrassment

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:36 pm By Peter Leithart

Rousseau and Austen

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:02 am By Peter Leithart

Rousseau is not the only source of sentimentality in novels, the literature of sensibility. There are English resources, such as the free prayer tradition, which made spontaneity the test of sincerity. But Rousseau is one of the sources of this stylistic strategy, and a source that Austen would likely have known. In a 1994 article on Austen and Rousseau, Paula Cohen writes, (more…) Read more

Emma’s paradise

Last updated on: April 17, 2007 at 4:00 pm By Peter Leithart

Like Elizabeth Bennet, Emma Woodhouse’s desires for her man are awakened while exploring his property, Donwell Abbey with “all its appendages of prosperity and beauty, its rich pastures, spreading flocks, orchard in blossom, and light column of smoke ascending.” That this scene presents itself in Midsummer has been cause for critical concern: Blossoms in mid-summer? And why are they still warning the house with a fire? John Wiltshire suggests that this is no simple mistake: “What is being presented here... Read more

Emma’s paradise

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:36 pm By Peter Leithart

Paul and Israel

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:05 am By Peter Leithart

N. T. Wright’s views on Paul and justification will be misconstrued if they are examined outside the context of his views on Israel’s history and Jesus’ role in that history. That is, Wright’s work is of a piece – his historical Jesus studies are essential to a proper understanding of his historical Paul studies. How does this work? Wright says that God called Israel into covenant as an answer to the problem of human sin. Abraham is the antidote to... Read more

Sanders and Bultmann

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:02 am By Peter Leithart

To understand EP Sanders’s “revolution” in Pauline studies, it’s helpful to look at Bultmann’s understanding of Paul, against which Sanders and others are explicitly and implicitly reacting. (I’m following the superb summary in Stephen Westerholm’s Perspectives Old and New on Paul.) Bultmann’s starting point is anthropological. As a creature, man is dependent on God for everything, and only when man acknowledges this dependence is he “authentic” and “at one with himself.” Since always involves turning from God to the creation... Read more

Troubadours and courtly love

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:50 pm By Peter Leithart

In his book, The Reign of Chivalry , Richard Barber gives a very fine summary of the courtly love tradition and the romantic tradition that it produced. I reproduce here only some of the main points of his discussion of the lyric love poetry of the troubadours. 1) Courtly love, Barber argues, is the spell that “transmutes mere knighthood into chivalry.” He points to “four elements in the great medieval romances of chivalry”: heroism or prowess, which the courtly tradition... Read more

Sermon Outline, Second Sunday after Easter

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:01 am By Peter Leithart

INTRODUCTION Matthew’s gospel is organized to show that Jesus is the True Israel, reliving Israel’s history faithfully. But Matthew also shows that Jesus is Israel’s God, who is rejected by His own people but triumphs over their rejection. THE TEXT “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.” “And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make... Read more

Literal and spiritual senses

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:46 pm By Peter Leithart

Early in the Summa theologiae , Thomas defends the fourfold interpretation of the Old Testament Scripture by saying that the words of Scripture refer univocally to things, and that God providentially uses those things to signify later things. In this, he was anticipated by Hugh of St. Victor. In his De scripturis et scriptoribus , Hugh argues that “to be ignorant of the letter is to be unaware of what the letter signifies, and of what is signified by the... Read more